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THE
HISTORIANS OF SCOTLAND.
VOL. 'IV.
Edinburgh: Printed by Thomas and Archibald Constable,
KOR
EDMONSTON AND DOUGLAS.
LONDON HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO.
CAMBRIDGE MACMILLAN AND CO.
GLASGOW JAMES MACLEHOSE.
THE
HISTOEIAIN^S OF SCOTLAJN^D
VOL. IV.
3Iol>n of •Jfomun*?!
Cl^rontcle of
Cl^e ^cottist)^ 0ation,
EDINBURGH
EDMONSTON AND DOUGLAS
1872.
is
■^
3(ot)n of dToriun's
Ciironitle
of
Cije g)cotti0|) J^ation.
TRANSLATED FROM THE LATIN TEXT BY FELIX J. H. SKENE.
EDITED BY
WILLIAM F. SKENE.
EDINBURGH
EDMONSTON AND DOUGLAS
18 7 2.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGE
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION, xxix
JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE :—
BOOK I.
Chaptee I. — Antiquity of the Origin of the Scots — Their Ex-
ploits— The Material World : that is to say, the Earth, and
its four principal points, East, West, South, and North, . 1
Chapter II. — The four Cardinal Winds, with their eight col-
laterals ; and the summit of the Material World, the
Terrestrial Paradise in the East, . . . . .2
Chapter III. — The three unequally divided portions of the
World, and the Inland Sea, . . . . . .2
Chapter IV. — Division of the three portions of the World
among the three sons of Noah : Shem, Ham, and Japhet —
Position of certain regions of Asia and Africa, . . .3
Chapter V. — Position of certain regions of Europe : namely,
Scythia, Greece, and the City of Rome, .... 4
Chapter VI. — The same continued — The greater islands of
Europe : Albion and Hibernia, ..... 5
Chapter VII. — The number of years from the beginning of
the World to the Birth of Christ, divided into five ages, . 6
Chapter VIII. — The first occasion of the Origin of the Scots ;
and their first king Gaythelos, ..... 6
Chapter IX. — The successive kings of Egypt, down to Pha-
raoh, Scota's father, who was drowned in the Red Sea, . 7
20S902
Vlll TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGE
Chapter X. — The period at which the Scots had their origin,
and from whom ; and their outlawry from Egypt, . 8
Chapter XI. — Gaythelos is elected king, and sets out for the
West, 9
Chapter XII. — SUiy made by Gaythelos in Africa ; and cause of
his first repairing to Spain, , . . . . .10
Chapter XIII. — Reason alleged by some for the departure from
Egypt of Gaythelos, and the rest who went away from the same
cause, . . . . . . . . . .11
Chapter XIV. — How Gaythelos obtained his first settlement in
Spain, . . . . . . . . . .11
Chapter XV.- -On account of the continual slaughter of his
people there, Gaythelos sends out explorers to search for lands
out at sea — Their return when they had discovered a certain
island, . . . . . . . .12
Chapter XVI. — Same continued — He exhorts his sons to go to
that island, . . . . . . . . .13
Chapter XVII. — Hyber, the sou of Gaythelos, goes to the island
and takes possession of it — It is afterwards called Hibernia
after him, ..... ... 1 4
Chapter XVIII. — What the learned Isidore and the Venerable
Bede have written about Hibernia, . . . . .15
Chapter XIX. — The laws which Gaythelos first taught his
people, . . . . . . . . . .16
Chapter XX. — Hyber, the son of Gaythelos, succeeds to the
throne of the Scots dwelling in Spain, after his father's death, 1 7
Chapter XXI. — Mycelius, king of the Scots of Spain, and his
sons set out for Ireland, . . . . . . .18
Chapter XXII. — Geoffroy of Monmouth's account of Bartholo-
mus, son of Mycelius, 19
Chapter XXIII. — Discrepancies of Histories, . . .20
Chapter XXIV. — About the time of the first capture of Rome,
not Scots, but Picts, attempting a settlement in Ireland, arc
sent by the Scots to Albion, . . . . . .21
TABLE OF CONTENTS. IX
PAGE
Chapter XXVI. — Third expedition of the Scots to Ireland made
by Smonbricht — His Genealogy, . . . . .22
Chapter XXVII. — Smonbricht — The Throne of Stone, and the
prophecy concerning it, . . . . . . .23
Chapter XXVIII. — The first king of the Scots inhabiting the
islands of Albion, . . . . . . . .24
Chapter XXIX. — The Picts, arriving in Ireland to settle there,
are driven off by the Scots, and sent to Albion, . . .25
Chapter XXX. — Bede's account of the arrival of the Picts, . 26
Chapter XXXI. — Original cause of the arrival of the Scots in
the island of Albion, . . . . . . .26
Chapter XXXIV. — The first king of the Scots holding sway in
Albion, . .28
Chapter XXXV. — The northern parts of Albion first possessed
by the nation of the Picts and Scots, . . . . .28
BOOK II.
Chapter I. — -Situation, length, and breadth of this island of Albion
— Its change of name into Britannia and Scotia, . . .30
Chapter II. — Divers passages of Geoffroy, afl&rming that Britan-
nia is divided from Scotia, . . . . . .31
Chapter III. — Passages of William of Malmesbury and the Vener-
able Bede affirming the same thing, . . . . .32
Chapter IV. — Passages from the same Writers affirming the
reverse of this — History very often distorted and falsified by
rival transcribers, . . . . . . . .33
Chapter V. — Brutus, under whom the Britons first arrived in the
island of Albion, 34
Chapter VI. — Division of the three kingdoms of the Britons
among the sons of Biiitus, . . . . . .35
Chapter VII. — Scotia : its nature and extent, now and formerly, 36
Chapter VIII. — Lowlands and Highlands of Scotia, and what is
contained in them, . .37
VOL. II. a 2
X TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGE
Chapter IX. — The nations of Scotia, and their languages, distinct
— Their dififerent manners and customs, . . . .38
Chapter X. — The islands of Scotia, apart from the Orkneys, . 39
Chapter XL— The Orkneys, 40
Chapter XII. — Fergus, son of Ferchard, the first king of the
Scots, begins to reign in Scotia — The arms he bore, . .41
Chapter XIII. — King Rether, the great-great-grandson of Fergus,
called Reuda by Bede, . . . . . . .42
Chapter XIV. — Julius Csesar sends an embassy to the kings of
the Scots and Picts, exhorting them to submit to the Romans, 43
Chapter XV. — Answer these kings returned to Julius by letter, 44
Chapter XVI. — Sudden return of Julius in order to quell the
repeated rebellion of the Franks or Gauls — The stone landmark,
the extreme limit of the Roman possessions to the North-
west, . . .• . . . . . .46
Chapter XVII. — Julius Csesar, first Emperor — His usurpation of
the sovereignty of Rome, . . . . . .47
Chapter XXI. — Conception and birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, 48
Chapter XXIV. — Accession of Claudius Caesar — He makes war
on the Britons — Accession of Nero, . . . . .49
Chapter XXV. — In the twelfth year of Claudius begins the war
of the Britons, against the Scots, . . . . .50
Chapter XXVI. — The savage wars of the Scots and Picts against
the Britons, and their first conquest of the region of Albania,
beyond the Scottish Firth, . . . . . .51
Chapter XXVII. — The Moravienses driven out by the Romans
from their native soil of Moravia — They afterwards join the
Picts, 52
Chapter XXVIII. — Monument which Marius, leader of the
Roman legions, caused to be erected in memory of the battle —
Succession of emperors, . . . . . . .53
Chapter XXXI. — Alliance of Fulgentius, leader of the Britons
in Albania, with the Scots and Picts, . . . . .54
Chapter XXXII. — The Emperor Severus, to shut out the Scots
TABLE OF CONTENTS. XI
and Picts from invading the Britons, has a wall made across
the island, ......... 55
Chaptee XXXIII. — Fulgentius, supported by an auxiliary body
of Scots and Picts, besieges the city of York, and slays the
Emperor Severus, . . . . . . . .55
Chaptee XXXIV. — Bede's account of the said wall, and of the
siege, and of the death of Severus, » . . . . 5Q
Chapter XXXV. — The Pope Saint Victor i., under whom the
Scots began to embrace the Catholic faith, . . . .57
Chaptee XXXVI. — Succession of many insignificant emperors, . 58
Chaptee XXXVII. — First occasion of the dissensions which
sprang up between the Scots and Picts, in the time of Dio-
cletian, or a little before, . . . . . . .58
Chaptee XXXVIII. — Covenant of Carausius with the Scots and
Picts — First expulsion of the Romans from Britannia, . .60
Chaptee XXXIX. — Ratification of this covenant and treaty nego-
tiated by Carausius between the island nations — the Scots,
Britons, and Picts — to last for ever, . . . . .61
Chaptee XL. — Death of Carausius by treachery, at the hands of
Adlectus, a soldier — His exhortation, or instructions to the
islanders, how they might always defend themselves from the
Romans, or any other foreign foes, . . . , .62
Chaptee XLI. — Accession of the Emperors Galerius and Constan-
tius — War of Constantius against the Scots and the Britons of
Albania, 63
Chaptee XLII. — Accession of the Emperor Constantino the
Great — His maternal uncle, Traherius, slain by the Scots and
Britons, ......... 64
Chaptee XLIII. — Octavius, king of the Britons, restores the
three nations of the island — the Scots, Britons, and Picts — to
the unity of peace, as Carausius had formerly done — Accession
of the sons of Constantino, . . . , . ,65
Chaptee XLIV. — Conan, nephew of Octavius, leads the Scots
and Picts to fight against the tyrant Maximus, cousin of Con-
Xll TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGE
stantine the Great — Maximus, afterwards, by a feigned peace,
cunningly separates the Picts from the Scots, . . .66
Chapter XLV. — The Britons and Picts, led by Maximus, cast
out the Scots from the kingdom, . . , .67
Chapter XL VI. — The Emperor Constantius transfers the relics
of the blessed Apostle Andrew from the city of Patras to Con-
stantinople, . . . . . . . . .69
Chapter XL VII. — The angel of the Lord had commanded the
blessed abbot Regulus and his companions to take part of the
relics, and go to the northern parts of the world without delay, 70
Chapter XL VIII. — Shipwreck and first arrival in Scotia of
Regulus and his companions with the relics, in the time of
Hurgust, king of the Picts, . . . . . .71
Chapter XLIX. — Maximus crushes the Scots in war, after having
separated them from the Picts ; and subdues the latter also —
Succession of emperors, . . . . . . .72
Chapter L. — Presumptuous attempt of Maximus upon the Roman
Empire — He is slain — Conan, to whom he had handed over the
kingdom of Armorica, thenceforth called Britannia Minor —
Succession of emperors, . . , . . . .74
Chapter LII. — On the death of the tyrant Maximus, the Scots
begin to win back their kingdom — Succession of emperors, . 75
BOOK IIL
Chapter I. — Fergus, son of Erth, joins the Picts and regains
the kingdom which had been, through the treachery of the
tyrant Maximus, held by the Romans and Britons for forty-
three years, ......... 77
Chapter II. — The same continued — Expulsion of the Romans
and Britons from his dominions, 78
Chapter III. — Cruel slaughter of the Britons and the Roman
legion by the Scots and Picts— Building of a dyke, called
Grimsdyke, across the island, 79
TABLE OF CONTENTS. Xlll
PAGE
Chapter IV. — Victory of the Roman legion and the Britons over
the Scots and Picts, in a war in which fell King Fergus and a
great number of his people and of the Picts, . . .81
Chapter V. — Accession of King Eugenius, son of Farchard —
He, together with his grandfather, Gryme, breaks down Grymis-
dyke — A second legion drives the Scots and Picts back across
the Tyne, . . 82
Chapter VI. — The wall which the Emperor Severus had formerly
commanded to be built across the island between Gateshead and
Carlisle repaired — Return of the legion — Election of the first
king of the Franks, . . . . . . .83
Chapter VII. — The Scots destroy the wall, and bring slaughter
upon the Britons, . . . . . . . .84
Chapter VIII. — Arrival in Scotland of Saint Palladius, the first
bishop and teacher of the Scots, although these had long before
embraced the faith, . . . . . . .85
Chapter IX. — Account of Saint Palladius continued — Saint Ser-
vanus — Saint Kentigern — Saint Ternan — Saint Ninian, . 86
Chapter X. — The wall broken down by the Scots and Picts,
whence its name — The Britons of Albania subjected to the
sway of the Scots, . . . . . . . . 87
Chapter XI. — The Britons yet again write to the Romans,
Litorius and Aetius, to wit, for succours, which they do not
obtain, .......... 88
Chapter XII. — The Britons and their king Vortigem, in de-
spair, invite the heathen nation of the Saxons to help them
against the Scots and Picts, . . , . . .89
Chapter XIII. — First arrival of the Saxons — Various reverses
inflicted and suff'ered on both sides, . . . . .90
Chapter XIV. — Accession of Dongardus, brother to Eugenius —
Alliance of Vortigem's son. King Vortimer, then king of the
Britons, with the Scots against the Saxons — Their struggle for
Britain, . . . . . . . . .91
Chapter XV. — Return of the Saxons after Vortimer's death, with
mmw
xiv TABLE OF CONTENTS.
/ PAGE
a greater multitude of the heathens — Death of the British
chieftains by treachery, . . . . . . .92
Chapter XVI. — Accession of King Constantius, and the division
of Britannia, in course of time, among the Saxons, into eight
kingdoms, ......... 93
Chapter XVII. — Alliance of Aurelius Ambrosius, king of the
Britons, with King Constantius, against the Saxons — Merlin
the Seer, 95
Chapter XVIII. — Accession of King Congal — Renewal of the
treaty between the Scots and Britons — Internal strife of the
Britons, whereby they lose the kingdom, and the Saxons every-
where prevail, . . . . . . . .96
Chapter XXI. — Accession of Gonranus — Renewal of the treaty
with Uther — Saint Brigida, 97
Chapter XXII. — Gildas the historian — Some metrical prophecies
of his, 98
Chapter XXIII. — ^These prophecies continued — Saint Brandan —
Saint Machutes, 99
Chapter XXIV. — Death of King Gonranus — Arthur ascends the
British throne, ........ 101
Chapter XXV.— Arthur, 102
Chapter XXVI. — Accession of the three kings, Eugenius, Con-
vallus, and Kynatel or Connyd — Arrival of Saint Columba, . 103
Chapter XXVII. — An angel brings Saint Columba down the
glass book of the consecration of kings — Accession of King
Aydanus, ......... 104
Chapter XXVIII. — Aydanus sends assistance to Malgo, king of
the Britons — ^Victory of the heathens — Parentage of Saint
Furseus, Saint Foylanus and Saint Vultanus, . . .105
Chapter XXIX. — This King Aydanus sets out to the assistance
of Cadwallo, king of the Britons, against the Saxons —
Issue of the battle — Saint Columba's prophecy about this
battle — Saint Kentigern and Saint Convallus, . . .106
Chapter XXX. — This Aydanus is driven from the field by
TABLE OF CONTENTS. XV
Ethelfrid, king of the Northumbrians — Augustine preaches the
faith to the English, 107
Chapter XXXI. — Saint Columba's prophecy about the sons of
Aydanus — His death — Saint Drostanus and his parentage, . 108
Chaptek XXXII. — Accession of Eugenius, son of Aydanus —
Saint Gillenius and Saint Columbanus, . . . .109
Chapter XXXIII. — Cadwallo, king of the Britons, takes to
flight, and comes to Scotland for assistance — Arrival of Saint
Oswald, and his brothers baptized there — Burial of the right
hand and sword of King Eugenius in the stony moor, . .110
Chapter XXXIV. — Accession of King Ferchardus, and his
brother Donaldus blessed, while yet a boy, by Saint Columba —
Return of Saint Oswald to his fatherland, . . . .112
Chapter XXXV. — Saint Oswald — Saint Aydan chosen to con-
vert the Saxons, . . . . . . . .113
Chapter XXXVI. — Preaching of Saint Aydan — Death of the
holy King Oswald, . . . . . . . .114:
Chapter XXXVII. — Accession of King Ferchardus — Saint
Finanus, Saint Furseus, Saint Foilanus and Saint Ultanus, . 115
Chapter XXXVIII. — Saint Colman — He preaches for three
years — His return to Scotland, . . . . .116
Chapter XXXIX. — Number of kings of the Angles whom the
Scots baptized — Bishops by whom they were baptized, . .117
Chapter XL. — Accession of King Maldwynus — Bishop Tuda
succeeds Colman, . . . . . . . .118
Chapter XLI. — Flight of Cadwaladr, last king of the Britons,
from Britain — Causes why God cast them out of the kingdom, 119
Chapter XLII. — These causes continued — Future return of the
Britons prophesied by an angel — Some of Merlin's prophecies
on this event, . . . . . . . .121
Chapter XLIII. — Accession of the kings Eugenius IV. and
Eugenius V. — Saint Cuthbert — Saint Adamnan, . . .122
Chapter XLIV. — Accession of King Amrikelleth — His death —
Saint Chillian, the Scot, and his disciples, . . . .123
XVI TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGE
Chapter XLV. — Accession of the kings Eugenius VI. and Mur-
dacus — State of things in Britain at that time, . . .124
Chapter XL VI. — Accession of the three kings, Ethfyn, Eugenius
or Nectanius, and Fergus — Death of the latter by the hand of
the Queen, 125
Chapter XLVII. — Accession of Selwalchius — King Charles the
Great, 126
Chapter XL VIII. — Accession of King Achay, who first entered
into an alliance with the Franks : Cause thereof — The distin-
guished soldier Gilmerius the Scot, . . . . .127
Chapter XLIX. — Ambassadors of the Scots sent to Charles, to
confirm this alliance, . . . . . . .128
Chapter L. — Heinous treachery of the Northumbrians towards
their kings, so that none durst rule them, . . . .129
Chapter LI. — Rise of the Paris schools. By whom established, 130
Chapter LIII. — Accession of the kings Convallus and Dun-
gallus, who revived the long slumbering war against the Picts, 132
BOOK IV.
Chapter T. — Rule of succession of foregoing and subsequent kings
of the Scots, down to the time of Malcolm, the son of Kenneth, 134
Chapter II. — Accession of King Alpin — His defeat by the Picts
— His death — Example of hastiness, 135
Chapter III. — Accession of King Kenneth, son of Alpin — His
strange trick against the Picts, . . . . . .139
Chapter IV. — His victories against the Picts — He wins their
kingdom, ......... 137
Chapter VIII. — King Kenneth's final victory over the Picts —
His death, 139
Chapter IX. — Preliminary remarks to the Catalogue of Pictish
kings, . . . . . . . . . .140
Chapter X. — Catalogue of Pictish kings — Arrival of the blessed
Abbot Columba, 141
TABLE OF CONTENTS. XVll
PAGE
Chapter XI. — Catalogue continued — Conversion of Brude, king
of the Picts, by the blessed Columba — Prince of the Orkneys then
a captive, ......... 142
Chapter XII. — Catalogue continued — The king with whom the
Pictish kingdojn came to an end, . . . . . .143
Chapter XIII. — Hungus, king of the Picts, and Athelwlf, king
of the Angles, were contemporaries — Athelstan, the son of the
latter, 144
Chapter XIV. — Victory of Hungus, king of the Picts, over
Athelstan ; whose head he directed to be fixed on a stake, . 146
Chapter XV. — Accession of the kings Donald, son of Alpin, and
Constantine, son of Kenneth — Death of Donald, . . .147
Chapter XVI. — Constantine slain by Danes and Norwegians —
Accession of King Heth, the Wing-footed, . . . .148
Chapter XVII. — Accession of King Gregory, who brings under
his yoke the whole of Ireland, and nearly the whole of England, 149
Chapter XVIII. — Gregory — His death — Martyrdom of the
blessed King Edmund — Nearly the whole of England at that
time subject to the Scots and Danes, 151
Chapter XIX. — John Scotus, the Philosopher — The Emperor
Arnulph, who was eaten up by lice, 152
Chapter XX. — Accession of King Donald, son of Constantine —
His death, 153
Chapter XXI. — Accession of King Constantine, son of Heth,
the Wing-footed — He gives the lordship of Cumbria to
Donald's son, Eugenius, his expected next heir, . . .154
Chapter XXII. — Constantine — Woeful and cruel battle of
Brounyngfeld, . . . . . . . .156
Chapter XXIII. — Loss inflicted upon the Scots by this battle
— ^Death of Constantine in the monastic garb, . . .157
Chapter XXIV.; — Accession of King Malcolm, son of Donald —
The English King Edmund restores Cumbria to him, . .158
Chapter XXV. — ^Death of Malcolm — Accession ofKinglndulf —
He is slain by the Danes, 159
VOL. II. &
XVIU TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAQK
Chapter XXVI. — Accession of King Duff — After his death, his
body is hidden under a bridge ; and not a ray of sunlight shines
on the kingdom until it is found, . . . . .160
Chapter XXVII. — Accession of King Culen — His death —
Fable given in the English Chronicles, . . . .161
Chapter XXVIII. — Accession of Kenneth, son of Malcolm —
Divers disputes — Unsteadiness in the rule of succession of the
emperors as well as of kings, . . . . • .163
Chapter XXIX, — Kenneth — Novel change in the rule of succes-
sion of the emperors and of the kings of Scotland, . .164
Chapter XXXII. — Strange instrument of treason to deceive
King Kenneth — A wily woman's flattery, . . . .165
Chapter XXXIII. — Kenneth's death by treachery — His son
Malcolm promoted to the lordship of Cumbria, . . .167
Chapter XXXIV. — ^Accession of the kings Canstantine the Bald
and Gry me, son of Kenneth, . . . . . .168
Chapter XXXV. — The above-mentioned Prince of Cumbria,
Malcolm, son of Kenneth, will not, on behalf of the Cumbrians,
pay tribute to the Danes, as the rest of the inhabitants of
England do, 169
Chapter XXXVI. — Condition of the English as set forth in the
Polychronicon — A certain prophecy, . . . . .170
Chapter XXXVII. — Source of the calamities brought upon the
English by the Danes, who, according to William, repeatedly
lay England waste in all directions, . . . . .171
Chapter XXXVIII. — King Gryme slain by the above-mentioned
Malcolm, son of Kenneth, . . . . , .172
Chapter XXXIX. — Accession of this King Malcolm — His
daughter Beatrice marries Crynyne, Abthane of Dul, . .173
Chapter XL. — Malcolm — Foundation of a bishopric at Mar-
thillach, now transferred to Aberdeen, . . . .175
Chapter XLL— Struggle of King Malcolm for Cumbria with
Cnuto the Dane, then king of England — His death, . .176
Chapter XLIII. — King Malcolm's liberality, or, rather, prodi-
TABLE OF CONTENTS. XlX
PAQB
gality ; for he retained for himself no part of the kingdom
but the Moothill of Scone, 177
Chapter XLIV. — Accession of King Duncan, grandson of the
above-mentioned Malcolm — His death — »He was too long-
suffering or easy-going, . . . . . . .179
Chapter XLV. — Accession of King Machabeus — King Duncan's
sons driven out of the kingdom into England, * . .180
Chapter XLVI. — Outlawry of the Thane of Fife, Macduff by
name, on account of the friendship he bore towards Duncan's
sons, Malcolm, called Canmore, and Donald, . . .181
Chapter XL VII. — First arrival of Malcolm Canmore at the Court
of Edward King of England — Marianus Scotus, . . .183
BOOK V.
Chapter I. — Macduff urges Malcolm Canmore to return to the
kingdom — The latter, to try whether he was in good faith or
was deceiving him, falsely asserts that he is sensual, . .184
Chapter IT. — Malcolm adduces various instances of kings having
lost their kingdoms through sensuality, • . . . .185
Chapter III. — Macduff, in answer, adduces the instance of the
Emperor Octavian, who was sensual, yet most happy, . .186
Chapter IV. — Malcolm tries him a second time, by asserting
himself to be a thief — Macduff answers by laying down the
remedy for this vice, . . . . . . . 187
Chapter V. — Malcolm tries him a third time, by confessing that
he is most false and cunning — Macduff can find no remedy for
this fault, and retires in sorrow, . . . . .189
Chapter VI. — Malcolm, now assured of his good faith, promises
to return to the kingdom with him, . . . . .190
Chapter VII. — Malcolm's return to Scotland — Machabeus falls
in battle, 191
Chapter VIII. — The author makes allowance for the people
XX TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGE
of any kingdom deserting an unlawful king in battle — Lulath
is raised to the throne — His death, . . . . .193
Chapter IX. — Accession of King Malcolm to the kingdom —
He fights with a traitor, . . . . . . .194
Chapter X. — T^ie fight — The trait;or is worsted, . . .195
Chapter XI. — Death of Edward, king of the English — The
nobles would have made the blessed Margaret's brother, Edward,
king, had the clergy consented — Vision of Saint Edward, . 196
Chapter XII. — How William the Bastard's coming to England
was brought about — Saint Patemus the Scot, . . .198
Chapter XIII. — ^Wretched and treacherous lives led by the
English before William's arrival, . . . . .199
Chapter XIV. — Happily for the Scots, Edgar Atheling and his
sister Margaret, afterwards Queen of the Scots, land in Scot-
land, 200
Chapter XV. — King Malcolm weds Saint Margaret — He gladly
welcomes all English fugitives, . . . , . .202
Chapter XVI. — The sons and daughters he begat of Margaret
— Ravages he commits in England, . , . . 203
Chapter XVII. — The Northumbrians give hostages to King
Malcolm, and cleave to him — He routs William's brother Odo, 204
Chapter XVIII. — Virtuous and charitable works of King Mal-
colm and the Queen, ....... 205
Chapter XIX. — Death of William the Bastard — He could not
go to his grave without challenge — Good understanding come
to between William Rufus, the son of William, and Malcolm —
Virtues of Malcolm and his Queen, ..... 206
Chapter XX. — Foundation of the Church of Durham by Mal-
colm— Siege of the Castle of Murealden by the same — He and
his son slain there, ........ 208
Chapter XXI. — Death of Saint Margaret — Siege of the Castle of
Maidens by Donald the king's brother, who invades the king-
dom— Flight of the king's sons out of the kingdom, . . 209
Chapter XXII. — An Englishman, Orgar by name, challenges
TABLE OF CONTENTS. XXI
PAGE
Edgar Atheling to single comliat for treason against King
William II, 210
Chaptek XXIII Duel — The challenger is slain by Godwin of
Winton, . . .211
Chaptek XXIV. — Duncan, Malcolm's illegitimate son, wrests the
kingdom from his uncle Donald — His death — Donald recovers
the kingdom — The King of Norway takes possession of our isles, 213
Chapter XXV. — Return of Malcolm's sons from England —
Flight of Donald from battle, 214
Chapter XXVI. — Accession of King Edgar, Malcolm's son, to
the throne — Donations made to Saint Cuthbert, . . .215
C hapter XXVII. — Marriage of Edgar's sisters, Matilda to Henry,
King of England, and Mary to Eustace, Count of Boulogne —
Their sons and daughters — Edgar's death, . . . .216
Chapter XXVIII. — Accession of his brother Alexander, sur-
named Fers — His character, . . . . . .217
Chapter XXIX. — Death of his sisters, namely. Queen Matilda
and the Countess Mary — Their holy acts — Their burial, . 218
Chapter XXX. — Praise of the virtues of that Queen Matilda ;
of one good work especially, told by her brother, King David, to
the Abbot Baldred, 220
Chapter XXXI. — Accession of the blessed King David — Praise
of him and his brothers — He weds Matilda, daughter and
heiress of Waldeof, Earl of Huntingdon, . . . .221
Chapter XXXII. — War waged by King David against Stephen,
King of England — Conquest of Northumbria and Cumbria by
a battle fought at Allerton, 222
Chapter XXXIII. — David's son, Henry, weds Ada, daughter of
WiUiam, Earl of Warenne — Their sons and daughters, and to
whom the latter were wedded — Henry's death, . . .223
Chapter XXXIV. — King David bids his grandson Malcolm,
Henry's son, be taken about through the kingdom, and pro-
claimed as the future King — David's death to be bewailed, not
on his own account, but for the Scots, . . . .225
XXU TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGE
Chapter XXXV. — Preface to tlie Abbot Baldred's Lament on
King David's death — Praise of Henry, King of England, for-
asmuch as King David sprang from his family, and was knighted
by him, ......... 226
Chapter XXXVI. — Beginning of the Lament, for all his people
had reason to bewail him, . . . . . .227
Chapter XXXVII. — Lament continued — He was beloved by
God and man, and undertook the sovereignty, rather because of
others' need than through lust of power, . . . .228
Chapter XXXVIII. — Lament continued — Bishoprics and Monas-
teries founded and endowed by him, 230
Chapter XXXIX. — La.ment continued — He was the comforter
of the sorrowing and the father of the fatherless, . . .231
Chapter XL. — Lament, continued — He was always anxious to
bring back to peace and concord those at variance, especially
wrangling, clergy, . . . . . . . .232
Chapter XLI. — Lament continued — He would have resigned
the throne, and betaken himself to the spot where our Lord
suffered, had he not been turned back by the advice of church-
men, the tears of the poor, the groans of the widow, the
desolation of the people, and the crying and wailing of the
whole country, ........ 233
Chapter XLII. — Lament continued — God scourged him in his
son's death — His God and Lord found him watching, . . 235
Chapter XLIII. — Lament continued — His time was all taken
up with prayer, alms, or some seemly task, . . .236
Chapter XLIV. — Lament continued — The trials of the English
taught the Scots to be faithful to their kings, and preserve
mutual harmony among themselves, . . . . .237
Chapter XLV. — Lament continued — On Wednesday, the 20th
of May, he perceived that his dissolution was at hand ; and
having taken the Sacrament of the Lord's body, he bade them
bring forward the Lord's cross, 238
Chapter XLVI. — Lament continued — His extreme unction — He
TABLE OF CONTENTS. XXIU
PAGK
threw himself off the bed upon the ground and took that Sacra-
ment with great devoutness, . . . . . .239
Chapter XL VII. — Lament continued — In his very sickness,
when his life was at stake, he remembered the poor, and asked
the cleric, his secretary, whether he had dispensed the usual
alms that day, . . . . . . . .241
Chapter XL VIII. — Lament continued — He went on praying
while singing psalms, . . . . . . .242
Chapter XLIX. — Lament continued — On Sunday, the 24th of
May, when the sun had dispelled the darkness, the King, taking
leave of the darkness of the body, passed into the joys of the
true light, 243
Chapter L. — His pedigree traced on the father's side up to
Japhet, son of Noah, . . . . . . .244
Chapter LI. — Prologue to his pedigree on his mother's side, . 247
Chapter LII. — His pedigree on the mother's side traced, accord-
ing to Baldred, as far as Shem, son of Koah ; and from him to
Seth, son of Adam, who is the father of all, . . .247
ANNALS.
I. Coronation of King Malcolm the younger. Prince
Henry's son, called " the Maiden," . . .249
VII. Coronation of King William, . . . . .254
XI. King William taken, 258
XX. King William released from fealty to England, . .267
XXIX. Coronation of King Alexander ii. at Scone, . .275
XLVL Death of this King Alexander il, . . . .288
XL VIII. Coronation of King Alexander iii. at Scone, . .289
LXVII. Betrothal of Yolande, daughter of the Count of Dreux,
in France, to Alexander iii.. King of Scots — This
King's death, 304
LXVIII. Beginning of the government of the Guardians after
King Alexander's death, . . , , .305
XXIV TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGE
LXX. Discussion of the rights of Robert of Bruce and
John of Balliol, 306
LXXIII. Account, or Pedigree of the Kings of Scotland, . 309
LXXV. King William's brother David, Earl of Huntingdon, 310
LXXVI. Earl David's daughter Isabella, who wedded Robert
of Bruce, . . . . . . .311
LXXVII. Issue of King Robert Bruce by his first wife, . 311
LXXVIII. That King's issue by his second wife, . . .312
LXXIX. Death of John of BaUiol, 312
LXXX. Daughters of King Malcolm and Saint Margaret ;
and the degree of kinship between David and
Edward, the Kings of Scotland and of England, 312
LXXXI. Guardians of the kingdom chosen after the death
of King Alexander in., . . . . .313
LXXXII. Slaughter of Duncan, Earl of Fife, . . .313
LXXXIII. Marriage to be contracted between the son of the
King of England and Margaret, daughter of the
King of Norway, . . . . , .314
LXXXIV. Dispute which arose between Robert Bruce and
John of Balliol, 314
LXXXV. John of Balliol created King of Scotland, . .315
LXXXVI. Steps which led to the deprivation of the same, . 316
LXXXVII. The King of England has the King of Scotland
cited to the Marches, etc., . . . .316
LXXXVIII. The King of England beguiles the first Robert of
Bruce with smooth words, . . . .316
LXXXIX. The nobles of Fife sent to guard the town of Ber-
wick— Their death, 317
XC. Taking of the town of Berwick by Edward i., King
of England, 317
XCI. Expulsion of the English from the kingdom of
Scotland, . . ... . . .318
XCII. Battle of Dunbar, 318
XCIII. Abettors of John of Balliol and Robert Bruce, . 319
p
TABLE OF CONTENTS. XXV
XCIV. Answers given by the King of England to the first
Eobert Bruce, ....... 319
XCV. John of Balliol and his son Edward taken, . 320
XCVI. The Estates of Scotland do homage to the King of
England, 320
XCVII. The Magnates of Scotland meet together to guard the
kingdom, ....... 321
XCVIII. Rise and first start of WiUiam Wallace, . . .321
XCIX. Battle of Stirling Bridge, 322
C. William Wallace winters in England, . . .322
CI. Battle of Falkbk, 323
CII. WiUiam Wallace resigns the office of Guardian, . .324
cm. John Comyn becomes Guardian of Scotland, . .324
CIV. Truce granted at the instance of the King of France,
to the Estates of the kingdom of Scotland, . .324
GV. John de Soulis, 325
CVI. The King of England sunomoned to the Court of
Rome, 325
CVII. Conflict of Roslyn, 325
CIX. The King of England scours the plains and hills, and
brings the kingdom of Scotland under peaceful sub-
jection to himself, . . . . . .328
ex. The Estates of Scotland make their submission to the
King of England, 329
CXI. Stirling Castle besieged by the King of England, .329
CXII. Rise of Robert of Bruce, King of Scotland, . . 330
CXIII. League of King Robert with John Comyn, . .330
CXIV. King Robert accused before the King of England, by
John Comyn, ....... 331
CXV. Death of John Comyn's messenger, . . .332
CXVI. Death of William Wallace, 332
CXVII. John Comyn's death, . . . . . .332
CXVIII. Coronation of King Robert Bruce, 333
CXIX. Battle of Methven, 334
XXVI TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGE
CXX. Conflict at Dairy, in the borders of Argyll, . .334
CXXI. Sundry troubles which fell upon King Kobert, . 335
CXXII. Rout at Slenach (Slaines), 336
CXXIII. Death of King Edward L, King of England, . .336
CXXIV. Rout at Inverury, 337
CXXV. Victory over the Gallwegians, at the river Dee, . 337
CXXVI. Conflict of King Robert with the men of Argyll, .338
CXXIX. The town of Perth taken by King Robert, . .338
CXXX. Roxburgh Castle taken by James of Douglas, . 339
CXXXI. Conflict at Bannockburn, 339
CXXXII. Edward crosses into Ireland, . . . .340
CXXXIII. The town of Berwick taken, . . . .340
CXXXIV. Berwick besieged by the King of England, . . 340
CXXXV. Treachery of John of Soulis and his adherents, . 341
CXXXVII. The King of Scotland crosses into England, and the
King of England into Scotland, . . .341
CXXXVIII. Ambassadors sent by the King of Scotland to the
Pope and the King of France, . . . .343
CXXXIX. The Queen of England brings hired soldiers into
England, 343
CXL. Messengers sent to the King of Scotland by the
English, 344
CXLII. Espousal of King David — Death of William of Lam-
berton. Bishop of St. Andrews, . . .345
CXLIII. Death of King Robert of Biiice, . . .345
CXLIV. Death of James of Douglas, . . . .345
CXLV. Coronation of King David, . . . .346
CXLVI. Battle of Dupplin, 346
CXLVII. Edward of Balliol made King at Scone, . . 347
CXLVIII. The town of Perth taken— Battle of Annan, . . 347
CXLIX. Conflict at Halidon, 348
CL. Dispute between Edward of Balliol and Henry of
Beaumont, and David, Earl of Athole, . .349
CLL Messengers of the King of France, . . .350
TABLE OF CONTENTS. XXVll
PAGE
CLII. The King of England comes to Perth with Edward
ofBalliol, 350
CLIII. John Eaii of Moray taken, . . . .350
CLIV. Death of the Earl of Athol at Kilblen, . . .351
CLV. The King of England and Edward of Balliol arrive
at Perth, 352
CLVI. Andrew of Moray, 353
CLVII. Andrew of Moray besieges Strivelyn (Stirling) Castle, 354
CLVIII. Death of Andrew of Moray, . . . .354
CLIX. The town of Perth besieged and taken, . . .355
CLXI. Roxburgh Castle taken by Alexander Ramsay, . 356
CLXII. Death of this Alexander, 357
CLXV. Battle of Durham fought, 358
CLXVI. Robert Stewart, Guardian of Scotland, . .358
CLXVII. Pestilence among men, . . . . .359
CLXVIII. Death of the Lord David of Berclay, . . .359
CLXIX. Matilda of Bruce and her offspring, . . . 3G0
CLXX. Death of the Lord William of Douglas, . .360
CLXXI. Messengers sent by the King of France to the
Nobles of Scotland, . . . . . .360
CLXXIL Conflict at Nesbit, 361
CLXXIIT. Thomas Stewart, Earl of Angus, makes an attempt
upon the town of Berwick, , . . . 362
CLXXIV. The town of Berwick is surrendered to the King of
England, 362
CLXXV. Edward of Balliol comes to meet the King of
England at Roxburgh, . . . . .363
CLXXVL The King of England comes to Scotland, . .363
CLXXVII. Conflict which took place at Poitiers, in France, . 365
CLXXVIII. Release of our Lord King David, King of Scotland, 366
CLXXIX Great flood of waters, 367
CLXXX. King David begs a tenth from the Sovereign Pontiff, 367
CLXXXI. The King of England crosses into France, . .368
CLXXXIL The King of France in England is released, . .368
^:f^'- i
XXVm TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGE
CLXXXIII. Second pestilence, 369
CLXXXIV. Plot against King David, 369
CLXXXV. Second espousals of King David, . . . .370
NOTES AND ILLUSTEATIONS.
List of Authorities referred to by name by Fordun, . .375
Notes to Book i., 379
Notes to Book n., 385
Notes to Book iii., 393
Table of Dalriadic Kings, 503-850, . . . .403
Notes to Book iv., 404
Tableof Scottish Kings, 850-1034, . . . .421
Notes to Book v., 422
Notes to Annals, ....... 427
Table of Descendants of Malcolm Canmore and Saint Mar-
garet, 439
APPENDIX.
Tribe Communities in Scotland, 441
INDEX, 461
MAP OF SCOTLAND prior to 1034 to face Historical Intro-
duction.
NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
In order not to delay the circulation of this
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tained in the 7text Volume of the Series, but
Subscribers who wish to have it separately
will please co7mmmicate with the Publishers,
when it will be sent as soon as it is ready.
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HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
Amid so mucli that is mythic, uncertain, or matter
of controversy, in the early history of Scotland, it may be
held as unquestionable that the Scots, from whom the
country took its name, had their original seat in Ireland,
from whence they migrated to Scotland ; and that a line
of kings of Scottish race ruled in this country from the
middle of the ninth to the early part of the eleventh
centuries. The era of the establishment of this Scottish
dynasty was the year 850, and it t^-^minated, by the
death of the last king of Scottish race, ^a the year 1034.
It is under this line of Scottish kings that we can
trace the rise and gradual formation of the Scottish
monarchy, and that we find the first appearance of those
ancient chronicles professing to give the succession, and
chronology, of the earlier kings, supposed to have reigned
in Scotland prior to the establishment of this dynasty.
The direct rule of this line of kings of Scottish
descent, and the main seat of their government, was con-
fined to the districts extending from the Firth of Forth
to the river Spey. Beyond the river Spey, on the north,
lay the extensive district termed Moravia, comprehend-
ing the modern counties of Elgin, Nairn, Inverness, and
XXX HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
the eastern part of Eoss-shire. On the west, and
separated from these districts by the great chain of
Drumalban or the backbone of Scotland, was Ergadia,
Ea7'ragaidhel or Argyle, extending from the Firth of
Clyde and Loch Long in the south to the point of
Coigeach and Loch Enard in the north-west corner of
Eoss-shire, and forming the western seaboard of Scotland.
Over these districts, the kings of this race may have had
a nominal sway, but they do not seem to have been
incorporated with their proper kingdom. The districts
lying to the south of this kingdom consisted, on the
west, of the kingdom of Cumbria or Strathclyde, ex-
tending from the Firth of Clyde to the river Derwent
in Cumberland, and on the east, of the northern parts of
Northumbria, which, from the Firth of Forth to the
river Tweed, bore the name of Lodoneia or Lothian.
The first four kings of this race,^ viz., Kenneth mac
Alpin, the founder of the dynasty, his brother, and his two
sons, though of Scottish descent, are termed in the Irish
Annals *Eeges Pictorum,' and, in the oldest chronicle, the
districts under their direct rule are termed 'Pictavia.'
There is then a break in the line, when Eocha, the son
of Eun, king of the Britons of Strathclyde, and grandson
of Kenneth by a daughter, reigns jointly along with Grig,
whose descent is unknown. The male line is again esta-
blished in the person of Donald, a grandson of Kenneth
by his eldest son, and the remaining kings of this dynasty
are termed in the Irish Annals * Ei Albain,' the Irish
equivalent of * Eeges Albanise/ while, in the same chro-
^ A table of the kings of this Scottish dynasty will be found in the
Notes, p. 421.
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. XXXI
nicle, the name of Albania is now applied to their king-
dom. Under Constantine, the second of the kings
termed ' Ki Alban/ his brother was elected king of
Cumbria, which placed the Scottish race on the throne
of that British kingdom ; and upon Malcolm, his suc-
cessor, the kingdom of Cumbria or Strathclyde was
bestowed in 946, by Edmund, king of Wessex, who
had conquered it in that year. His successor, Indulph,
added the district extending from Stirling to Edinburgh.
Kenneth, the son of Malcolm, who reigned from 971
to 995, is said by some of the English historians to have
acquired Lothian, but the statement is of doubtful
authority. In his reign, however, was compiled the
oldest of the Chronicles we now possess, viz., that
usually termed the Pictish Chronicle.
His son Malcolm was the last king of this race. He
reigned from 1004 to 1034, and he certainly acquired
from Eadulf Cudel, Earl of Northumbria, as the result of
a battle fought in 1018, the northern districts of that
Earldom, comprehended under the names of Lodoneia
and Tevethdale, or Lothian and Teviotdale. In his reign,
between the years 1014 and 1023, was compiled the
Synchronisms of Flann Mainistrech or Flann the Fer-
leighin of the monastery called Mainister Boice, who died
in 1056. This work contains a list of the kings of
Ireland, synchronized with tie provincial kings, and
with those of foreign countries, and among them are the
kings who ruled in Scotland. In the same reign was
born, in the year 1028, the chronicler Marianus Scotus,
who was thus almost a contemporary writer, and he
XXXU HISTOKICAL INTEODUCTION.
terms Malcolm ^rex Scotiae.'^ He was thus the first
king to whom this title was applied ; and the districts
which formed his kingdom proper, and which had
previously been termed, first, Pictavia, and afterwards
Albania, now usually appear under the designation of
' Albania, quae modo Scotia vocatur/ They are how-
ever still distinguished from Moravia, on the north,
Ergadia or Argyle on the west, and Lothian and
Cumbria, or Strathclyde, on the south.
Malcolm was thus the first king who bears the title
of ' rex Scotise/ Prior to his reign, the name of Scotia
had not been applied to the whole, or to any part, of
the kingdom of Scotland, but was held to belong exclu-
sively to Ireland.
Fordun is probably reporting a genuine tradition
when he states that, towards the end of this dynasty, an
alteration had been made in the law of succession. The
succession to the throne had hitherto been regulated by
the Irish law of tanistry, which limited it strictly to
males, and preferred even an illegitimate male to a
female. By this law, the senior male capable of ruling
was chosen in preference to the direct descendant,
a rule which placed brothers on the throne before sons,
and it appears to have assumed a form not unusual in
Ireland, where the succession was vested in two families,
and passed alternately from the one to the other.
These families were descended from the two sons of
Kenneth mac Alpin, the founder of the dynasty, as we]]
as its first king. An attempt seems to have been
^ A.D. 1034, Moelcoluim Rex ScotisD obiit 7 kal. Decembr. — Chron. Picts
and Scots, p. 65.
HISTORICAL IXTRODUCTION. XXXIU
made, after the death of the second of his two sons, to
introduce the son of a sister, even though of a different
race (Eocha son of Eun, king of the Britons of Strath-
clyde by the daughter of Kenneth), according to the
Pictish law of succession, which preferred the sons of
sisters in preference to the brothers' sons ; but after his
reign the male line was firmly established by the acces-
sion of Donald, followed by Constantin, the grandsons
of Kenneth by his two sons. Fordun states that this
old law of succession lasted till the time of Malcolm, the
last king of the race, " when, for fear of the dismem-
berment of the kingdom, which might perhaps result
therefrom, that king, by a general ordinance, decreed, as
a law for ever, that thenceforth each king, after his
death, should be succeeded in the government of the
kingdom by whoever was, at the time being, the next
descendant, that is, a son or a daughter, a nephew or a
niece, the nearest then living. Failing these, however,
the next heir begotten of the royal or collateral stock
should possess the right of inheritance."^ If such an
alteration ever were formally made, it was in fact a sub-
stitution of the Teutonic for the Celtic law of succession,
and the increasing influence of Saxon institutions, or
the anticipation of a failure of the dynasty in the male
line, may have led to its introduction. Malcolm was
the last king of this line, and appears to have been
the last legitimate male descendant of Kenneth mac
Alpin, the founder of the dynasty ; and the recent ac-
quisition of Lothian with its Saxon population may have
rendered such an alteration necessary, as the only means
^ B. iv. cap. 1.
VOL. n. e
XXxiv HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
of maintaining the integrity of the kingdom. He had
two daughters, one married to Crinan, the lay abbot of
Dunkeld, by whom she had a son, Duncan ; the other to
Sigurd, the Norwegian Earl of Orkney, by whom she had
a son Thorfinn, afterwards Earl of Orkney. On his death,
Malcolm was succeeded by his grandson Duncan; but
a war immediately arose between him and Thorfinn,
who probably claimed half the kingdom in right of his
mother. This war ended in the establishment of the
power 'of Thorfinn over the northern provinces, which he
maintained for thirty years, and in the death of Duncan,
who was slain in 1040 by Macbeth, who succeeded him
on the throne of Scotland, and reigned seventeen years.
Marianus Scotus, a contemporary writer, calls Macbeth
the commander of Duncan s troops {pcciditur a duce suo
Macbethad)j but it appears, from the Irish Annals, that
he was of the race of the Celtic Mormaers of Moray, one
of the provinces subjected by Thorfinn. It is probable,
therefore, that he had committed this act of treachery in
Thorfinn's interest, and was placed by him on the throne
of the southern half of the kingdom. Cumbria and
Lothian with their British and Anglic populations no
doubt adhered to the fortunes of the family of Duncan,
and an invasion of Scotland by Siward the Earl of
Northumbria in 1054 prepared the way for the accession
of Malcolm, the eldest son of Duncan, who, four years
afterwards, drove out and slew Macbeth, and his succes-
sor Lulach, a member of the same family.
Malcolm, surnamed Canmore, reigned thirty-five
years, from 1058 to 1093. His kingdom was nearly
CO -extensive with the modern kingdom of Scotland, and
he seems, during his reign, to have maintained his power
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. XXXV
over all the different races which formed its population.
This probably resulted from the peculiar advantages
which he possessed, and from the union in his person
of qualities, which commended to each his claim to the
throne. His pedigree in the male line cannot be pushed
further back than his grandfather Crinan, but there are
indications that Crinan was of Cumbrian descent, while
his position as abbot of Dunkeld must have secured
for his descendants the powerful support of the Church.
Through his grandmother, Malcolm represented the
Scottish line of kings. Through his mother, who was
a sister of Siward Earl of Northumberland, he was
connected with those powerful Earls, and soon after
his accession he married Ingibiorg, widow of Thorfinn
Earl of Orkney, which must have conciliated the Nor-
wegian population of the north, while his second wife
was Margaret, the sister of Edgar ^theling, the last
scion of the Saxon royal family. There is little indica-
tion, therefore, of discontent on the part of any of the
different races under his rule. His reign adds some
further documents throwing light on the earlier history
of Scotland. In the early paii: of his reign, in the year
1072, died Gillacaemhan, who translated the Latin work
of Nennius into Irish, and made considerable additions
to it, taken from both Irish and Pictish sources. He
is also, in all probability, the author of the historical
poem usually termed the Albanic Duan, which bears to
have been compiled while Malcolm was king.^ Towards
^ Maolcoluim is now the king,
Son of Bonnchad, the florid, of lively visage,
His duration knoweth no man
But the wise one, the most wise.
Chron. Picts and Scots, p. G3.
XXXVl HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
the end of his reign, in the year 1088, died Tighernach
of Cloinmacnois, compiler of the Irish Annals which
bear his name, and which contain a number of notices,
of the highest interest, of events which took place in
Scotland.
These five historical documents, viz., the Pictish
Chronicle, and the Synchronisms of Flann Mainistrech,
which belong to the period when the Scottish djrnasty
still reigned in Scotland; and the Irish and Pictish
additions to Nennius, the Albanic Duan and the Annals
of Tighernac, which belong to the reign of Malcolm
Canmore, form the first group of authorities for the
early history of Scotland. They are entirely consistent
and in perfect harmony with each other. The same
chronology runs through the whole, and they stand apart,
and far above all other chronicles in authority, — first,
from their superior antiquity ; secondly, because they
emerge from the native races themselves, whose early
annals they profess to give ; and thirdly, because they
were compiled before any of those controversies, whether
secular or ecclesiastic, arose, which, like all controversies
involving matters of national or clerical interest, in
which the patriotic feelings of the country or the
ambition of ecclesiastical parties are enlisted, led to
the falsification of records and to the perversion of
history.
What then do these ancient documents tell us of the
history of the country prior to the establishment of the
Scottish dynasty under Kenneth mac Alpin ?
The Pictish Chronicle,^ after a preface consisting in
the main of extracts from Isidore of Seville, and after
* Chron. Picts and ScotSy No. i. p. .3.
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. XXXVll
stating that the Scots and Picts derive their origin from a
Scythian people mentioned by Isidore, termed Albani,
gives a long line of Pictish monarchs from '' Cruidne
filius Cinge, pater Pictorum habitantium in hac insula "
to "Bred/^ whose successor is *'Cinadius filius Alpini"
and one of the additions in the Irish Nennius contains
the same list.^ Cruidne, who is evidently the eponymus
of the Picts, the Irish or Gaelic equivalent for whom is
Cruithne, is said to have had seven sons, whose names
are given. An ancient stanza, quoted in the Irish Nen-
nius, and attributed to St. Columba, states that Alban was
divided by these seven sons into seven provinces, and that
the name of each man was given to his territory. Five
of them can still be identified, viz., Caithness, the Mearns,
Fife, Stratherne, and AthoU, so that the Pictish king-
dom, whose ancient kings are here given, must have
extended from Caithness in the north to the Firth of
Forth in the south, as is indeed expressed in an old
poem contained in the Irish Nennius,^ and from the
German Ocean on the east to the range of hills which
forms the western boundary of Atholl and divides it
from Argyle, and was known by the name of " Dorsum
Britanniae " or Drumalhan, on the west.
The Synchronisms of Flann Mainistrech ^ state, on the
1 Chron. Picts and Scots, No. v. B. p. 24.
2 From thence they possessed Alban,
The noble nurse of fruitfulness.
Jl' Without destroying the people,
From the region of Cath to Forcu.
And again —
Thus did they possess Alban
Noble, gentle-hilled, smooth surfaced
To many Amlaebhs,
To Cinaeth mac Alpin. — Ibid. p. 43.
3 Ibid. No. iv. p. 18.
XXXVlll HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
other hand, that twenty years after the battle of Ocha,
"the children of Ere, son of Eochaidh' Muindremhair,
passed over (from Ireland) into Alban or Scotland, —
viz., the six sons of Ere, two Anguses, two Lorns and
two Ferguses." The battle of Ocha was fought either in
478 or 483, and this gives either 498 or 503 as the date
of this colony from Ireland. The Irish Nennins^ and
the Albanic Duan^ state that Britus, the eponymus of
the Britons, and Albanus his brother, first possessed
Alban — that then came a colony called the Clan Nemh-
idh — then the Cruithnigh or Picts — and then the sons
of Ere, son of Eachach ; and Tighernac has under the
year 501, "Feargus mor, the son of Earca, held part of
Britain with the people of Dalriada, and died there.'' ^ All
these authorities therefore agree that, about the end of
the fifth or beginning of the sixth century, a colony from
Ireland, termed the * gens Dalriada,' settled in Alban or
Scotland under the sons of Ere, son of Eachach.
Flann Mainistrech and the Albanic Duan give a list
of the kings of this colony, extending from Fergus son
of Ere, the founder of this kingdom, to Eoganan, son of
Angus, the last king, who is immediately succeeded by
Kenneth mac Alpin. The boundaries of their kingdom
can be pretty well ascertained from the statements of two
writers whose works were compiled while it still existed.
Adomnan, who died in 704, states in his Life of Saint
Columba that the Scots of Dalriada were separated from
the Picts by the ' Dorsi montes Britannici,' which exactly
* Chrorw Picts and Scots, p. 32.
2 Jhid. No. vL p. 67.
^ Feargus Mor mac Earca cum gente Dalraida partem BritannisB tenuit et
ibi mortuus est. — Jbid. p. 66.
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. XXxix
corresponds witli what we gather from the Pictish Chro-
nicle and the Irish Nennius ; the chain of hills which
separates Perthshire from Argyllshire, and divides the
eastern from the western waters, being thus the western
boundary of the one population, and the eastern boundary
of the other. The Firth of Clyde was their southern
boundary; for Bede in describing this Firth says that
it formerly divided the nation of the Picts from the
Britons, but that the Scots arriving on the north side
of this bay settled themselves there. ^ The northern
boundary is more dijfficult to ascertain. We gather,
from Adomnan, that the inhabitants of Lochaber were
Pictish, and Bede says that lona was given to Saint
Columba by the Picts who inhabited the neighbouring
districts, while Tighernac states, as distinctly, that lona
was given to him by the Scottish king of Dalriada. It
is probable that the actual kingdom of Dalriada was
bounded on the north by the Linnhe loch ; for the only
districts mentioned in the Irish annals, as under their rule,
are Lorn, Cantire, Cowall, and the island of Islay ; but
there is reason to believe that the tribe of Lorn occupied
part of the district of Morvern, and this district, with the
island of Mull, to which lona belongs, may have been a
sort of debateable land between the Picts and Scots, and
have been partly occupied by both.
The kings of Dalriada are given by Flann Mainis-
trech, the oldest authority, without adding the years of
their reign, but they are grouped together, and each
separate group is made to synchronize with periods in
Irish history, so that there is no difficulty in fixing the
^ B. i. cap. i.
.Xl HISTORICAL INTKODUCTIOX.
period within which each king must have reigned, keep-
ing in view that, when the period of the Irish kings
named does not quite correspond with that of the reigns
of the Dabiadic kings, there is occasionally a discrepancy
of a few years. The list of kings in the Albanic Duan,
with the exception of an occasional omission, exactly
corresponds with that in Flann, and, as the length of
the reign of each king is given, a calculation founded
upon the years of the reign of each shows that the
chronology is the same, while both agree with that of
Tighernac.
The first four groups, consisting of twenty kings, ex-
tend from the arrival of the sons of Ere to the death of
Aeda AUain, king of Ireland, in 743 ; but this latter date
exceeds the real date by about twenty years. These
kings appear all as descendants of Fergus mor, son of Ere,
with the exception of three kings in the last of the four
groups, viz., Ferchar Fada, whose father is not given,
and his two sons, Ainbhceallach and Sealbach, who
appear from Tighernac to have been chiefs of the tribe of
Lorn. Thus Tighernac has at 6 78 " Slaughter of the tribe
of Lorn in Tirinn in a battle between Fearchar Fada and
the Britons, who were victorious;"^ and in 719, "Battle
of Finglinne between the two sons of Fearchar Fada, in
which Ainbhceallach was slain on a Thursday in the Ides
of September. Maritime battle of Ardeanesbi between
Duncan Beg with the tribe Gabrain and Selbhac with the
tribe of Lorn and Selbhach, was defeated on the second
day of the Nones of October on a Tuesday, in which
* Interfectio generis Loaim i tirinn .1. etir Ferchair Fotai et Britones qui
victores er&nt—Chron. Picts and Scot-^, p. 72.
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. xli
many of his followers perished ;"^ and in 723 ''Selbhach,
king of Dalriada, becomes a cleric."^ The Cinel Loarn, or
tribe of Lorn, were the descendants of Lorn, son of Ere,
and had now probably established a right of alternate
succession to the throne of Dalriada with the Cinel
Gabhran, who were the descendants of Fergus, son of
Ere, through his grandson Gabhran, according to one
form of the law of tanistry.
The next group of kings, according to Flann Mainis-
trech were thirteen in number, and reigned for 132 years,
from the death of Aeda AUain, king of Ireland in 743, to
the death of Aeda Finnleith, king of L'eland in 879 ; but
the last king of this group is " Cinaet mac Alpin," and,
as his death certainly took place in 858, according to the
Irish Annals, or in 860, according to thePictish Chronicle,
the period is here also post-dated twenty years.
With this group a singular connexion commences
between the kings of Dalriada, as given by Flann and the
Albanic Duan, and the kings of the Picts, as given in the
Pictish Chronicle — a connexion on which the Annals of
Tighernac throw great light.
The first two kings in this group of thirteen kings of
Dalriada given by Flann, are Dungal son of Selbaigh and
Ailpin son of Eachach. In the list of Pictish kings given
by the Pictish Chronicle, we find at the same period two
kings, Drest and Elpin, who reign 'together five years,
^ Cath Finnglinne itir da meic Fearchair Fotai in quo Ainbhecellach jugu-
latus est die quinte ferie Id, Septembris. Cath maritimum Ardeanesbi etir
Dunchadh mbece cum genere Gabrain et Selbac cum genere Loairn et versum
est super Selbacum ii Non. Octobris die iii. ferie in quo quidam comites
corruerunt. — Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 74.
2 Clericatus Selbaigh regis Dalriada. — Ibid. p. 74.
xlii HISTORICAL IXTKODUCTION.
and in the Annals of Tighernac, under the year 726, we
have " Dungal expelled from his kingdom, and Drust
from the kingdom of the Picts, and Alpin reigns in
their stead." ^ The Alpin therefore who succeeds Dun-
gal in the one list and Drust in the other, thus appears
to be the same. His patronymic connects him with
the Scottish line, but his own name is Pictish. The
law of succession among the Picts, by which, accord-
ing to Bede, whenever the succession was in doubt, the
female line was preferred to the male, seems to have
admitted persons of foreign descent by the male line, if
they were of Pictish descent by the female line, to the
Pictish throne. In the list of Pictish kings we find
brothers succeeding each other, but in no instance is a
father succeeded by his son. The Pictish rule of succes-
sion seems, therefore, after the brothers, to have preferred
the son of a sister to the son of a brother ; and when
the husband of the sister was a foreigner, the son succeeds
notwithstanding, but under a Pictish name. Thus we
have Talorgan, son of Ainfred, succeeding three kings
who were brothers, in 653, and his father Ainfred was
the son of the Anglic king of Northumbria, who had
taken refuge among the Picts, but eventually became
king of Bernicia. Again, the Pictish king who defeated
Ecfrid, king of Northumbria, in 686, was Brude, son of
Bile, who also succeeds two kings who were brothers,
but his father, we are told in a poem contained in
the Life of Saint Adomnan,^ was the British king of
Alclyde, while his grandfather (by his mother of course)
1 Dungal de regno ejectus est et Druist de regno Pictonim ejectus et
Elphin pro eo regnat.— CAron. Picts and Scots, p, 409. * Ibid, p. 74.
HISTOKICAL INTRODUCTION. xliil
is stated in another poem to have been a king of the
Picts/
Alpin, therefore, was probably a descendant of the
Scottish kings of Dabiada, in the male line, who had a
claim to the Pictish throne through the female line ;
and as an Angle and a Briton by male descent had
already occupied the throne, there could have been no-
thing in the Pictish system to exclude a Scot.
His right, however, seems to have been fiercely con-
tested, for, two years after, we find two battles recorded
in the Annals of Tighernac, under the year 728. The
first is the " battle of Moncrieff in Strathearn between the
Piccardach (Picts) themselves. Angus and Alpin fought
that battle, and the victory was witK^Sngus, and the
son of Alpin was slain there, and Angus took his power. "^
The other battle was fought in the same year. It is
thus recorded : " A miserable battle between the Piccar-
dccch Sit the Castle of Belief (Scone), and the victory
was against the same Alpin, and his territories and all
his men were taken, and Nechtan, the son of Derili,
obtained the kingdom of the Piccardachf' ^
The struggle seems to have resulted in Angus, the
son of Fergus, suppressing all resistance and seating
himself firmly on the Pictish throne, and then entirely
subjecting Dalriada to his power. In 729 Tighernac
has "the battle of Drumderg Blathmig between the
1 citron. Picts and Scots, p. 402.
2 Cath Monaigh craebi itir Picardachaib fein. i. Aengus agus Alpin issiat
tuc in catli agus ro mebaigh ria n- Aengus agus ro marbhadh macAilpin andsin
agus ro gab Aengus nert. — Ibid. p. 74.
Cath truadh itir Picardachaibh ac Caislen Credhi agus ro mebaigli ar
in Alpin cetna agus ro bearadh a cricha agus a daine de uile agus ro gab
Nechtain mac Derili Righi na Picardach. — Ibid. p. 75.
Xliv HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
Ficcardach, that is, Drust and Angus, king of the Pic-
cardach ; and Drust was slain there on the twelfth day of
the month of August ; "^ and in 736 he has '' Angus, son
of Fergus, king of the Picts, lays waste the regions of
Dalriada, seizes Dunad (the capital), burns Creich, and
puts the two sons of Selvach, viz. Dungal and Feradach,
in chains."^ From this period Flann gives us eleven kings
of Dalriada. Of these, the fourth, ** Domnall mac Cus-
tantin " has, from his name, apparently a Pictish father.
The fifth, seventh, and eighth, viz., " Conall," " Custantin
mac Fergusa," and *^ Angus mac Fergusa," are also found
in the list of Pictish kings at the same period. The
ninth and tenth are " Aed mac Boanta '' and " Eoganan
mac Angusa ; " and the latter also appears in the list of
Pictish kings at the same time.^
There is, unfortunately, a hiatus in the Annals of
Tighernac from 765 to 973 ; but a fragment in the Book
of Leinster, a compilation made in 1160, states that in
838 a fleet of the Galls or foreigners plundered Dublin,
^ Cath Droma Derg Blathmig etir Piccardaibh .i. Druist agus Aengus Ri
na Piccardach agus ro raarbhadh Drust andsin in dara la deg do mi Aughuist.
— Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 75.
2 Aengus macFergusa rex Pictorum vastavit regiones Dailriata et obtinuit
Duoad et compussit Creic et duos filios Selbaiche catenis alligavit .i. Dond-
gal et Feradach. — Ibid. pp. 75-76.
3 The following comparison will show this : —
Kings of Dalriada from Flann. Kings of Picts from Pictish Chronicle.
Oonall caeim. Canaul tilius Tarla.
Conall eile.
Custantin mac Fergusa. Custantin filius Urguist.
Angus mac Fergusa. Unuist filius Urguist.
Aed mac Boanta. Drest filius Constantin.
Eoganan mac Aengusa. Uven filius Unuist.
Wrad filius Bargoit.
Bred.
Cinaet mac Alpin. ' "^ Kinadius filius Alpini.
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. xlv
Leinster, and Bregia, and that " the Dabiatai gave
battle to this fleet, for they went, with the left hand to
Erinn northwards, after the plundering of Leinster and
Bregia. Eoghanan, son of Oengus, king of Dalriatai,
was killed in that battle ;"^ and the Annals of Ulster,
which generally repeat the Scotch entries in Tighernac,
has, in 838 {recte 839), "Battle by the gentiles against
the men of Fortrenn, in which Euganan, son of Oengusa,
and Bran, son of Aengusa, and Aed, son of Boanta, and
many others were slain." ^
The expression, " men of Fortrenn," shows that
these two kings, " Aed mac Boanta" and " Euganan mac
Aengusa," were Picts ; and it may be remarked that the
other kings in the list of kings of Dalriada, who corre-
spond with kings of the same name in the list of Pictish
kings, appear in the Irish Annals as kings of the Picts
only, while of the eleven kings of this group only two,
viz., Aed Aireatec and Fergus, appear in the Irish
Annals, as kings of Dalriada, no corresponding names
appearing in the Pictish list.^ It seems therefore very
plain that the attempt of Alpin to obtain possession of
1 Tucsat Dalriatai cath don longis sein ; uair ra chuatar lam chle ri
hErind fathuaid ar milliud Lagen ocus Breg. Ro marbad isin chath sin
Eoganan mac Aengusa ri Dailriatai. — Wars of the Oaedhal with the GaeJ,
p. 226.
2 Bellum re genntib for firu Fortrenn in quo Euganan ma Oengusa et
Bran mac Oengiisa et Aed mac Boanta et alii pene innumerabiles ceciderunt.
— Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 360.
3 778 Aed finn mac Ecdach rex Dalriati mortuus est. — An. Ult.
781 Fergus mac Ecbach ri Dalriati defunctus est. — An. Ult.
807 Jugulatio Conall mac Taidg o Conall meic Aedain i Cuinntire. —
An. Ult.
820 Custantin mac Fergusa rex Fortren moritur. — An. Ult.
834 Oengus mac Fergusa rex Fortren moritur. — Chron. Picts and ScotSf
pp. 359, 360.
xlvi HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
the Pictish throne led to the invasion and conquest of
Dalriada by the Pictish king, and that it was, at this
time, a province subject to the Picts/
^ In the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (vol, vii.
part ii.), a paper is printed, called " Argyleshire invaded but not subdued
by Angus, king of the Picts, in the years 736 and 741, by Archibald Smith,
M.D." In this paper the author assails the conclusions I had come to in
the preface to the Chronicles of the Picts and Scots after an analysis of these
early chronicles. He does not, however, grapple with the plain inferences to be
derived from a comparison of these documents, but rests his argument mainly
upon some passages in the Irish Annals, which, he seems to imply, I had pur-
posely omitted from the extracts from these Annals of all events relating to
Scotland, inserted in the Chronicles of the Picts and Scots. I may as well
take this opportunity of noticing these passages, as they well illustrate the
extreme danger of founding historical arguments upon quotations taken at
second hand from other writers, without examining the original authorities
themselves.
The first of the passages in question referred to is " 749 Combustio Cille-
moire Aedain filii Oengusa," which, with Pinkerton, he supposes to mean
'* the burning of Kilmore by Aedan, son of Angus," and that the place
meant is Kilmore in Lorn. The true rendering, however, is " the burning of
Kilmore of Aedan, son of Angus, " and the place really referred to is the
church of Kilmore Aedain, in the county of Armagh, Ireland, so called be-
cause dedicated to St. Aedan, son of Angus. — (Colgan, A. SS., p. 731 Mart.
Don. 2 Novr.) The other omitted passages from the Annals on which he
founds are the following : —
• A.D. 747. Dunlaing mac Dunchon, king of the sept of Arddgail, died.
A.D. 800. It is recorded that '* between the sept of Lorn and the sept of
Argyle an action took place in which Fiangalach mac Dunlainge was
slain."
A.D. 812. Death of Angus, son of Dunlaing, king of kindred Argyll.
From which he infers that the tribes of Lorn and of Argyll still subsisted
under their native princes.
These passages seem to have been quoted at second hand from Pinkerton ;
but if he had referred to the original authorities he would have found that
the names are not " Lorn and Argyll," but in all three " Laeghaire " and
'• Ardgail." They are the names of two districts in Ireland, and have no
connexion with Lorn or Argyll, and therefore were omitted in the extracts
published in the "Chronicles." This can be easily established, but it may
be suflBcient to refer to the Book of Rights (p. 17), where, in giving the list of
the subsidies paid by the king of Tara to the kings and territories of
Meath, we find
Ten steeds, ten bondmen, ten women, ten drinking-horns to the king
of I^aeghaire.
HISTORICAL INTKODUCTIOX. xlvii
The last king of this group is Kenneth mac Alpin,
whose chronology is well known, and corresponds in
the main with his place in the Synchronisms of Flann.
As both the lists of the Pictish kings, and of the
Dalriadic kings, combine in him, and are succeeded by
Seven shields and seven steeds, and seven bondmen, and seven women,
and seven hounds to the king of Ardgail.
In his Notes, O'Donovan says they were two districts in East Meath.
The author also states that I have dislocated and inverted the position of
Alpin from that which he holds in the lists of Flann Mainistrech and the
Duan and have shifted his place. I have not done so. The extracts from Flann
and the Duan, I need hardly say, are correctly printed ; and the author has
probably again been misled by Pinkerton, who, in his copy of the Duan,
transfers the lines containing Alpin from their proper place. The author
would have seen it was so if he had referred to the copy of the Duan printed
by Dr. Todd in his edition of the Irish Nennius.
The other passages quoted are mainly prior to the year 736, and have little
bearing npon the argument ; but in dealing with the important entry in that
year, " Oengus mac Fergusa rex Pictorum, vastavit regiones Dailriatai et
obtinuit Dunat et combussit Creic," the author states that for " combussit
Creic" in the Annals of Ulster, Tighernac has "compulsit creich," which may
be translated, " he drove away a booty," but here he has been misled by
O'Connor. The word in Tighernac is not " compulsit," but " compussit,"
which is simply " combussit " written with a p instead of a h, — a very usual
substitution in mediaeval Latin.
He also states that in the Irish Annals " we meet with repeated allusions
to Duinnatt, Dunut, Dunaidh and Dunad, all of which appear to be only
different forms of orthography to signify the same name of a place," and says
that " I enumerate them all as equivalents for the name of the fort called
Dunad, on the river Add, in the moss of Crinan," but which he thinks more
properly belong to a hill fort near Oban, called Dunath or Dunaidh, and now
known as Dunach. But the name Dunad is mentioned only three times in
the Irish Annals, once by Tighernac as Dunad, and twice in the Annals of
Ulster as Duinatt and Dunat. It is nowhere mentioned either in the Annals
or by use under the form of Dunut or Dunaidh. On the other hand, the hill
fort in Lorn called Dunaidh never was called Dunath. The names are
different. This was an ordinary hill fort of no importance, but no one can
examine the remarkable rocky hill called Dunadd, standing isolated in the
middle of the moss of Crinan, with the river Add sweeping round its base,
and its elaborate fortification, without being satisfied of its paramount claim
to represent the ancient acropolis of Dalriada. The etymologies given by the
author I pass over as unworthy of remark, and, so far as this paper is con-
cerned, the question is left exactly where it was.
xlviii HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
his dynasty, he must have acquired possession of the
thrones both of the Pictish kingdom and of Dalriada, now
apparently a Pictish province. Of his own antecedents
we know nothing, except that he was of Scottish race and
bore the patronymic of " mac Alpin,*' which is a Pictish
name. A narrative of his conquest of the Picts seems at
one time to have been contained in the Pictish Chronicle,
but it is omitted in the only copy that has come down to
us. This Chronicle however says that, two years before
he entered Pictavia, he had obtained the kingdom of
Dalriada. As the Chronicle gives him a reign of six-
teen years, and he died in 858, this gives 842 as his
accession to the Pictish throne, and 840 to that of Dal-
riada, which is the year following the great battle with
the Scandinavian pirates, recorded in the Book of Lein-
ster and Annals of Ulster, and the death of Euganan,
king of Dalriada, his immediate predecessor, according to
the Synchronisms of Flann and the Albanic Duan. Flann
adds the important statement, that '' he was the first
king of the Gael (or Scots) who possessed the kingdom
of Scone,"* showing that Scone was then the capital of
the Pictish kingdom, over which he established his
power.
It is diflScult now to ascertain the exact nature of
the revolution by which this was accomplished. The
Pictish Chronicle indicates that there was an ecclesias-
tical element in it, when it says that " God vouchsafed
to make them (the Picts) aliens and vain in their
inheritance, on account of their malice, for they not
^ Im oet righ ro gab righe Sgoinde, do Qaidelaib. — Chron, Picta and
SeoU, p. 21.
r
HISTOEICAL INTRODUCTION. xlix
only despised the worship and precepts of the Lord,
but refused to allow others to participate equally, accord-
ing to the law of equity."^ This obscure allusion
refers probably to the expulsion of the Columban clergy
from the Pictish territories in 717, thus recorded by
Tighernac : " Expulsion of the family of lona across
Drumalban by King Nectan," ^ and the introduction of
a secular clergy in their place from Northumbria, as
indicated by Bede.^ The Scottish clergy, no doubt, never
lost the hope of regaining their position as the Church
of Pictavia, and of recovering their possessions there.
The occurrence of a Scottish prince having a claim
to the Pictish crown by the Pictish law of succession,
accompanied by the invasion of the Danes, and the
crushing defeat sustained by the Pictish army which
opposed them, probably afforded a favourable oppor-
tunity ; and, while Kenneth, his brother and two sons,
though of Scottish descent, appear to have occupied the
throne as Pictish kings, the substitution of the law of
tanistry for the Pictish law of succession, which they
succeeded in effecting, perpetuated the succession in this
Scottish race. The re-establishment of the Scottish
Church, and the predominance of the Scots over the
Picts, was thus gradually accomplished in the districts
extending from the Forth to the Spey, of which Scone
was the chief seat. These districts, first known as
Pictavia, and then as Albania, eventually assumed the
1 Deus enim eos (Pictos) pro merito suae malitise alienos ac otiosos hereditate
dignatus est facere : quia illi non solum Domini missam ac preceptum spreve-
runt ; sed et in jure sequitatis aliis sequi parari nolnernnt. —Chron. Picts and
Scots, p. 8.
2 Expulsio familie Te trans dorsum Britannie a Nectono rege. — Ibid.
p. 74. ^ B. V. cap. xxi.
VOL. II. d
1 HISTORICAL INTEODUCTION.
name of Scotia, and this name gradually spread over the
rest of the country.
Such is the aspect in which the early history of
Scotland is presented to us by these ancient authorities,
and such was the received account down to the end of
the reign of Malcolm Canmore. They exhibit to us
prior to 850, a Pictish monarchy in the eastern and
northern districts of Scotland ; a colony of Scots from
Ireland forming in the sixth century the small kingdom
of Dalriada in the west ; the expulsion of the Scottish
clergy from the Pictish territories in 717 ; the attempt
of Alpin, the last king of Dalriada, of the Scottish race
to mount the Pictish throne in 726, followed by the con-
quest of Dalriada by the Picts in 736, and their subjec-
tion to them for a century under princes partly of
Pictish race ; and the final union of both kingdoms under
a king of the Scottish race in the year 850. It becomes
therefore necessary to trace the causes which led to the
gradual corruption and manipulation of the Chronicles,
and laid the foundation of that fictitious history of the
early period, which superseded this earlier received account
and threw it into oblivion. The country generally, and
the different races which composed its population, appear
to have in the main acquiesced in the government of
Malcolm, and his reign seems to have given birth to
something like a national spirit. The tie which united
the districts south of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, with
their Welsh population in Cumbria, and their Anglic
population in Lothian, with Scotland north of the
Firths, must still have been a slender one, and there
can have been but little community of feeling between
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION". li
them. The heart of the kingdom still consisted of the
districts extending from the Forth to the Spey. There
the Crown had its chief power, and were brought most
directly in contact with the people ; but the connexion
of the reigning house with the Saxon Koyal family,
must have given them a peculiar hold upon the popu-
lation of the southern provinces ; while the Gaelic
people of the provinces beyond the Spey, viz., those of
Moravia or Moray, and Ergadia or Argyle, as well as
of the southern province of Galwedia or Galloway
proper, and the Norwegian possessors of Caithness,
Orkney, and the Western Isles, must have maintained a
position of semi-independence.
On the death of Malcolm Canmore in 1093, these
interests again clashed, and the different laws of succes-
sion once more came into collision. By the law which
governed the succession to the southern provinces,
Malcolm ought to be succeeded by his eldest son, Duncan,
but, by the law of tanistry, his brother Donald was the
heir, and he succeeded in obtaining possession of the
crown for six months, when he was driven out by Dun-
can with the aid of a Northumbrian army. Duncan,
after a reign of six months, was slain by the head of one
of the great Celtic tribes, the men of the Mearns, who
frequently appear in the Scottish annals, and Donald
again came in ; but he seems to have claimed only Scot-
land north of the Firths, and to have tried to conciliate
the southern provinces by placing Edmund, a son of
Malcolm by the Saxon Princess Margaret, over them.
Finally, after a reign of three years and a half, Edgar,
the eldest son of Malcolm by the Princess Margaret, was
lii HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
firmly established as king of the whole country by
a Saxon army led by ^Edgar -^theling, Margaret's
brother.
Edgar's reign seems to have been undisturbed, but
under his successors the northern and southern districts
were once more separated. Edgar appears to have
assumed the right claimed by the Saxon kings, of regu-
lating the succession to the throne by testament, where
no direct descendants existed, and bequeathed to his
brother Alexander the kingdom of Scotland north of the
Firths of Forth and Clyde with the title of king ; and
the districts south of the Firths to his youngest brother
David with the title of Earl. On the death of Alexan-
der, however, without lawful issue, David succeeded to
him, and the northern and southern districts were once
more united under the same king.
It is with the reign of David that the work of
concentration really commenced. Early in his reign,
the Earl of Moray, the head of the principal Celtic
tribe in the north, invaded the kingdom, and pene-
trated as far as Stracathrow in Forfarshire, but by
his defeat and death in 1130, David brought the
people of Moray under his authority. Nothing can
better show the heterogeneous elements that made
up the aggregate of the population under his rule,
and with which he had to deal, than the account
which Ailred gives of the composition of his army
at the battle of the Standard in 1138. The army
was ranged in four divisions ; the first consisted of the
* Galwenses,' or people of Galloway, usually termed Picts,
but who were a Gaelic people ; the second division con-
sisted of the 'Cumbrenses' and * Tevidalenses,' or the
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. liii
British people of Strathclyde and Teviotdale ; the third
division consisted of the ' Laodonenses/ or Anglic popu-
lation of Lothian, with the ' Insulani ^ and ' Lavernani/
or people of the Isles and Lennox ; and the king had in
his own division the ' Scoti/ or people of the districts ex-
tending from the Forth to the Spej; the 'Muravenses/ the
newly conquered Gaelic people of Moray, and a body of
' Milites Angli et Franci,' or Anglic and Norman knights,
who formed his own body-guard. David had passed
his youth at the Court of England, and had married the
daughter of the Earl of Northumberland and the widow
of the Norman Earl of Northampton. He had ruled the
provinces south of the Firths as earl for seventeen years
before he became king, and his whole training and lean-
ings were Norman. He endeavoured to effect the work
of concentration by the introduction of a powerful Nor-
man baronage into the kingdom, and the establishment
of branches of the most influential of the monastic orders.
His reign is the true commencement of feudal Scotland.
Prior to his accession, the various Celtic branches of the
population north of the Firths properly represented the
kingdom, and were under the rule of a line of princes
who, descended from the Saxon royal family in the female
line, had been maintained on the throne by Saxon sup-
port, and seem to have considered themselves as to all
intents and purposes Saxon kings ; but David ruled as a
feudal monarch, and based his power on the feudal
vassals of the Crown. The Celtic element became one
to be controlled and kept down, and any attempt to
vindicate ancient Celtic rights and privileges, to be
suppressed, as rebellion against the Crown.
The great power and force of character of David
liv HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
appears to have controlled these discordant elements in
the population of his kingdom and materially advanced
the work of their amalgamation, when the sudden death
of his only son, Prince Henry, leaving three sons under
age, threatened its stability. David foresaw that the
succession to the throne would again lead to a collision
between the Celtic and Teutonic branches of the people,
and to a renewed conflict between their laws of succes-
sion. The sons of Malcolm Canmore had succeeded each
other in strict accordance with both laws. The Teutonic
population appear not to have recognised any right to
the throne in the family of Duncan the eldest son,
though unquestionably legitimate, in competition with
the sons of the Saxon Princess Margaret, and the Celtic
law preferred brothers to sons ; but the succession of a
grandson to a grandfather was repugnant to the Celtic
notions, as long as an elder branch of the royal family
could be resorted to. The essence of their law was the
preference of every male member of the older generation
before any of the next generation could be called to the
succession. In order to strengthen the position of his
grandson, Malcolm, the eldest son of Prince Hemy,
David prevailed upon the Earl of Fife, whose functions
and privileges in connexion with the election and coro-
nation of the kings were derived from the older Celtic
constitution, and from his position at the head of the
seven Earls of Scotland, to make a progress with Malcolm
through the kingdom and to obtain his recognition by all
classes, as heir to the throne. David, however, died in
the following year, and his forebodings were realized,
for Malcolm, who was probably supported by the
HISTORICAL INTEODUCTION. Iv
southern districts, had to encounter the opposition of
the entire Gaelic population of the country. He had no
sooner been crowned at Scone, in 1153, than Somerled,
the Celtic lord of the extensive province of Ergadia, along
with his nephews, who claimed to be descendants of
Angus Earl of Moray, invaded the kingdom. In 1160
he was besieged in Perth by the Earl of Stratherne and
five other earls, no doubt six of the seven Earls of
Scotland, the seventh, the Earl ofjife, being committed
to his-^ause, and, in the same year, Galloway, under its
Celtic lord, Fergus of Galloway, rose against him.
Malcolm has always been regarded as a weak prince, and
his reign productive of no great events, but certain it is
that he succeeded in overcoming this great opposition,
and in more effectually reducing his Gaehc subjects to
submission, than any king before or after him. He took
Donald, the son of Malcolm Macbeth, the claimant to
the Earldom of Moray, prisoner m the year 1156. He
made peace with Somerled in 1157, and, by releasing
Malcolm Macbeth, the father of his nephews, from prison,
and bestowing upon him the Earldom of Ross, he
neutralized the claims of his family. He defeated the
attempt of the six earls who besieged him in 1160, and,
in the same year, he thrice invaded Galloway, com-
pletely subdued it, and compelled its lord to take the
monastic habit and retire to Holyrood. In the next
year, following the policy of his grandfather, he deprived
a part of the inhabitants of Moray of their lands, and
bestowed them upon Norman barons ; and finally, in the
last year of his twelve years' reign, Somerled was slain
in an attempt to invade his kingdom.
Ivi HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
Malcolm was succeeded in 1165 by his brother
William the Lion, and, in that year, the first of the
later chronicles makes its appearance, but in a very
diflferent shape from the earlier historical documents.
In this chronicle^ the long list of Pictish kings is not
to be found. The title of the chronicle is ** Cronica
regum Scottorum ccc et iiij annorum." It commences
with Fergus son of Ere, and adds that he was the first
of his race who reigned in Scotland from Drumalban to
the Irish Sea ; then follow the kings who succeeded him,
down to Alpin son of Eochadh. The kings, however,
who reigned over Dalriada from Alpin in the early
part of the eighth century to Kenneth mac Alpin in
the middle of the ninth, during wKich time it appears to
have been a Pictish province, and governed to some
extent at least by Pictish princes, disappear ; the history
of that century is suppressed; and the earlier kings,
from Fergus mac Ere to Alpin mac Eachach, are ex-
tended, by the introduction, in the latter part, of five
fictitious kings between Aincellach and Selvach to make
up the additional time added to the true date of Alpin,
and he is brought down and made the immediate prede-
cessor of Kenneth mac Alpin, thus identifying him with
the father of Kenneth. The effect of these alterations is
to present a continuous Scottish kingdom, with a succes-
sion of kings of the Scottish race, from Fergus mac Ere
to Malcolm the Second, but the fictitious character of this
alteration is apparent from the compiler having inad-
vertently preserved Kennetli mac Alpin's designation of
*' primus rex Scotorum/' In this chronicle appears for
* Chrm, Picta and ScotSt No. xvi. p. 130.
HISTOEICAL INTRODUCTION. Ivii
the first time a long Celtic pedigree of the kings of Scot-
land, deducing the descent of William the Lion from
Gaidhil GlaSy-tlieLg^w^3/?7ii^5 of the Gaelic race, through a
long line of mythic Irish kings, and probably equally
imaginary kings of Irish Dalriada, down to Fergus mac
Ere, the part of the genealogy representing the kings of
Scotch Dalriada being in strict accordance with the recon-
structed chronicle. At the same time that this chronicle
was given forth, there also appeared a legend of the
foundation of St. Andrews, in which that event, which
really took place in the suppressed century of Dalriadic
history, viz., the latter half of the eighth and first half of
the ninth, is put back and synchronized with the removal
of the relics of St. Andrew from Patras to Constantinople
in the fourth century. The object of all this manipulation
was probably to present William to the Gaelic popula-
tion, as the heir of a long line of Scottish ancestors, and
to enhance the claims of St. Andrews, as the ecclesiastical
church, by whose Bishop he was crowned ; and, as this
long genealogy first appears in the year of his accession,
it is not impossible that the ceremony was first intro-
duced at his coronation which Fordun describes at the
coronation of Alexander iii., when a Highland sennachy
recites this Celtic genealogy before the king, when placed
upon the Coronation Stone at Scone, on which so many
of his Scottish ancestors had been crowned.
William the Lion had not reigned nine years when
events occurred which introduced a new and important
element into the political history of Scotland, and
materially influenced the form of its chronicles. In
1173, William took the part of the young Prince Henry
y
Iviii HISTOEICAL INTRODUCTION.
against his father, Henry the Second, king of England,
and invaded England. In 1174 he repeated the in-
vasion, entered Northumberland at the head of a select
body of troops, and was taken prisoner near Alnwick,
and the Scots purchased his liberty by surrendering
the independence of the kingdom. With the consent of
the Scottish barons and clergy, William became the
liegeman of Henry for Scotland and all his other terri-
tories ; and, in the following year, he, w^ith his clergy
and barons, did homage to Henry at York. In 1189,
Kichard i., the successor of Henry, restored to Scotland
its independence for pa5rment of a sum of ten thousand
merks.
The question regarding the independence of Scotland,
and the supremacy of England, had hitherto been merely
a speculative one. If the English chronicles contained
entries to the eflfect that the king of Scots did homage to
the English king, the Scots maintained that the homage
applied only to the districts south of the Forth, derived
originally from the English monarchs, and in no way
concerned the more ancient kingdom of Scotland proper.
There had been as yet no serious controversy between
the two countries on the subject, and, if the discussion
which took place in the reign of Alexander i. with the
English Archbishops, as to the independence of the
Church of St. Andrews, indirectly involved that of the
kingdom also — for Alexander did not possess Lothian and
Cumbria, and there could have been no question about
them, — ^the Scottish king stoutly asserted and practically
maintained the independence of his kingdom. There
had been as yet, in fact, no reality in the question, and
HISTOllICAL INTRODUCTION. lix
the Scottish kings, whether as regards Scotland proper,
or the districts south of the Firths, had acted, to all
intents and purposes, as the monarchs of an independent
kingdom.
Giraldus Cambrensis, a contemporary writer, and who
may be considered as unbiassed on this question, clearly
implies this.
In his tract " De instructione principum," completed
about 1214, he says, *' Having taken William prisoner,
he (Henry ii.) subjected Scotia, and thus adding
nobly to the Anglican crown an unexpected increase,
greatly extended the bounds of his kingdom from
the Southern Ocean to the northern Isles of Orkney,
comprehending the whole island, as it is enclosed by
the ocean, with a powerful hand in one monarchy.
Because, from the time when the Picts and Scots first
occupied the northern parts of the island, it is not
recorded in any authentic writing that this was done
by any one after the time of Claudius Caesar, who not
only added Scotia to the Britannic kingdom, but also
the Orkney Isles to the Roman empire. But such, alas,
and so great an honour, sold by his immediate successor
by a vile commerce and irreparable loss, vanished from
the Anglican Crown, and thus, for a passing price, was
extinguished a perpetual and invaluable lustre.'' ^
Giraldus's statement, that no act of homage had as
1 Scotiam quoque, capto Rege Willelmo, subpeditavit (Henricus secundus)
et Anglicanse coronas tarn nobile prseter solitum adjiciens incrementum, regni
metas et terminos, a meridionali viz. oceano usque ad boreales Orcadum
insulas egregie dilatavit; totam insulam Britannise, sicut oceano clauditur, in
unam potenti manu concludens monarchiam. Quod a tempore quo Picti et
Scoti boreales insulse partes primum occupauerunt, in nullo legitur autbentico
scripto, post tempora Claudii Ca-'saris, qui non solum Scotiam regno Britan-
Ix HISTORICAL INTKODUCTION.
yet been recorded in any authentic writing, is remark-
able, and goes far to invalidate the passages to that
effect now found in English Chronicles and historians,
and his belief evidently was that the subjection of Scot-
land to Henry the Second was the first time in which
any king of England really possessed any supremacy
over Scotland.
The surrender of the independence of Scotland, and
its recovery, naturally led to a serious controversy
between the two countries, with its usual results of the
manipulation of chronicles, and falsification of records
on both sides ; and we find that shortly before the
restoration of the independence of Scotland, the chronicles
assume a new form adapted to meet that question.
A chronicle, which appears to have been issued in
1187, has been preserved, unfortunately in a very inac-
curate transcript so far as proper names are concerned,
but sufficiently distinct for our purpose, especially when
compared with the subsequent chronicles of the same
type. In this chronicle,^ which is the second of the later
chronicles, the kings of Dalriada, from Fergus mac Ere
to Alpin, according to the altered form in which they are
found in the chronicle of 1165, are placed before the long
line of Pictish kings, so as to give them a remote an-
tiquity ; and this kingdom of the Scots is said to have
commenced 443 years before the Incarnation. After
Alpin, the last of these kings, we have the expres-
nico, Bed et insulas Orcadnm Romano quoque adjecit imperio, a quoquam
factum f uisse. Sed tantus, prok dolor ! et tarn maguificus honor ab Angli-
canA corona per successorem proximum, vili commorcio et irreparabili damno
▼enandatoi evaouit, et pro pretio prasteron nte perpetuum et impretiabile
decus exspiravit — Dist. ii. cap. 1.
» Chroiu Pictt and ScotSt No. xxiii. p. 148.
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. Ixi
sion " et tunc translatum est regnum Scotorum in regnum
Pictorum/' We then have the list of Pictish kings, be-
ginning, " Cruchine filius Kyan clemens judex accepit
monarchiam in regno Pictorum ;" but this list has not
either escaped manipulation. It in the main agrees
with the Pictish Chronicle down to Nectan, son of
Derili, whose reign terminates in 724. But, just where
the connexion between the Pictish kings and the
Scottish kingdom of Dalriada commenced, we find it
disguised by artificial alterations. The names of Drust,
and Alpin, the Dabiadic king who succeeded him, dis-
appear. The first part of the reign of Angus mac
Fergus, during which the conquest of Dalriada takes
place, is likewise eliminated, and the last sixteen years
of his reign only given, and the interval is filled up by
an imaginary Garnard, son of Ferath, who reigns twenty-
four years. ^ The subsequent reigns likewise undergo
alteration, and three additional kings are added, the last
of whom is " Drust filius Ferat." Of him it is said,
" Iste occisus est apud Fortheviot, secundum quosdem
Sconam, a Scottis f and he is followed by *'Kynat mac
Alpin," who reigns " super Scottos, destructis Pictis."
The object of thus throwing back the kings of Dal-
riada to a period before the commencement of the
Pictish monarchy was evidently to oppose to the English
claims, founded upon the early traditions of Britain as
^ This will appear from the following comparison : —
Pxctisli Chronicle. Later Chronicles.
Necton filius Dereli, . xv Nectan filius Dergard, . xviii
Drest,
-p, , . , .. . . V Garnard filius Ferath, , xxiiii
Elphm, \ '
Onuist filius Urguist, . xxx Onegussa filius Fergusa, . xvi
Ixii HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
one monarcliy, an ancient Scottish kingdom, as tlie origin
of the Scottish monarchy, and by thus clinging fast to
their Scottish descent, which einerged from Ireland, to
fall back upon an early independence. It was necessary,
however, to connect Kenneth and his Scots with these
early Scots, from whose kings he is in this Chronicle
separated by the entire duration of the Pictish monarchy,
and this was done by adding to the account of his reign
the statement, " Hie mira caUiditate duxit Scotos de
Ergadia in terra Pictorum/' The statement that Ken-
neth was not only of Scottish descent, but that he led
the Scots out of Argyle, and established them, after
destroying the Picts, in the kingdom of the Picts, appears
in this Chronicle for the first time, and is perhaps little
less bold than a statement likewise inserted in it
for the first time, in the reign of Grig, the fourth
successor of Kenneth : " Hie subjugavit sibi totam Hi-
berniam et fere totam Angliam." If this statement
were true, it certainly disposes very summarily of any
question of the subjection of Scotland to England.
The surrender by the English monarch of the rights
which had been extorted from the Scotch by the cap-
ture of their king, two years after the appearance of this
Chronicle, threw the question again into abeyanca
Fordun records the important fact that, at the corona-
tion of Alexander ii., the successor of William, the seven
Earls of Scotland appear as a body to have taken a part ;
but, if any Chronicle was then compiled, it has not been
preserved. At the coronation of Alexander in. however,
of which he gives a more elaborate account than of any
other, and his narrative of which is very graphic, he
HISTORICAL INTKODUCTION. Ixiii
tells us that, when Alexander was placed on the corona-
tion stone, consecrated king, and received the homage of
the earls and other nobles, ** a certain Scotch moun-
taineer, suddenly kneeling before the throne with bent
head, saluted the king in his mother tongue, in these
Scottish words : Benach de Ee Alban Alexander mac
Alexander mac William mac Henri mac David, and thus,
repeating the genealogy of the Scottish kings, rehearsed
them to the end/'^ In the earliest compilation of his
work, Fordun does not insert the genealogy itself, but
merely says that it was deduced from Scota, daughter
of Pharaoh, King of Egypt, from whom the Scots derived
their origin ; but, in the subsequent editions of this part
of his work, the genealogy is inserted as far as Fergus,
son of Feredach, who he says is by others called Fere-
chere, and he tells us (in B. v. cap. 50) that he obtained
this genealogy from Walter de Wardlaw, Bishop of
Glasgow.
The genealogy, however, is precisely the same as
that which appeared for the first time at the accession
of William the Lion ; and, as on that occasion, a chro-
nicle of the kings of Scotland appears about the same
time. This is the Chronicle which was preserved in the
Eegister of the Priory of St. Andrews, and is the third
of the later chronicles.^ The form of this Chronicle
differs from that of the Chronicle which appeared at the
accession of William the Lion, but resembles in every
respect the Chronicle which appeared in 1187, and is
in close accordance with it. The two Chronicles are in
fact the same, and we have likewise the latter only in
1 Annals, xlviii. ^ CJiron. Pkts and Scots, No. xxix, p. 171.
Ixiv HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
a later transcript, with a very inaccurate rendering of
the proper names. A comparison of the two, however,
enables us to restore this form of the Chronicle with
sufficient accuracy. The form of this and the preceding
Chronicle is, however, quite inconsistent with the genea-
logy which was framed in accordance with the form of
the Chronicle of 1165. That Chronicle makes the Dal-
riadic kings from Fergus, son of Ere, to Alpin the imme-
diate and direct predecessors of Kenneth mac Alpin, and
the genealogy in accordance with it, takes the pedigree
up to Kenneth, and then through Alpin to Fergus
mac Ere. But the Chronicle of 1187 and that of St.
Andrews, which is in similar form, remove the Dalri-
adic kings from Fergus to Alpin to a remote period
before the commencement of the Pictish monarchy, and
again dissever them from Kenneth.
This inconsistency seems to have become apparent to the
framers of these chronicles, for the next chronicle which
appeared, the chronicle introduced into the Scalachro-
nica/ which is the fourth of the later chronicles, and
appears to have been originally compiled in the year
1280, two years after Alexander iii. had for the second
time done homage to the English king, has some
important variations. The Dalriadic kings are here
also made to precede the line of Pictish kings, but the
name of the first of these is changed from Fergus son of
Ere to ** Fergus son of Ferthair of Ireland, descended
from Scota.*' This is obviously an attempt to adapt
this form of the chronicle to the genealogy. Fergus
mac Ere appears in the genealogy twelve generations
* Chran. Picts and Seots^ No. xxil p. 194.
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. Ixv
before Kennetli mac Alpin, but in the same genealogy,
thirty-five generations higher up is a "Forgo son of
Feradaig," and in some copies now lost the names seem
to have been " Fergus son of Ferethar." This name
accords better in point of time with the commencement
of the line of the Dalriadic kings when removed to this
remote position, and thus, in this chronicle, Fergus son of
Ere becomes Fergus son of Ferethar. His successors are
the same down to Alpin with this exception, that only
two of the five interjected kings are given. After Alpin,
instead of the " Tunc translatum est regnum Scotorum
in regnum Pictorum,'^ it is said, " He was the last of
the Scots who at that time reigned immediately before
the Picts." Then follows an account of the origin of the
Picts taken apparently from Geofiroy of Monmouth, and
a list of the Pictish kings, which in the main agrees with
the Chronicle of 1187, and that of St. Andrews, but with
the same suppression of the reigns of Drust and Alpin
and fourteen years of the reign of Angus mac Fergus,
and the introduction of a fictitious Garnard, son of
Feradach. After the last king, Drust son of Feradach,
is the statement, " He was the last king of the Picts and
was killed at Scone by treason." He is not however
immediately followed by Kenneth mac Alpin, as in the
two previous chronicles. Another difficulty seems also
to have become apparent, viz., how to connect Kenneth
and his Scots with the previous Scottish kingdom
when removed to so remote a period; and, in order
to remove this difficulty, the framer of this chronicle
introduces here another colony of Scots from Ireland who,
under Kedda the son of a king of Ireland, colonize Gal-
voL. II. e
Ixvi HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
loway, and spread from thence to Argyle and the Isles,
and then conquer the Picts, and thus the chronicler
adds, "the kingdom of the Scots recommenced, which
had commenced before the Picts, 443 years before the in-
carnation." Then follows the statement : " The Picts
destroyed in this manner, Kynet son of Alpin reigned
over the Scots and was the first king of the Scots after
the Picts/' There is no equivalent statement to that
in the previous chronicles : " Hie mira calliditate duxit
Scotos de Ergadia in terram Pictorum," but, in place of
it, after stating, as in the other chronicles, that Kenneth
was buried in lona, where Fergus, Loern, and Angus were
buried, this chronicle adds, '* three brothers who brought
the Scots into Archady (Argyle) upon the Picts." The
statement that Grig " subjected to his government all
Ireland and a great part of England " is repeated in this
chronicle.
The death of Alexander in. without male issue and
that of his grand-daughter, the Maid of Norway, the
heiress of the crown, terminated this line of kings, and, as
is weU known, led to a competition for the crown and
the revival of the English claims. In the course of the
steps which Edward i. took to bring the kingdom of
Scotland under subjection to him, he produced in 1290
a vast body of Extracts from Chronicles collected from
the monasteries in England, including the very impor-
tant Chronicle of Huntingdon. In these extracts every
instance in which a Scottish king did homage to the king
of England is quoted; and, in 1301, a discussion took
place at Rome before the Pope, in which it was assumed
on the English side that these acts of homage were for
HISTOEICAL INTRODUCTION. Ixvii
the whole kingdom, while the argument on the Scottish
side is contained in two documents which Fordun has
preserved, viz., the " Instructiones '' sent b^the Scottish
Government to their Commissioners in Eome, and the
"'Processus contra figmenta regis Anghae,"' by Baldred
Bisset, one of their Commissioners. The Pope again inter-
posed in 1317, but this was after the battle of Bannock-
burn had been fought, and Eobert Bruce had firmly estab-
lished himself as independent king of Scotland. The
Pope's interposition was on behalf of England, but he was
met by an assertion of the independence of Scotland. At
the same time, another chronicle makes its appearance,
and, in this chronicle, which is the fifth of the later
chronicles, the form is again altered and a difierent
attempt made to reconcile the conflicting statements
between the chronicles in their later form and the
genealogy.
This chronicle^ places the list of the Pictish kings
from " Gruchne filius Kenne " to Drust son of Ferach
first, but, with the three previous chronicles, contains the
alteration by which the reigns of Drust and Alpin, and
part of that of Angus son of Fergus, are suppressed,
and the fictitious Garnard son of Ferath, with a reign of
twenty-four years, substituted. Then follows ''Summa
annorum quibus regnaverunt ante Scotos mille ducenti
et xxxix anni et iiii menses/' Then follow the kings
of Dalriada with this title '' Summa regum Ixv." These
kings begin with " Fergus filius Here,'' and go down to
"Alpin filius Heochet." They contain the five kings
interjected between Ainbhcellach and Selvach. After
^ Chron. Picts and Scots, No. xxxvi. p. 285.
Ixviii HISTOEICAL INTRODUCTION.
Alpin comes the sentence, "Et tunc translatnm est
regnum Scotorum ad terram Pictorum/' wliich betrays
the artificial character of the difierences in this chronicle ;
for this passage, appropriate when the Dalriadic kings
were placed before the Pictish kingdom, is no longer so
when they come after, and are followed immediately by
the Scottish kingdom founded by Kenneth mac Alpin.
We have then this sentence, " Summa annorum a tem-
pore Fergus filius Here ad tempus Alpin ccc et vii
anni et tres menses,'' and then follows " Kenneth filius
Alpin " and his successors down to the death of Alex-
ander III. After Kenneth we have the sentence, *' Hie
mira calliditate duxit Scotos de Ergadia in terram
Pictorum," and, in place of the broad assertion that his
fourth successor. Grig, conquered all Ireland and nearly
all England, we find the sentence thus expressed : " Hie
subjugavit sibi totam Berniciam et fere Angliam," and
the chronicle concludes with this sentence, " Summa
annorum a tempore Kinet usque ad tempus Alexandri
ultimi Dlxvii. et siluit terra sine rege tot annis quot
intervenerunt."
This chronicle corresponds closely with the chronicles
of 1187 and of St. Andrews in the lists of the kings,
but alters their relative position, by bringing back the
Dalriadic kings to the period in which they were placed
by the chronicle of 1165 ; but the 'alteration is not a
genuine one, as appears from the chronicle itself, and the
change of Hibernia to Bernicia rather indicates the
influence which dictated it, as proceeding from the Gaelic
part of the population.
Tlic appearance of this chronicle was followed three
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. Ixix
years after by tlie celebrated letter of the Barons of
Scotland to tbe Pope in 1320, vindicating the indepen-
dence of Scotland. In tbis letter the statement is made
that the kingdom of Scotland " bad been governed by
an uninterrupted succession of one hundred and thirteen
kings, all of our own native and royal stock, without the
intervening of any stranger,"^ and that the Scots were
converted to Christianity by St. Andrew the Apostle,
the introduction of whose relics, according to the tract
which appeared in 1165, had been removed back to the
fourth century. As the number of kings who reigned
in Scotland during what may be termed the historical
period, from Kenneth mac Alpin to Eobert Bruce, in
whose reign this letter was written, did not exceed, under
any computation, thirty, this leaves upwards of eighty
kings to be accounted for. It is obvious, therefore, that
this computation is founded upon the genealogy and not
upon any list of kings, and assumes that to a remote
period, even beyond the era of Forgo or Fergus son of
Feradaig, who is only forty-five generations removed from
Kenneth mac Alpin, these names represented ancient kings
of Scotland, an assumption that gave a latitude for such
statements, of which the barons availed themselves with-
out much moderation.
Seven years after this, in the year 1327, peace was
finally concluded between England and Scotland, and
the English kiug, by a formal instrument ratified by the
English Parliament, renounced all claim of superiority
over Scotland, and declared " that the said kingdom,
1 In qTiorum regno centum et tresdecem reges de ipsorum regali prosapia,
nullo alienigena interveniente, regnaverunt. — Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 292,
IXX HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
according to its ancient boundaries observed in the days
of Alexander in., should remain unto Robert king of
Scots, and unto his heirs and successors, free and divided
from the kingdom of England without any subjection,
right of service, claim, or demand whatever ; and that all
writings which might have been executed at any time to
the contrary, should be held as void and of no eflfect."
This practically and to all real intents and purposes
terminated the great controversy between the two coun-
tries, and the question involved in it passed from the
field of political discussion into the domain of historical
speculation, and became more a subject of theoretical
inquiry, though still one of national interest, in which
national feeling was keenly involved though the inde-
pendence of the kingdom no longer depended on it.
The chronicles then which appeared from the acces-
sion of William the Lion in 1165 to this event in 1327,
viz., the Chronicles of 1 1 6 5, and of 1 1 8 7, the Chronicle of
St. Andrews, that contained in the Scalachronica and the
Chronicle of 1317, form the second group of historical
documents, and the sketch which has just been given
of them and of the various changes they underwent
during the 160 years which elapsed from the one event
to the other, and the influences which gave rise to these
changes, will show how little they are to be depended upon
in attempting a reconstruction of the early history of
Scotland. They may possibly contain, in their state-
ments, a germ of historic truth. So far as they preserve
the lists contained in the older documents, they may be
trustworthy, but the connexion in which they are re-
corded is quite artificial, and they have been constmcted
HISTOEICAL INTKODUCTION. Ixxi
in order to present tlie early history of the country in a
false aspect.-^
Upon these chronicles, however, the early history
of Scotland has been based by all the more recent
historians of Scotland who have entered upon that
portion of the history at all, from the ponderous
Caledonia of George Chalmers down to the latest
history of Scotland. The only historian who has esti-
mated correctly the value and superior claims of the
earlier documents, and saw somewhat of their true
bearing upon the early history, was John Pinkerton, but
they were to a very limited extent accessible to him. He
obtained a correct copy of the Pictish Chronicle, but the
Synchronisms of Flann Mainistrech were unknown to
him. Of the Irish additions to Nennius, he had an im-
perfect and incorrect extract, and their meaning was
perverted by a bad translation. The Albanic Duan he
possessed, but unfortunately he altered the order of the
stanzas, and the position of the two kings Dungal and
Alpin, and placed the stanza containing them imme-
diately before that in which Kenneth mac Alpin ap-
pears, from an idea that one of the leading differences
between it and the later chronicles arose from a mistake of
the transcriber, — an idea which the Synchronisms of Flann
would have corrected, if he had possessed them, and thus
prevented him from missing the full bearing of the Duan.
The great work of Doctor O'Connor, containing the
Annals of Tighernach, Inisfallen, Ulster, and the Four
Masters, had not been published, and he only knew
1 The table in the notes, p. 403, will show the two groups of Chronicles
contrasted, so far as the kings of Dalriada are concerned.
Ixxii HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
wliat the Annals of Tighernac contained tlirougli an
inaccurate transcript of the Annals of Ulster which
usually repeat his statements, in the British Museum, and
a translation published by Johnstone in his " Antiqui-
tates Celto-Normanicae." Still it is remarkable how near
to the truth he came, and his conclusions would probably
have met with more general acceptance had he not
identijfied himself so thoroughly with a theory of early
Teutonic settlements, and of the Teutonic origin of the
early population, and displayed so unreasoning a pre-
judice against everything Celtic, that the calmer and
more elaborate production of George Chalmers, with its
quiet adoption of the later chronicles as the basis of the
history, has recommended itself more to the general
reader, and more greatly influenced the views of later
historians. These later chronicles, with the genealogy
which first appeared in 1165, formed part of the
materials which Fordun endeavoured to weld into a
consistent narrative, by which the highest antiquity
was to be given to the Scottish nation.
John of Fordun must have been born not long
before or after the commencement of the fourteenth
century. The last of these Chronicles appeared while
he was a young man, and he was probably already in
priest's orders, when the claims of England to a superio-
rity over Scotland were finally surrendered in 1327.
The circumstances which led him to devote himself
to the work of compiling a histiory of his native country,
we are not sufficiently acquainted with his life to be
able to guess, but the Church of St. Andrews had
always been associated with the production and preserva-
HISTOKICAL INTRODUCTION. Ixxiii
tion of these early historical documents, and his name
indicates his connexion with that diocese. The great
Eegister of the Priory of St. Andrews had been compiled
between 1313 and 1332, and contained documents con-
nected with the early annals of Scotland, as well as a
" Historia ^' which may have attracted his attention, and
the work of Eanulph Higden, which appeared at inter-
vals from 1327 to his death in 1363, and gave to the
world a general history of England which acquired at
once great popularity, may have led him to plan a
similar work, and to do for Scotland what Higden had
done for England.
But he did not at once attempt so great and
laborious a work as to compile a complete and systematic
history of the country from the earliest period. The
object he seems first to have proposed to himself was a
history of the descendants of the Saxon princess Mar-
garet, who by her marriage with Malcolm Canmore had
brought into the Scottish Eoyal line the representation
of the ancient Saxon monarchs. This work was based
upon Ailred's " Genealogia regum," which Fordun seems
at first to have attributed to Turgot, and contained
copious extracts from that work, to which is added the
events of the reigns of Margaret's sons to the death of
David L, and this was followed by Annals of Scotland
from the accession of Malcolm iv. to the year 1363, in
which it appears to have been compiled — curiously
enough both the year in which Higden died, and a,t
which the contemporary work called the " Scalachronica "
terminates. He then seems to have enlarged his plan so
as to make it form a complete history of Scotland from
Ixxiv HISTOKICAL INTEODUCTION.
the accession of Malcolm Canmore,and to have thrown the
earlier part prior to the death of David i. into the form in
which it now appears in the fifth book, and this he
termed " Chronica regni Scotiae ; '' and finally, he seems
to have resolved to compile a complete history of Scot-
land from the earliest times, and to have taken as his
model Higden's Polychronicon which had now become
very widely knowm. For this purpose, he had to com-
mence by an extensive research into the materials
available for such a work, and research in those days
meant visiting all the monasteries and other repositories
of manuscripts, and laboriously collecting local materials
from place to place. Nearly twenty years appear to have
been spent in this work, and then John of Fordun com-
piled the first four books, added three chapters to the
fifth book, and would probably have elaborated the
Annals into two more books, thus throwing the whole
into seven books in imitation of Higden, when he
seems to have been arrested in his work by death,
in the year 1385, leaving his materials in the shape
in which they now appear in the first volume of this
edition.
In constructing his scheme of the early history of
Scotland, Fordun has evidently taken for its basis the
genealogy deducing the kings of Scotland tln-ough
a long line of Celtic ancestors from Gaedil Glass, whom
he calls Gaythelos, the eponymits of the Gaelic race, which
first appeared at the accession of William the Lion and
again at the coronation of Alexander iii. To this, as a
connecting link, he adapts the later chronicles which
appeared from time to time in their various forms — the
earlier and more authentic documents he either was
HISTOEICAL INTKODUCTION. Ixxv
ignorant of or ignored — and endeavours to form one
uniform scheme out of them ; and he harmonizes this
scheme with such notices as he can adapt to his purpose
from the Eoman writers, and such authors as Giraldus
Cambrensis, Geoffrey of Monmouth, and others. In
doing so, he uses to a considerable extent the same class
of writers and the same kind of materials, as were
employed by Higden in his Polychronicon, and very
much in the same manner. And wherever he finds the
word Scotia in these writers, he applies it to Scotland,
and thus adopts into his history events which properly
belong to Ireland, while by this process he materially
aids his scheme of an early settlement of Scots in this
country.
It is only when we follow in detail the manner in
which he has worked out this plan that we see the great
skill with which it has been done, considering the limited
extent of real information he possessed, and the scanty
materials at his disposal.
Beginning with Gaedil Glass, or Gaythelos, the epony-
mus of the race, and Scota their female ancestor, by
which the country in which they settled is usually
typified, he connects the names in the genealogy with
a fictitious narrative of the emigration of the race from
Egypt to Spain, and thence to Ireland, based to some
extent upon the Irish traditions, but differing in several
leading particulars from them. He then brings the Scots
over from Ireland to Scotland under a leader, Ethachius
Rothay, whom he finds in the genealogy several genera-
tions before Forgo or Fergus son of Feradaig — the resem-
blance of the name of Rothay to that of Rothesay in the
island of Bute having apparently suggested it. His object
Ixxvi HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
was of course to give the Scots as early a settlement in
Scotland as he could. He adopts the statement of the
Chronicle in the Scalachronica, that the first king of the
Scots who preceded the Picts was Fergus son of Ferehard,
whom he identifies with this Forgo son of Feradaig in the
genealogy ; but, instead of giving him, as his successors,
the Dalriadic kings of the sixth and seventh centuries
according to that chronicle, he merely states generally
that he was succeeded by forty-five kings, but he
refrains from giving their names or the events of their
reigns, except in two instances. Finding in the genea-
logy three generations below Forgo, the name Eether,
he identifies him with the Eeuda of Bede, who states
that the Dalriads came over from Ireland to Scotland
under him, and places a second colony of Scots from
Ireland under Eether. He then, under a supposed king
Eugenius, brings this colony to an end at a time
when he finds it stated that Maximus the Eoman em-
peror had defeated the Picts and Scots ; states that
Maximus slew Eugenius, and expelled the Scots from
Britain, under his brother Ethodius; and takes them
over to Ireland in order that he may bring them back
under Fergus mac Ere forty-three years afterwards.
Fordun thus harmonizes that form of the Chronicle
which places an early settlement of the Scots before the
Christian era with the other forms of it which retain
the foundation of the Dalriadic colony at its true period
in the sixth century. He solves the difficulty by sup-
posing two colonies, one at an early date under Fergus
son of Ferehard which, after lasting till the fourth century,
under a series of kings with two exceptions unnamed,
comes to an end ; and a second under Fergus son of Ere,
HISTORICAL INTEODUCTION. Ixxvii
followed by the line of Dalriadic kings contained in the
Chronicles in both forms. The attempt, however, to con-
nect the termination of the first colony with Maximus
the Eoman emperor obliges him to antedate the second
colony about one hundred years, otherwise he would have
left too long an interval between the two.
In the history of the second colony, he follows closely
the order of the kings as given in these chronicles, inter-
polating in the early part a few fictitious kings in order
to obtain the additional hundred years he had added to
its commencement; much in the same manner, and with
as easy a conscience, as the compiler of the first of these
chronicles, that which appeared at the accession of
William the Lion, had interpolated five kings towards
the end of the list, in order to obtain the additional time
necessary to bring Alpin down, so as to synchronize with
the father of Kenneth. Fordun thus suppresses, as the
chronicles had done before him, the period of time, ex-
tending to a century, between Alpin and Kenneth, in
which the Pictish king Angus mac Fergus had conquered
Dalriada, and subjected it to his kingdom ; but it is
remarkable enough that Fordun transfers some of the
events which took place in this period to the fictitious
interval which he has placed in the fourth century, between
the first colony and the second. We there find also a
Hurgust, son of Forgso or Fergus, who founds St.
Andrews ; but feeling the incongruity of taking back a
war between him and an Athelstane king of the Saxons
to so early a period, he divides the narrative given in the
Legend of St. Andrew into two, and relegates the latter
part to the ninth century.
Fordun has also constructed the personal history of
Ixxviii HISTORICAL INTEODUCTION.
Kenneth mac Alpin, and the supposed revolution which
placed him on the Pictish throne, with great skill, by-
weaving together the very valuable narrative in the
Chronicle of Huntingdon with the more questionable
statements in the other chronicles, so as to make a con-
sistent narrative of a conquest of the Picts by the Scots
of Dalriada, under their leader Kenneth, the last of a long
line of kings of the Scots, and the first Scottish monarch
of the whole kingdom, formed by the junction of the
territories of the Scots, which he had inherited, with
those of the Picts, whom he had subdued and destroyed.
It is thus only the early part of Fordun's work which
is tainted with this artificially constructed history. With
the reign of Kenneth mac Alpin the historical period of
Scottish history, in the true sense of the term, may be
said to commence, and he had little motive to pervert
the history of his successors, while that part of his history
which is based upon the work he originally compiled,
extending from the accession of Malcolm Canmore to the
year 1363 when he put it together, and contained in his
fifth book, and in the annals which follow, is one of great
value and authority, and must form the basis of any
continuous narrative of the history of that period.
With these few remarks, sufficient to indicate the
character of the later chronicles and other historical
documents, and of the first detailed and systematic
history of Scotland, founded upon them, we shall now
leave John of Fordun to tell his own tale.
WILLIAM F. SKENE.
20 Invrrlkith Row,
Edinburgh, November 27, 1872.
JOHN OF FORDUN'S
CHRONICLE OF
THE SCOTTISH NATION.
tBRAR?"
OF
ALII
JOHN OF FORDUN^S
CHRONICLE OF THE SCOTTISH NATION,
BOOK I.
CHAPTEK I.
Antiquity of the Origin of the Scots — Their Exfploits — The
Material World : that is to say, the Earth, and its Four
Principal Points, East, West, South, and North.
We gather from various writings of old chroniclers that
the nation of the Scots, one of most ancient descent, sprang
from the Greeks, and from the Egyptians who survived the
overthrow of their fellow-countrymen and king in the Eed
Sea. I, therefore, think it fitting to describe the local position
of the countries of Greece and Egypt, where they were fostered,
as well as of the other places they traversed, and of the site of
their modem habitation, so that the reader may more clearly
understand in what part of the globe these are situated, and
their geographical bearings. Almighty God, the Creator and
Euler of all things, willed in his Creation, according to the
philosophers, that the World should be round, and in its mid-
most region He placed the Earth, the mother, nurse, and abode
of all animate, material, and rational things ; separated, as a
central point, from all parts of the heavens by an equal interval.
But the material world, that is, the Earth, is girt in on all sides
by the waters of the boundless sea, called the Ocean, and is en-
croached upon, broken into, and indented, by variously shaped
arms of this sea ; with the moisture of which it is soaked through
hidden passages, lest it should be altogether reduced to dust
through excessive drought. The World, moreover, has four
VOL. 11. A
2 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
principal points or parallels equidistant from eacli other — that
is, East, West, South, and North ; and from these are said to pro-
ceed the four Cardinal Winds, with their eight Collateral Winds.
CHAPTEE II.
The Four Cardinal Winds, with their Eight Collaterals; and the
Summit of the Material World, the Terrestrial Paradise in
the East.
The first point, or cardinal wind, is in the east, where the
sun rises, under the vernal equinox, and is called Subsolanus.
This wind has two collaterals, Vulturnus towards the north,
and Eurus towards the south. The second point, or cardinal
wind, is situated in the west, where the sun sets, under the
autumnal equinox, and is called Favonius ; which also has two
collaterals, namely, Circius towards the north, and Zephyrus
towards the south. The third point, or cardinal wind, is
Auster, and is situated under the antarctic pole of the summer
solstice, where the sun rises highest at mid-day ; it has two
collateral winds, viz., Nothus towards the east, and Africus to-
wards the west. The fourth point, or cardinal wind, is Boreas,
under the arctic pole of the winter solstice, where the sun
descends lowest at midnight ; aind this has likewise two col-
lateral winds, Aquilo towards the west, and Chorus towards the
east. The Earth, or material world, begins in the east, under
the cardinal point Subsolanus, its summit being the terrestrial
paradise, a most delicious place of flowers and trees, redolent
with all sweetness. It is uninhabitable for men, however, on
account of Adam's sin ; but it is accessible to good spirits and
glorified souls. This spot rises so high above the level of the
earth, that the universal Deluge, which far overtopped the peaks
of the mountains, could not reach it.
CHAPTER III.
The Three unequally divided Portions of the World, and the
Inland Sea.
The world, according to Isidore, is divided into three un-
equal parts : Asia, Africa, apd Europe. It is thus said to be
divided, because a very large gulf of the ocean, flowing in from
the westward, or Favonius, and, dividing its north-western from
its southern shore, reaches nearly to the middle of the world,
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK I. 3
and, forming there an angular gulf, directs its course straight
to the ocean northwards, towards the arctic pole, between Asia
and the eastern boundary of Europe. Asia, which is believed
to be one half of the globe, is named after a certain woman, who,
according to Isidore, formerly ruled the East ; stretching from
the north, through the east, as far as the south, it is bounded
on the east by the rising sun, on the south by the ocean, on the
west by the inland sea, and on the north, nearly under the pole,
by the lake Mseotis. Europe is said to be named after Europa,
daughter of Agenor, king of Lybia, whom Jupiter carried off
from Africa and brought to Crete ; and he named one of the
three portions of the earth after her. It begins at this same
lake Mseotis, and stretches through the northern ocean as far
as the west and the sea of Gades, while its eastern and southern
portion, starting from Pontus, is washed along its whole extent
by the Inland Sea, and is terminated at these same straits of
Gades. Africa, the remaining third part of the world, is said
to be opposite Asia and Europe, although it is smaller in extent,
according to Isidore, than either, but richer and of more ad-
mirable quality, in proportion to its size. It is so called from
Afer, one of the descendants of Abraham and Keturah,who is said
to have led an army against Lybia, and, after having vanquished
his enemies, to have settled there, and called his descendants
Africans. It commences at the confines of Asia, in the south,
and stretches through the southern ocean as far as Mount Atlas.
It is bounded on the north by the Inland Sea, and terminates
also at the straits of Gades. And thus Asia by itself occupies
one half of the world, while Europe and Africa occupy the other,
being cut in two by a great sea which flows in between them
from the ocean.
CHAPTEK IV.
Division of the Three PortioTis of the World among the Three Sons
of Noah: Sherriy Ham^ and Japhet — Position of certain
Regions of Asia and Africa,
The sons of Noah shared the world among themselves, after
the Flood, in the following manner : — Shem, with his descend-
ants, took possession of Asia, Japhet, of Europe, and Ham, of
Africa. From them was the whole human race distributed in
nations and kingdoms over the earth. From Shem sprang the
Jews, and the Saracens, or rather Hagarenes ; from Japhet, the
Gentiles, the greater part of whom are the Christians ; and from
4 JOHN OF FORDUN S CHRONICLE
Ham, the Canaanites, who, by the curse of Noah, are doomed
to expulsion from the place of their habitation. These three
portions of the world contain many different regions, the whole
of which I by no means propose to describe, but those only
which seem necessary to the work I have undertaken, or which,
on account of the reverence due to their patron saints, deserve
especial honour ; as, for instance, the holy city of Jerusalem,
and the city of Eome. The first region of Asia, on the east, is,
according to Vincentius, the Terrestrial Paradise ; but it is un-
known to us. Then comes India, under the rising sun. In the
extreme north is Upper Scythia; and, in the extreme south,
Egypt, whence, as old chroniclers have written, the Scots partly
had their origin. Between these countries, that is, Egypt and
Scythia, is situated the district of Jerusalem, where is the site of
the holy city Jerusalem, in which the Son of God, God and Man,
Jesus Christ, Our Lord, suffered for the salvation of all men.
The first region of Africa, on the east, is Cyrenian Lybia, adjoin-
ing the borders of Egypt. On the south is Upper Ethiopia, and
the last land towards the west is Lower Ethiopia. For Ethiopia
is threefold: its western portion being mountainous, beginning at
Mount Atlas ; its middle portion, sandy, and its eastern, a desert.
By the Inland Sea, on the northern coast, is the country of
Zeugis, where Carthage formerly stood, and this is Africa
proper.
CHAPTER V.
Position of certain Regions of Europe : namely, Scythia,
Greece, and the City of Rmne.
I MUST now endeavour to describe certain regions of
Europe, of which Ptolemy, in his Tripertita Nova, speaks as
follows : — Europe comprises, next to Asia, most of the habit-
able earth ; nay, in proportion to its size, it is more populous
than any other part of the earth. The first region of Europe is
Lower Scythia, which begins from the Riphaean mountains and
the lake Mseotis, at the arctic pole, between the Danube and
the northern ocean, and extends as far as Germany. On the
east of it is the Inland Sea, which is there called the Baltic,
from Balth, the place where it flows into the land from the
ocean. From this region, according to some, came forth the
Plots of Albion. Next, on the shores of the Inland Sea, and in
the sea towards the south, are the seven provinces of the
Greeks, wliich were formerly kingdoms, namely, Dalmatia,
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK I. 5
Epirus, Hellas, which is also called Attica (where stood Athens,
the mother of the liberal arts, and the nurse of the philosophers),
Thessaly, Macedon, Achaia, and Crete, in the sea, which was
formerly also called Centopolis; and the islands of the Cyclades,
fifty-three in number, the metropolis of which is Ehodes. On
the Achaian gulf, too, is Arcadia, which is also called Sicyonia.
From one of these countries went forth some turbulent Greeks,
and being intermixed with the Egyptians, formed one people,
that of the Scots, as will appear in the sequel. On the same sea,
likewise, towards the south, on an angular gulf which trends
back northwards, are situated the chief Eoman countries, ad-
joining the sea on either side. These are Italy, Tuscia, Etruria,
Calabria, and Apulia. Nearly in the centre of these countries
is situated the renowned city of Kome, to which the greater
part of the world was formerly subject ; and in which suffered,
and were buried, the glorious Apostles Peter, Christ's Vicar
over the Faithful, and Paul, the teacher of the Gentiles, with
numberless other holy martyrs, confessors, and virgins.
CHAPTEK VI.
The same continued — The greater Islands of Europe :
Albion and Hihernia.
The farthest country of Europe, on the west, is Hispania
(Spain), or rather, the islands of Gades, which are in the ocean,
120 paces distant from the mainland of Spain; on these formerly
Hercules fixed his pillars. There are two Hispanias, a nearer
and a further, comprising the various regions of Legio, Castellum,
Navarre, Arragon, and Portugal, and the provinces of Galicia,
the natives of which, according to Isidore, claim a Greek origin;
and Celtiberia on the river Hyber. The Scots settled in this
country first, for some time. Europe comprises also many large
islands, the largest of which, Albion, lies in the ocean, to the
north-west. Its southern, and larger, part was formerly in-
habited by the Britons, and was called Britannia, but is now
known as England. Its northern portion, in like manner, being
inhabited by Scots from an early period, was called Scotia ;
and it is now, by the help of God, the chief kingdom of the
island. The Scots possess numerous islands, a hundred or
more, which have belonged to them from ancient times, and
beyond the shores thereof no land is found to the north-west,
except, it is said, an island called Thule, at a distance of seven
days' sail from them. A day's sail beyond this, the sea is said to
6 JOHN OF FORDUN's CHRONICLE
be sluggish aud thick. Beyond Britain, also, in the ocean'between
it and the west, is situated the island of Ireland, where the Scots
first fixed their abode. Let this topographical description
suffice for the present, as a preface to my task ; and let us pass
over to the Ages of the world which elapsed before our Lord's
Incarnation, and which must be introduced into this work.
CHAPTER VIL
The Number of Years from the Beginning of the World to the
Birth of Christy divided into Five Ages,
The old fathers divide the years elapsed from the beginning of
the world to the Birth of Christ into five Ages, varying, however,
in their estimate of the duration of each. In the Ages, therefore,
which will be hereafter recorded in this Chronicle, the computa-
tion of years of the old translation, which is held by Holy Church,
will be observed, until He who is the Source and Beginning of
aU goodness. Himself without a beginning, and the end thereof.
Himself without end, through whom this work has been begun,
shall have brought it to an end. Now the first of these Ages,
from the beginning of the world to the Flood, comprises 2242
years ; the second, from the Flood to the birth of Abraham,
942 ; the third, from Abraham to the reign of David, 940 ; the
fourth, from the reign of David to the Babylonish captivity,
485 ; the fifth, from the last removal of the children of Israel
into Babylon to the Incarnation of our Lord, 590. Thus, from
the beginning of the world to the Incarnation, the sum-total is
5199. Whence some one has put it metrically :
" The years of man, from our first father, shall appear.
To Christ, two hundred and five thousand, less one year."
CHAPTER VIIL
The First Occasion of the Origin of the Scots ; and their First
King Gaythelos.
In the third Age, in the days of Moses, a certain king of
one of the countries of Greece, Neolus, or Heolaus, by name,
had a son, beautiful in countenance, but wayward in spirit,
called Gaytlielos, to whom he allowed no authority in the
kingdom. Roused to anger, and backed by a numerous band
of youths, Gaythelos disturbed his father's kingdom by many
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK I. 7
cruel misdeeds, and angered his father and his people by his
insolence. He was, therefore, driven out by force from his
native land, and sailed to Egypt, where, being distinguished by
courage and daring, and being of royal birth, he married Scota,
the daughter of Pharaoh. Another Chronicle says that, in those
days, all Egypt was overrun by the Ethiopians, who, according to
their usual custom, laid waste the country from the mountains
to the town of Mempliis and the Great Sea ; so that Gaythelos,
the son of Neolus, one of Pharaoh's allies, was sent to his as-
sistance with a large army ; and the king gave him his only
daughter in marriage, to seal the compact. It is written in
The Legend of St. Brandan that a certain warrior, to whom
the chiefs of his nation had assigned the sovereignty, reigned
over Athens in Greece ; and that his son, Gaythelos by name,
married the daughter of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, Scota, from
whom also the Scots derived their name. And he, that is,
Gaythelos, who was conspicuous for strength and boldness,
exasperated his father, and every one, by his waywardness, and,
departing on account of the failure of his cause, rather than of
his own accord, retired into Egypt, supported by a spirited
band of youths. Another Chronicle, again, says : — But a certain
Gaythelos, the grandson, it is said, of Nembricht, being unwilling
to reign by right of succession, or because the people, assisted
by the neighbouring nations, would not submit to his tyranny,
left his country followed by a great crowd of young men, with
an army. At length, harassed by many wars in various places,
and compelled by want of provisions, he came to Egypt, and,
having joined King Pharaoh, he strove, together with the
Egyptians, to keep the children of Israel in perpetual bondage ;
and he finally married Pharaoh's only daughter, Scota, with the
view of succeeding his father-in-law on the throne of Egypt.
CHAPTER IX.
The successive Kings of Egyjpt, down to Pharaoh, Scota' s Fatlier,
who was drowned in the Bed Sea.
The kingdom of Egypt, originally called Etherea, is, accord-
ing to VincentiuSy the oldest of all kingdoms but that of the
Scythians ; for we read that its rise, as well as that of Scythia,
took place in the time of Ragau, Abraham's great -great-
gTandfather. Thence there has long been a dispute between
the Scythians and Egyptians, as to the antiquity of their re-
spective races. The Scythians, however, seem to be the more
8 JOHN OF FORDUN S CHRONICLE
ancient. This kingdom of Egypt lasted from the time of
Eagau to Octavianus Augustus, not, however, continuously,
but with a few interruptions. Some have it that the first who
reigned over this kingdom was Pharaoh, who, as we read, built
the city of Pharus, and after whom the subsequent kings were
called Pharaohs. After him reigned Zoes. At the time of the
birth of Abraham, the kingdom of Egypt was ruled by powers
which were called dynasties. In the seventeenth dynasty,
then, reigned the Pharaohs, one of whom, by Commestor called
Nephres, promoted Joseph. This Pharaoh, Nephres, died in
the thirteenth year of the administration of Joseph. He was
succeeded by —
The Pharaoh Amosis, who reigned twenty-five years.
The Pharaoh Chebron, thirteen years.
The Pharaoh Amenophis, twenty-one years.
The Pharaoh Mephres, twenty-two years, in whose ninth
year died Joseph.
The Pharaoh Mispharmotosis, twenty-six years.
The Pharaoh Authomosis, nine years.
Ammenophis, thirty-one years, whose daughter Theremuch,
in the twenty-sixth year of his reign, took the infant Moses out
of the water, and adopted him as her son; after which this
Ammenophis reigned five years.
The Pharaoh Horns, thirty-eight years.
The Pharaoh Accentris, twelve years.
The Pharaoh Athorisis, seven years.
The Pharaoh Chencres, eighteen years. He was swallowed
up in the Red Sea, while pursuing the children of Israel. His
daughter was Scota, wife of Gaythelos before mentioned.
CHAPTER X.
The Period at which the Scots had their Origin, and from
whom; and their Outlawry from Egypt.
Three thousand six hundred and eighty-nine years after the
beginning of the world, in the five hundred and fifth year of
the third Age, three hundred and thirty years before the taking
of Troy, seven hundred and sixty years before the building of
Rome, in the year 1510 B.C. (or as others put it —
" One thousand and five hundred years, and seventy, less one,
Before the birth, as I have found, of God's incarnate Son,
Was Pharaoh, following the Jews, in the Red Sea undone ")
the above-mentioned Pharaoh was swallowed up, with his army
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK I. 9
of 600 chariots, 50,000 horse, and 200,000 foot ; while the sur-
vivors, who remained at home, hoping to be released from the
tax of grain formerly introduced by Joseph in the time of
famine, suddenly drove clean out of the kingdom, with his
followers, lest he should usurp dominion over them, the king's
son-in-law Gaythelos Glas, who had refused to pursue the in-
offensive Hebrews. Thus, then, the assembled villagers cruelly
expelled from their midst, by a servile insurrection, all the
nobles of the Greeks, as well as those of the Egyptians, whom
the greedy sea had not swallowed up. We read in another
Chronicle : — After the army was gone, Gaythelos remained be-
hind in the city of Heliopolis, by a plan arranged between him
and King Pharaoh, in case he should have to succeed him in
his kingdom. But the remainder of the Egyptian people, per-
ceiving what befell their king, and, at the same time, being on
their guard lest, once subject to the yoke of a foreign tyranny,
they should not be able to shake it off again, gathered together
their forces, and sent word to Gaythelos that, if he did not
hasten, as much as possible, his departure from the kingdom,
endless mischief would result to him and his without delay.
CHAPTEE XL
Gaythelos is elected King, and sets out for the West.
Now Gaythelos, since he was the king's son-in-law, and the
most noble of all, is set up as king over them by the expelled
nobles of both nations. But, although attended by a numerous
army, he cautiously came to the conclusion that he could not
withstand the hosts of so great a multitude of furious enemies ;
and knowing, also, that the path of his return into Greece was
closed to him, on account of the crimes he had formerly
perpetrated there, he decided, to a certain extent, indeed, by
the advice of his officers, that he either would seize from some
other nation a kingdom and lands, and dwell there in continual
warfare, or, by the favour of the gods, would only seek out
some desert place to take possession of, for a settlement. This
they all in concert swore to put into due execution, as far as
they were able. Having, therefore, appointed Gaythelos their
leader, the banished nobles, impelled to some extent by a
youthful craving for adventure, soon made ready a good-sized
fleet, laden with provisions in store and the other necessaries
for an expedition, to go in quest of new lands to settle in, on
the uttermost confines of the world, hitherto, as they imagined.
10 JOHN OF FORDUN*S CHRONICLE
unoccupied. Another Chronicle says : — Gaythelos, therefore,
assembled his retainers, and, with his wife Scota, quitted
Egypt ; and as, on account of an old feud, he feared to retrace
his steps to those parts whence he had come into Egypt, he
bent his course westwards, where, he knew, the inhabitants
against whom he would have to struggle with his men, un-
skilled as these were in the use of arms, were fewer and less
warlike. Another Chronicle has the following account : — At
length all was ready ; and Gaythelos, with his wife and whole
family, and the other leaders, trusting to the direction of their
gods, embark, in boats, on board ships prepared for them ; and
when the sailors, with busy diligence, had weighed anchor, and
cast off the warps, the sails are spread wide to the blasts of the
winds. Then, sailing out into the inland channel, they made
for the western tracts of the world, with prows cutting the waves
of the sea between the southern limits of Europe and Africa.
CHAPTER XII.
Stay made hy Gaythelos in Africa; and cause of his first
repairing to Spain,
Gaythelos then, having wandered through many provinces,
and made various halts in such spots as he found convenient,
because he knew that the people he led, burdened as they were
with wives and children, and much baggage, were distressed
beyond measure, entered Africa by the river Ansaga, and rested
in quiet, for some time, in a province of Numidia, though the
dwellers in that country have no habitation where they can be
sure of quiet. For the forty years, therefore, that the children
of Israel dwelt in the desert, under Moses, Gaythelos himself,
also, with his followers, wandered, now here, now there, through
many lands ; but at length, leaving Africa, he embarked in such
ships as he could then get, and went over into Spain, near the
islands of Gades. Another Chronicle tells us : — Thus, indeed,
wandering hither and thither, they kept traversing, for a long
time, many unknown parts of the sea ; and, forasmuch as they
were driven about by the violence of contrary winds, they were
exposed to many dangers, and various risks, until, at length,
just as they were being pinched by w^ant of provisions, they
unexpectedly arrive safely in some part of the coast of Spain.
There the ships were laid up, made fast to moorings which
had been laid down.
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK I. 11
CHAPTEE XIII.
Reason alleged hy some for the Departure from Egypt of Gay-
thelos, and the rest who went away from th-e same cause.
It is maintained, however, elsewhere, that many Egyptians
as well as Greek foreigners, panic-stricken, not through fear
of man only, as said above, but rather by dread of the gods,
fled far from Egypt and their native country. Seeing the terrible
plagues and wonders with which they had been afflicted, through
Moses, they feared exceedingly, neither durst they remain there
longer. For, as the regions of Sodom and Gomorrah, with their
people, had, of old, been reduced to ashes, on account of their
sins, so they expected that Egypt, with its inhabitants,
would suddenly be overthrown. This is also evident from the
Historia Scholastica, where it is said : — Many of the Egyptians,
indeed, fearing that Egypt would be destroyed, went forth ; of
whom Cecrops, crossing over into Greece, built the town of
Athen, which was afterwards called Athens. It is believed,
also, that Dionysian Bacchus, in that season, going forth out
of Egypt, built the city of Argos, in Greece, and gave to Greece
the use of the vine. Whether, indeed, she was led, in this
wise, of her own accord, by fear of the gods, or forcibly com-
pelled by her enemies (but it was certainly in one or other of
these two ways), it is taught that Scota, with her husband,
followed by a large retinue, went forth in terror out of Egypt.
Grosseteste says : — In the olden time there went out of Egypt
Scota, the daughter of Pharaoh, with her husband, by name
Gay el, and a very large company. For they had heard the
evils which were to come upon the Egyptians, and thus through
the commands or the answers of the gods, flying from plagues
which were to come, they launched out into the sea, intrusting
themselves to the governance of their gods. And they, cruis-
ing thus, for many days, through the seas, with wavering
minds, at length, on account of the inclement weather, were
glad to bring up on a certain coast.
CHAPTEE XIV.
Row Gaythelos ohtained his first Settlement in Spain.
In the meantime, being harassed by the long fatigues of the
sea, they hastened to the land of Spain, for the sake of obtain-
12 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
ing food and rest. But the natives hastily assemble from
every side ; and, brooking ill the arrival of the new-comers,
propose to withstand them by force of arms. They are soon
engaged in battle, and, after a desperate struggle, the natives
are overcome and put to flight. The victory thus gained, Gay-
thelos pursues the natives; and, having plundered part of the
surrounding country, he returned to the shore, and pitched
his tents, surrounded by a mound, on a certain hillock on
rising ground, where he could more safely oppose the attack-
ing columns of the enemy. He there afterwards, the natives
having been subdued for a while, built by degrees a very
strong town, by name Brigancia, in the middle of which he
erected a tower of exceeding height, surrounded by a deep
ditch, which is still to be seen. He thus passed all the
days of his life there, harassed by the continual assaults of
war, and perpetually entangled in the various chances of fortune.
The Legend of Saint Brandan says : —But Gay thelos, driven
out of Egypt, and thus sailing through the Mediterranean Sea,
brings to in Spain; and, building, on the river Hyber, a tower,
Brigancia by name, he usurped by force from the inhabitants
a place to settle in.
CHAPTER XV.
On Account of the continual Slaughter of his People there y Gay-
thelos sends out Explorers to search for Lands out at Sea —
Their Return when they had discovered a certain Lsland.
Meanwhile, being there troubled by annoyances of many
kinds, Gaythelos, whose whole attention was engrossed in
the guardianship of his people, as became a useful and careful
chief, foresaw that there was no other fate in store for him
there than that he himself, with his tribe, should either be
blotted out from off the face of the whole earth, or subjected to
the yoke of a perpetual slavery, by the powerful tribes of Spain;
for though it very often had happened that he had inflicted
very great slaughter on his adversaries, he had never, however,
gained even one victory without loss to his small tribe, which,
far from increasing, he foresees will ratlier be diminished by
daily and continual wasting; and thus, forecasting with watchful
care, he pondered in his mind this continual slaughter, which
even threatened dispersion, and what steps he should take in con-
sequence ; and at length, debating within himself, he perceived
that he deserved to suffer the difficulties he had incurred ; for,
inasmuch as he had renounced the design he had originally
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK I. 13
formed, on consideration, namely, to seek out unoccupied lands,
without bringing injury upon any one, and had besides insulted
territory held from heaven by another people, he feared that he
had thus given manifold offence to his own gods. Minded, there-
fore, to return to the plan he had before conceived in Egypt, he,
with the advice of his council, calls the seamen together, and
straightway directs them, being provided with arms, and boats
provisioned with victuals, to explore the boundless ocean, in
search of some desert land. They duly put off to the ships, set
sail, and leave the coast of Spain ; and, leaving behind them the
places they knew, enter an unknown sea. After a most speedy
passage, by the favour of the gods, they perceive, looming up
afar off, an island washed by the sea on all sides ; and having
reached it, and put into the nearest harbour, they make the
circuit of the island, to explore it. When they had examined
it as thoroughly as they could, they row quickly back to Brig-
ancia, bringing their King Gaythelos tidings of a certain most
beautiful tract of land, discovered in the ocean.
CHAPTER XVI.
Same continued — He exhorts his Sons to go to that Island.
Now Gaythelos, since he was unacceptable to the inhabitants,
looking forth, one clear day, from Brigancia, and seeing land far
out at sea, arms some active and warlike youths, and directs
them to explore it in three boats ; and they commit themselves
to the high seas. They, at length, against a northerly wind,
came in a body to the island, and, rowing round it to re-
connoitre, attacked the inhabitants they found, and slew
them. And, thus, having explored the land, and admired its
goodliness, they return to Brigancia. But Gaythelos, overtaken
by sudden death, exhorted his sons, and impressed upon them
that they should do their best to get possession of the afore-
said land, charging them with both slothfulness and cowardice
if they gave up so noble a kingdom, and one which they could
penetrate into without war or danger. " Whatever happen to
me," said he, " you will be able, they say, to make this island
your habitation. When we, driven by want of food, arrived in
this country, our gods gave us the victory over the opposing
inhabitants ; and justly so, had we, as soon as our ships had
been provisioned, set sail and gone to this island, which the
gods now offer us, or to one, like it, devoid of inhabitants. We
therefore deserve to suffer these adversities of ours, because we
14 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
have been nowise careful to obey the just wishes of the gods.
In these parts, I think, the possession of property is difi&cult to
acquire, unless it be purchased at too dear a price, namely, by
slavish subjection, or by the death of us all — far be it from us !
But it is both pleasanter, and more praiseworthy, for us to suffer
death bravely in battle, than, barely dragging on an ignoble
existence, to die daily, miserably fettered under the burden of
an execrable subjection. For he, on whose neck, as on that of
the ass, is imposed the yoke of continual slavery, is by no
means worthy the name of man. Now, therefore, my sons,
gratefully accept the gift the gods offer you, and go without
delay to the island prepared for you, where,^ou shall be able
to live noble and free ; for it is the highest nobleness of man,
and the one delight, of all things most desired by every gentle
heart, nay, the one gem which deserves to be preferred to all
the jewels in the world, to endure the sway of no foreign
ruler, but to submit voluntarily to a hereditary power of one's
own nation."
CHAPTEE XVII.
HyheTi the Son of Gaythelos, goes to the Island and takes Posses-
sion of it — It is afterwards called Hibemia after him,
Hyber, therefore, having heard his father's words, went, with
his brother Hymec, to the foresaid island, with a fleet, and took
it, not by force, but untenanted, as some would have it, by a
single inhabitant; and, making it over, when taken, to his brother
and his family, he returned to Spain. Some, indeed, relate that
giants inhabited that island at first ; and this, also, is Geoffroy
of Monmouth's account in his Chronicle, when commemorating
the deeds of Aurelius Ambrosius, in the seventh book, where
he writes as follows : Geoffroy.^'* Send for the Giants' Ring,'*
said Merlin to Aurelius, " which is on GaUaraus, a mountain
in Ireland," etc. At these words* of his, Aurelius burst into
laughter, saying, " How is it possible to convey the vast stones
of that Ring from so distant a country, as if Britain lacked
stones?" To this Merlin retorted: "Do not, oh king! in-
dulge in idle laughter, for my words are not idle. Those stones
are mystical, and of a medicinal virtue. The giants of old
brought them away from the farthest coasts of Africa, and
placed them in Ireland, while they inhabited that country.
Their design was to make baths under them, when they should
be taken with any illness." Thus spake he. The Legend of St,
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK I. 15
Brandan says : — Now one of the sons of Gaythelos, Hyber by
name, a young man, but valiant for his years, being incited to
war by his spirit, took up arms, and, having prepared such a
fleet as he could, went to the foresaid island, and slew part of
the few inhabitants he found, and part he subdued. He thus
appropriated that whole land as a possession for himself and his
brethren, calling it Scotia, from his mother's name. Grosseteste
writes: — And because their princess herself, the most noble of all
who were present, was called Scota, they called that part of the
land which they reached first, that is, Oylister (Ulster), Scotia.
But afterwards, says a Legend, from that same King Hyber, or
rather from the Hyberian sea, they caUed it Hibernia. From
Chronicles we learn : — Hyber, therefore, by his frequent voyages
to the island, and back again as often through the sea, left an
eternal designation, from his own name, to that same sea, as well
as to the island. That is, just as the sea was thenceforth called
the Hyberian sea, so also was the island, either from that very
king, or from the sea, always, up to the present day, called Hiber-
nia. Some writers, again, relate that the river Hyber, which, also,
took its name from that very king, as we read, gave to the whole
of Spain the name of Hyberia. But Januensis has written that
the nearer Spain was at first called Hyberia, but the farther,
Hesperia, either from the star Hesperus, which shines in that
part of the heavens, or from the brother of Atlas, King Hesperus,
who, driven out by his brother, occupied Italy, and called it
Hesperia from his own name, or the name of the former region
which he had left.
CHAPTER XVIIT.
WTiat the learned Isidore and the Venerable Bede have written
about Hibernia.
Januensis, it is true, lays it down that Hibernia is derived
from Hiems, because the winter is there peculiarly severe. All
the historians, however, who make mention of this island, have
written otherwise. Bede says : — Hibernia is the largest island
of all, next to Britain, and is situated to the west of it. But as
it is shorter than Britain towards the north, so, on the other
hand, stretching out far beyond its confines to the south, it
reaches as far as opposite the north of Spain, although a great
sea lies between them. But this island much excels Britain,
both in being broader and in the wholesomeness and serenity
of its climate. For the snow rarely lies there more than
16 JOHN OF fordun's chkonicle
three days ; no one either cuts hay, in summer, for winter's
provision, or builds stables for his beasts of burden. There no
reptile is wont to be seen, no serpent can live. For, if serpents
are brought thither from elsewhere, as soon as they begin to
scent that air, they die. On the contrary, almost all the pro-
duce of the island is good against poison. It is an island rich
in milk and honey, nor devoid of vineyards and birds, and it is
renowned for the chase of deer and goats. Hibernia, writes
Isidore^ is an island of the ocean, in Europe, near the island of
Britain, narrower in extent, but a more fertile region. This
island stretches from south to north, its southern parts extend-
ing into the Hyberian, or Cantabrian sea. It is exceeding
fruitful in corn-fields, watered by springs and rivers, pleasant
with meadows and woods, in metals plentiful, and yielding
precious stones ; for, there, is produced the Hexagon stone,
that is, the Iris, which, being held up to the sun, forms a rain-
bow in the air. And as for wholesomeness of climate, Ireland
is a very temperate country. For, there, the summer and winter
are moderate. There is, there, no excess in cold or heat. It is a
region where there are no snakes, few birds, and no bees ; so
that, if one should scatter amongst beehives pebbles, or dust,
brought from thence, the swarms desert the combs. There are,
there, no serpents, no frogs, no poisonous spiders ; nay, the whole
land is so adverse to poisonous things, that earth brought thence
and sprinkled, destroys serpents and toads. Irish wool, also, and
the skins of animals drive away poisonous things. There are,
there, marvellous springs and lakes, whereof I will say nothing
at present. But, in that land, there are many other wonderfid
things, whose properties I will not describe, as it would, I
think, beget weariness in the reader.
CHAPTER XIX.
The Laws which Gaythelos first taught his People.
Gaythelos taught his people to observe the laws which
King Phoroneus gave to the Greeks. Commestor tells us : — At
the time when Jacob, by his mother's advice, fled to Laban,
that is within the space of the fourteen years during which he
served for his daughters, Phoroneus, son of Inachus and Niole,
first gave Greece laws, appointed that causes should be pleaded
before a judge, and established a distinct office of judge. He
called the place of traffic forum, from his own name. His
sister Isis, sailing to Egypt, gave certain forms of letters to the
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK I. 17
Egyptians, and after her death was there received into the
number of the gods. But Phoroneus* son, king of the Argives,
who was called Apis, when he had set his brother ^gialeus
over Achaia, himself, with his people, sailed to Egypt, and,
having died there, was deified by the Egyptians. At that time,
the Egyptians had nearly the same laws and language as the
Greeks, although they differ in many things, according to the
different manners and customs of their respective countries and
nations, as is found in various writings. Whence Isidore
tells us, in the ninth book of the Etymologia, about the
language of the Greeks: For the Greek language, which in
the mode of pronunciation is clearer than the others, is
divided into five parts. One, indeed, is mixed or common,
which is used by all. The second is the Attic, which is
called the Athenian, which all the authors or philosophers of
Greece have used. The third, the Doric, which the Egyptians
and Syrians used. The fourth is the Ionic. The fifth, the
jEolic, which the ^olists used. And each of these languages
has many species, or varieties. So in the Latin language, also,
are comprised Ecclesiastical Latin, Italian, French, and Span-
ish. But amongst these languages, again, a subdivision is made
according to the mode of speaking, and the peculiar idioms,
of provinces. Another Chronicle says : Gaythelos, indeed,
having his memory well stocked with the laws which King
Phoroneus had imposed on the Greeks, and which were, in his
time, practised amongst the Egyptians, imbued therewith the
people which followed him, and by the regulations of these
laws he managed them wisely, and with moderation, as long as
he lived ; whence our Scots have boasted that they have had
the same laws up to this day.
CHAPTEE XX.
HybeTy tTie son of Gaythelos, succeeds to the Throne of the Scots
dwelling in Spain after his Father's death.
To the government, however, of the Scots remaining in
Spain after his father's death, succeeded Hyber. His son
Nonael succeeded him; then, indeed, the nation set up as
their king him on whom the government had devolved by right
of succession. For about two hundred and forty years, says
another Chronicle, they made a stay, with sorry sustenance and
mean clothing, amongst the Hispani, who molested them con-
tinually. For desert and forest lands in the Pyrenean moun-
tains were granted to them by the Hispani, so that they
VOL. II. B
18 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
could scarcely live, sustaining life only with goats' milk and
wild honey. In this misery, then, or worse, much time did
that people live, dwelling in woods and hidden places, having
nothing but what they were able to get by rapine and plunder
(on account of which they were exceedingly detested by the
nations around them on all sides) ; going barefoot, ill-fed, most
meanly attired, — for they were nearly naked, but for furs,
or hairy garments, which were their unshapely covering. And,
in all these sufferings and straits, they could never be prevailed
upon to be subject to, or to obey, a strange king ; but always,
on the contrary, humble and devoted under their own king,
they elected to lead only this beastly life, in freedom. The
Scots, also, says Grosseteste, have always had, nearly from the
beginning, a distinct kingdom, and a king of their own.
CHAPTEE XXI.
Mycelius^ King of the Scots of Spain, and his Sons set out
for Ireland.
At length, the supreme authority came to a man equally
energetic and industrious, that is. King Mycelius Espayn, one
of whose ancestors had won for himself and his tribes, with their
liberty, a place of abode, free, indeed, but too small for tribes so
strong in numbers. The people, truly, at this time, enjoyed the
tranquillity of a long-desired peace, which they had obtained
from all around, and for which they had long contended. My-
celius had three sons, named Hermonius, Pertholomus, and
Hibertus. These then, when he had prepared a fleet, he sent
with a numerous army to Ireland, knowing that they would find
there a spacious, but nearly uninhabited, land to dwell in,
though it had been settled, of old, by some small tribes of the
same race. And when they had, a short time after, arrived
there, and had easily taken possession of it, whether by force of
arms, or with the consent of the inhabitants, Hermonius re-
turned to Spain, to his father, while his brothers, Pertholomus
and Hibertus, with their tribes, remained in the island. Another
Chronicle writes as follows : — After the death of Gaythelos and
Scota, and of their sons, the next of kin always succeeded
to the chieftainship in his turn, as occasion arose, down to one
whose proper name was Pertholomus. He, being as sagacious in
spirit as active in underetanding, began to lament that he and
his people could not increase nor multiply in those parts, on
account of the very grievous and frequent molestations of the
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK I. 19
hostile Hispani. They, therefore, determined to escape from
so barren a soil, which, too, they had held in misery, among
such as reputed them the vilest of men, and to pass over to
some more roomy place of abode, if possible. Having, at length,
eagerly taken counsel with the elders, they come to the Gallic
sea with bag and baggage, and having prepared ships, or
procured them wherever they could, they commit them-
selves to the dangers of the deep, seeking, wherever fortune
might lead them, a sure and perpetual home, in freedom.
Thus Pertholomus, with his family, set out for Ireland with a
fleet, and, having subdued the natives, obtained it as a per-
petual possession for himself.
CHAPTER XXII.
Geoffroy of Monmouth* s account of Bartholomus, Son of
Mycelius.
Among the other incidents of the History of the Britons, how-
ever, this voyage of Pertholomus to conquer part of Ireland is
found thus fabulously written in the third book; in which Geoffroy
says: — Gurgunt Bartruc, king of the Britons, son of King Belinus,
when he was returning home with a fleet, by the Orkney islands,
after a victory obtained over the Dacians, who had denied him
the wonted tribute, came across thirty ships full of men and
women ; and, when he had inquired the cause of their coming,
their leader, Pertholomus by name, came up to him, and making
obeisance to him, desired pardon and peace. For, he said, he had
been driven out of a district of Spain, and was wandering about
those seas ; and he begged of him a small part of Britain to
inhabit, that he might bring to an end his tedious wanderings
at sea ; for a year and a half had already elapsed since, driven
out of his own country, he had sailed about the ocean with his
companions. When, therefore, Gurgunt Bartruc had gathered
that they had come out of Spain, and were called Vasclenses,
and what their request was, he sent men with them to the
island of Ireland, which was then wholly uninhabited, and
assigned it to them. There they increased and multiplied, and
they have held the island to the present day. Such is Geof-
froy's account.
20 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
CHAPTEE XXIII.
Discrepancies of Histories.
But this seems altogether incompatible, both in fact and in
date, with the foregoing narrative, in which it is related that
Ireland was inhabited, and not the reverse, before the arrival
of Pertholomus ; and that he did not get the island through
the gift of a strange king, but that, on the contrary, being
accepted as king, either by the power of his sword, or simply by
the wish of the natives, he freely possessed those places, having
been the second to form a colony there. Our histories, too, are
far from making these kings contemporaries ; for the reign of Per-
tholomus is related by the Chronicles to have begun in the third
Age, about, or a little before, the days of Abdon, a judge of Israel,
in whose sixth year the destruction of Troy is recorded to have
occurred ; while it is said that King Gurgunt reigned in the
fifth Age, after the first capture of the city of Eome. For, as
Geofiroy relates. King Belinus, father of King Gurgunt, together
with his brother Brennius, took all the chieftains of Gaul
prisoners, or forced them to lay down their arms, within one
year, thus bringing the provinces into subjection. Then, having
accomplished this, they went to Eome with a strong army,
and took it by assault, after a siege of some days, in A.U.C. 364,
according to Eutropius. Now, according to Eusebius, the year
of this capture is thus calculated. In the seventeenth year of
Artaxerxes II., king of the Persians, who in the Hebrew tongue
is called Assuerus, in whose reign, also, the history of Hester
was written, that is in the 198th year of the fifth Age, the
Senones Gauls, led by Brennius, attacked Eome, and took it,
except the Capitol, and they would have taken that also in the
darkness of night, had not a goose prevented them. The
ascent of Gauls, writes Isidore^ was detected in the Capitol by
the clamour of a goose. For no animal perceives, so readily as
a goose, the scent of man. Whence Ambrose apostrophizes
Rome as follows, in derision of the gods of the nations : — Oh,
Eome I thou justly owest it to geese, that thou reignest ; for
thy gods slept, while geese kept watch. To them shouldst
thou sacrifice, rather than to Jove. Let thy gods, therefore,
yield the palm to geese; for they are conscious they were
themselves defended by them from capture by the enemy.
After the capture of Eome, then, says Geoffroy, King Belinus
left his brother Brennius there, and returned to Britain, where
he reigned some time. For the remainder of his life, he re-
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK I. 21
paired dilapidated towns, and built new ones; and, on his
death, he was succeeded by his son, Gurgunt Bartruc. It thus
appears clearly that the latter reigned after the capture of the
city.
CHAPTEE XXIV.
AhoiU the Time of the First Capture of Rome, not Scots, hut
Picts, attempting a Settlement in Ireland, are sent hy the
Scots to Albion,
You must know, however, that in these days — that is, at the
time of the capture of Eome — when, as is propounded by Geof-
froy, that king lived, the Picts, journeying forth with their kin-
dred from Pictavia, went across the British channel, in ships, to
Ireland, that they might obtain from the Scots a residence there.
The latter, by no means wiUing to admit them, sent them over
to Albion, as will appear below. And of these, if I am not
mistaken, may be understood what was written above, by Geof-
froy, about the Scots, through the blunder of his informant. For
these, I think, did the king, by chance meeting them wander-
ing through the seas, advise that they should sail to the island.
Whence the foolish babbling of the British people, glorying
highly, perhaps, in this advice, would assert that Ireland had
been given by their own king as a gift to this people (the
Scots). Of this King Gurgunt, I find that a certain historian has
written as follows : — One must admire, he says, the boldness of
this modest and prudent King of the Britons, who had tribes of
his own nation in such numbers at his command, that he under-
took to subdue, or at least to harass, in perilous wars, very
remote regions beyond the sea, regions which it was a terror, of
old, even to the Eomans to invade, and left desert and unin-
habited the fertile island of Ireland, so renowned as it was (for
it was said by historians much to excel Britain), and gave it up
to be possessed by stranger tribes. Earety are kings known to
offer kingdoms to kinsmen they know ; more rarely to strangers
they do not.
CHAPTEE XXV.
Discrepancies of Histories excused.
22 JOHN OF FORDUN S CHRONICLE
CHAPTEK XXVI.
Third Expedition of the Scots to Ireland, Tnade hy
Smonhricht —His Genealogy.
In process of time there came, besides, as the Chronicles
teach, from the confines of the Hispani to the above-mentioned
island, a third colonist of Scottish race, whose name was, in Scot-
tish, Smonbricht, but in Latin, Simon Varius, or Lentiginosus,
and, there, seizing the reins of government, greatly increased the
population of the island with fresh inhabitants. At that time,
they say, Manasses, son of Hezekiah, reigned in Judsea. He
began to reign in the year 364 of the fourth Age, and reigned
fifty-five years. He was a detestable idolater, and made the
streets of Jerusalem crimson with the blood of the prophets.
Among his other misdeeds, he even caused Isaiah, his maternal
grandfather, according to the Hebrews, but certainly a kinsman
of his, to be cast out of Jerusalem, and to be sawn through the
middle, with a wood saw, beside the pool of Siloam. When he
was in anguish, as they began to saw him through, Isaiah asked
them to give him water to drink ; and when they would not
give him any, the Lord sent water from on high into his
mouth, and he expired ; nevertheless, the executioners desisted
not from their sawing. From this sending down of water, the
name Siloam was confirmed, which is, being interpreted, sent.
In the time of Manasses, likewise reigned Numa Pompilius, the
second of the Roman kings, who succeeded Ronmlus, and first
gave laws to the Romans. Now the above-mentioned Simon
was the son of King Fonduf, who at that time reigned over
the remainder of the Scots who dwelt in Spain, and he was
The son of Etheon,
The son of Glachus,
The son of Noethath Fail,
Tlie son of Elchata Olchaim,
The son of Sirue,
The son of Dein,
The son of Demail,
The son of Rothotha,
The son of Ogmam,
The son of Engus Olmucatha,
The son of Frachach Labrain,
The son of Emirnai,
The son of Smertha,
The son of Embatha,
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK I. 23
The son of Thernay,
The son of Falegis,
The son of Etheor,
The son of Jair Olfatha,
The son of Hermonius,
The brother of Bartholomus and Hibert. These three were
the sons of Mycelius Espayn, mentioned above. About this
Smonbricht and his acquisition of this kingdom, we find some-
what in the Legend of Saint Congal, in the following words.
CHAPTER XXVII.
Smonbricht — The Throne of Stone, and the Prophecy concerning it.
There was a certain king of the Scots of Spain, who had
several sons ; one, however, whose name was Smonbret, although
not the eldest, nor the heir, he yet loved above the rest. So his
father sent him with an army to Ireland, and gave him a
marble chair, sculptured in very antique workmanship by a
careful artist, whereon were wont to sit the Scottish kings of
Spain ; whence it was diligently preserved in their territory, as
the anchor of the national existence. Accordingly this same
Smonbrec, accompanied by a great crowd of men, went over to the
foresaid island, and having subdued it, reigned there many years.
But that stone or chair he placed on the highest spot in the king-
dom, which was called Themor (Tara), and it was thenceforth said
to be the seat of royalty, and the most honoured spot in the king-
dom; and the succeeding kings of his line were, for many ages,
wont to sit there, when invested with the insignia of royalty.
Gaythelos, some say, brought this chair and other regal orna-
ments to Spain with him from Egypt. Others, again, that Smon-
bret made fast his anchors, which he had let go, in the sea near
the coast of Ireland; and when, pressed by contrary winds, he had
striven hard, with all his might, to haul them in again from the
billowy waves, he brought on board, with the anchors, a stone
raised from the depths of the sea, carved out of marble into the
shape of a chair. Accepting this stone, therefore, as a precious
gift offered by the gods, and a sure presage of a future kingdom,
and carried away by too great a joy, he gave worship unto his
gods as devoutly as if they had altogether given him over a king-
dom and a crown. He there accepted this occurrence as an
omen from his gods that it would be so, because, as some writ-
ings assert, the soothsayers had bidden him hold as certain that
he and his would reign wherever, in time to come, they may
1^4 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
find, in any kingdom, or domain, a stone which liad been carried
off from them, against their will, by the might of their adver-
saries. Whence some one, predicting from their divination,
has prophesied metrically as follows : —
" Unless the fates are false, the Scots will reign.
Where'er the fatal stone they find again."
And this, as common belief asserts to this day, proved true in
their frequent early wanderings ; for they themselves, when
this stone had been carried off by their enemies, not only the
princes of Spain, but also their own countrymen of Ireland,
recovered it by force of arms, and took their territories, accord-
ing to the prophecy noticed above. Afterwards, however, since
this mixed people derived their origin from the Greeks and
Egyptians, lest the memory of their first chiefs should, perchance,
perish from amongst men, through the lengthened course of time,
they applied their names as designations for themselves. The
Greeks, that is to say, thenceforth called themselves Gaythelians,
from the name of their chief Gaythelos ; and the Egyptians, like-
wise, from Scota, called themselves Scots, which name alone
afterwards, and at this day, both races in common are proud
to bear. Whence it has been written : —
" The Scots from Scota take their name, all Scotia from those ;
While Gaythelos, their leader's name, less common daily
grows."
CHAPTER XXVIII.
The first King of the Scots inhahiting the Islands of Albion.
So this people increased and multiplied exceedingly on the
earth. For it stretched out its branches from sea to sea, and its
offshoots to the islands of Albion, tenanted by no inhabitants
before, as it is related. But the first leader of those who in-
habited them, Ethachius Rothay, great-grandson of the afore-
said Simon Brek, by the interpretation of his name, gave a
name to the island of Rothisay ; and it bore this name, indeed,
for the space of no little time, until, when the faith of our
Saviour had been diffused through all the ends of the earth, and
the islands which are afar off. Saint Brandan constructed there-
on a booth — in our idiom, hothe, that is, a shrine. Whence,
thenceforth, and until our times, it has been held to have two
names, for it is by the natives sometimes called Rothisay, i.e.
the isle of Rothay, as also sometimes the isle of Bothe (Bute).
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK I. 25
CHAPTEK XXIX.
The Picis, arriving in Ireland to settle there, are driven off hy the
Scots, and sent to Albion.
After the lapse of some little time, while the Scots lived in
prosperous quiet and peace, a certain unknown people, after-
wards called Picts, emerging from the confines of Aquitania,
brought their ships to on their coast, and humbly requested the
council of chiefs to let them dwell either by themselves, in a
desert place, or together with them, all over the island. For
they said that they had been lately driven out of their own
country, though undeservedly, by the strong hand of their
adversaries, and had, until now, been tossed on the sea, in the
great and terrible dangers of tempests. They would not, how-
ever, allow them to remain among them in the same island.
On the contrary, admitting them to a friendly peace, and
taking them under their protection, they sent them across,
with some they gave them as companions, to the northern
coasts of Albion, hitherto a desert. When these began,
accordingly, to inhabit the land about there, as they had
with them no women of their nation, the Scots gave them their
daughters to wife, under a compact of perpetual alliance, and
a special agreement as to dowry. The arrival of the Picts in
this island, however, is variously described by various authors,
some of whom relate that the Picts took their origin from the
tribes which King Humber brought with him from Scythia to
Britain, when he was drowned in the river by Locrin, the son
of Brutus, on account of the slaughter of his brother Albanact.
For these tribes did not retire from the island when deprived
of their king, but for a long time decided their causes by
judges, in its extreme confines. Another Chronicle says : The
Picts indeed, sprung from Scythia, accompanied the flight of
Agenor, and, under his leadership, settled among the nation of
the Aquitanians. To this assertion of ours bears witness the
town Agenorensis, constructed by Agenor, and the country of
the Pictavi, in which the Picts built the city of Pictavis, named
after them. Now these are said to have afterwards assembled
a fleet, and, having sailed to Albion, to have remained with the
Scots to this day.
26 JOHN OF fordun's chronicle
CHAPTER XXX.
Bede*s Account of the Arrival of the Picts.
But in the Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation, which
the Venerable Bede has compiled with his usual faithfulness, it
is taught that the Picts did not, as Geofifroy relates, first come
to Albion by reason of a grant from the Britons, but from the
Scots, or through their advice only; and that they settled in the
lands there, under the shelter of their protection. The follow-
ing are his words. Bede : — When the Britons, beginning at the
south, had got possession of the greatest part of the island, it
happened that the nation of the Picts from Scythia, as is
reported, putting to sea in a few long ships, were driven about
by the blowing of the winds, and arrived in Ireland, beyond all
the confines of Britain, and put in on the northern coasts there-
of, where, finding the nation of the Scots, they asked, for them-
selves, also, a settlement in those parts, but could not obtain it.
The Picts, then, having arrived in this island with a fleet,
asked that a settlement and habitation should be granted to
them also therein. The Scots answered that the island could
not contain them both. " But we can," said they, " give you
wholesome advice, what you may do. We know there is another
island, not far from ours, to the eastward, which we often see
at a distance, on clear days. If you will go thither, you can
settle there, or, if any should oppose you, you shall have our
assistance." The Picts, accordingly, sailed over to the island,
and began to settle there throughout its northern parts : for the
Britons occupied the southern. Now the Picts, having no
wives, asked them of the Scots, who consented to give them on
this condition only, that, when there should be any doubt, they
should choose themselves a king rather from the female race of
kings, than from the male. And this custom is well known to
be preserved among the Picts even to this day. These are
Bede's words.
CHAPTER XXXI.
Original Cause of the Arrival of the Scots in the Island of Albion,
Now the daughters and wives of the Scots, whom the Picts
had taken to wife, when their husbands took them with them,
one after another, to their own homes, were followed by their
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK I. 27
numberless kinsfolk — their fathers, that is, and mothers, their
brothers, also, and sisters, their nieces and nephews. Many, how-
ever, of the rest followed, not only urged by affection for a child
or a sister, but, rather, strongly allured by the grassy fertility of the
land of Albion, whither they were bent, and its most ample pas-
turage for their flocks. So great a number, indeed, of the rabble
of either sex as followed them, bringing their herds with them,
and went forth in the interval of a little time, to remain with
the Picts, is not recorded to have left their own native land,
before, without a leader. Continual arrivals of proscribed
malefactors, likewise, increased their numbers ; because who-
ever feared to undergo the discipline of the law went to
live secure with the Picts, and, having then sent for his
children and wife, remained there in peace, and never went
back afterwards. But the Picts, in the meanwhile, brooking
ill the arrival of so great a multitude, for they became im-
bued with fear of them, caused it to be published by procla-
mation that no stranger should thenceforth obtain a place of
abode anywhere within their boundaries ; and even to those
who contended that they remained with them, at the first, at
their desire, they gave repeated opportunities of departing.
Por, when they were first entering the island, they gathered
from the oracles of their gods, or, rather, demons, to whom they
sacrificed before doing anything in any undertaking, that it
would come to pass that, if they did not do their best to subdue
the Scots, they would themselves be utterly annihilated by them ;
and thus, seeing their number amongst them increase, they began
to fear more and more, and most harshly drove them forth from
their territory. This, however, turned out true, not imme-
diately afterwards, but a thousand years after, as the race and
language of the Picts were entirely destroyed by the Scots at
that time.
CHAPTEE XXXII.
The Gods, or rather Demons, of the Gentiles.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
Same continued — Folly of the Gentiles therein.
28 JOHN OF fordun's chronicle
CHAPTER XXXIV.
The First King of the Scots holding svjay in Albion.
Moreover, while the Picts were afflicting the Scottish settlers
with annoyances and difficulties of this kind, it was secretly
announced to the council of chiefs of the Scottish nation in
what misery they were living amongst the Picts. In the mean-
time, also, came forward certain men who acquainted them
with the amenity of so broad and so fertile a region, in which
were only fowls, wild beasts, and animals, although it might
easily be brought under cultivation. When, therefore, a certain
youth, noble, and of unbounded prowess, Fergus, son of Fere-
chad, or Farchardus, begotten of the race of the ancient kings,
heard this, namely, that a leaderless tribe of his own nation
was wandering through the vast solitudes of Albion, without
a ruler, having been cast out by the Picts, his heart was
kindled with wrath. He was, moreover, much allured by the
praises he heard of that country, where, perhaps, he aimed at
reigning ; for those who had seen it boasted that it was exceed-
ingly rich, in spite of the whole ground being covered, at that
time, by very dense woods ; whereof a sure token is manifest to
us, even until now, in this wise : it happens that, in places, often
the most level, in which the gi'ound has, by chance, been dug up,
or excavated, enormous subterranean roots and trunks of trees
are found — yea, even where you would never have said, from
any sign, that forests had grown before. Stimulated by these
exhortations, therefore, and by the ambition of reigning, he
assembled a great multitude of youths, and at once proceeded
to Albion, where, establishing, in the western confines of the
island, the Scottish settlers, sifted out from the midst of the
Picts, together with those whom he had brought with him, he
there constituted liimself the first king over them.
CHAPTER XXXV.
The Northern Parts of Albion first possessed by the nations of the
Picts and Scots,
Divers ancient histories of the nation teach that Scotia
was first possessed by these two nations, and that their am-
val therein, respectively, was without any, or with only a little,
space of time intervening ; whilst, however, some maintain
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK I. 29
that the Scots reigned for many years before the Picts. But
even in this, even if they had arrived in the island simultane-
ously, do histories by no means so much disagree ; for, while
kings reigned over the Scots continuously from their origin,
that is, during the course of two hundred years at least, the
Picts had, not kings, but judges, even until the son of Clement,
one of the judges, who was named Cruchne, seizing upon
the insignia of royalty, by force, reigned over this nation.
Bartholomceus even seems to wish to make out, in his fifteenth
book, De Proprietatihus Rerum, that the Scots were conjoined
with the Picts from the beginning, and that the two nations
entered Gallia Narbonensis together. Bartholomceus : — Pictavia
is a province of Gallia Narbonensis, which the Picts and
Scots, of old, attacked with a fleet, and inhabited ; and they
finally left, for the future, from their ancient stock, a name
to the country and nation. These, preparing a fleet, go from
the coast of Britain round the shores of the ocean, and, at
length, invade those of the Aquitanian gulf Then, obtain-
ing, not without risking the chances of war with the inhabitants,
a footing in their country, they build the town of Pictavum,
named from the Picts, and thenceforth call the adjacent
country, Pictavia. No history that I have read, however,
favours this view. The Policraticon says : — The bird Pica or
Picta (magpie) conferred its name on the town of the Pictavi,
typifying, both by its colour and by its voice, the levity of that
nation. Some maintain that the people of the Picts were
called Picti, or Painted, either from their beauty of form, or the
elegant stature of their bodies, or from their particoloured
garments; for they were, so to speak, decorated by a certain
variety and novelty of bright clothing, beyond the rest of the
surrounding nations ; or that, perchance, other nations called
them Picti in derision, by antiphrasis, because they were of
most sorry appearance.
30 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
BOOK II.
CHAPTEK I.
Situation, Length, and Breadth of this Island of Albion —
Its Change of Name into Britannia and Scotia.
Now let us briefly survey the whole course of the wander-
ings of the Scots, how they passed from nation to nation, from
one kingdom to another, until, at length, they reached, in God's
name, the land they now live in, the name of which was, of old,
according to some writers, Albion. Let us speak of its various
changes of name, as each fresh nation subdued it in turn, and of
the position and boundaries of the countries it comprises. Albion
is an island of the ocean, situated in Europe, between the north
and west ; stretching, along its length, from the south, first,
northwards, it afterwards assumes a somewhat curved shape,
inclining a little to the north-east. Its southern and middle
parts have Ireland to the west of them, while its northern lie
open to the boundless ocean, over against the arctic pole. It
has, also, Iceland on the north, and Norway towards the north-
east ; on the east, Dacia ; on the south-east, Germany, or Ale-
mannia ; more to the south, Holland and Flanders ; on the
south and south-west, Gaul and its dependencies ; and Spain
further westwards ; and it lies hedged round by these countries,
with a greater or less interval of ocean between. It is reported,
also, to be eight hundred miles in length, or a little under ; and
in breadth across, in some of the broadest places, two hundred ;
in others, much narrower ; for, nearly in the middle, it is only
sixty-four miles from sea to sea; and it is there so much cut up
by large rivers, that their head waters are nearly drawn together,
but for some intricate passes over rough land, for the space of
twenty-two miles, with groves, brushwood, and marshes inter-
spersed. Whence it arises that, from the flowing down on
either side of rivers so large, although they do not quite touch
each other, some historians have written that it is, as it were,
divided into two islands, as will appear more clearly from the
following passages. This island of Albion, therefore, after
the giants, having lost its first name, had, consequently, two
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK II. 31
names, according to these two divisions, that is, Britannia and
Scotia. The first settlers, indeed, in its southern part were
Britons, from whom, since that region was first inhabited by
them, it got the designation of Britannia. Its northern part,
likewise, had Picts and Scots for its first colonizers, and to it
was afterwards given, in like manner, from the Scots, the name
of Scotia.
CHAPTER II.
Divers passages of Geoffroy, affirming that Britannia is divided
from Scotia.
Now this original and ancient division of these countries is
corroborated by the writings of many. Geoffroy of Monmouth,
peculiarly the historian of the Britons, writes in his Chronicle
as follows : — Leil, king of the Britons, enjoyed a prosperous
reign, and built a town in the north of Britain, from his name
called Karleil (Carlisle). Now that town of Karleil is certainly
in the north of Britain, but by no means in the north of Albion,
for it is situated nearly in the middle thereof. King Belinus,
says he again, wishing to clear the law of all ambiguity,
caused a road to be constructed of mortar and stones, which
should cut the island in two, along its length. Now the truth
of the matter is that this paved road, or ditch, does not extend
farther than to the shore of the Scottish sea ; for its track is
visible until now, nor will it, in all time to come, be obliterated
from the view of beholders. Geoffroy says further : — Severus,
after several cruel engagements, drove into Scotia, beyond
Albania, that part of the British nation which he could not
subdue. Again : — The Saxons, however, for fear of Aurelius,
betook themselves beyond the Humber, into Albania ; for the
vicinity of Scotia afforded them a safeguard, as that country
used to watch for every opportunity of molesting the people of
Britannia. Again, he says : — After these kings had been slain by
Cadwallo, Oswald succeeded to the kingdom of Northumbria ;
but, as he became turbulent, Cadwallo drove him, like the rest,
out into the outlying country, to the very wall which the Em-
peror Severus had formerly built between Britannia and Scotia.
Again, in the introduction to his book, commending Britain for its
rivers, he says: — Further, Britannia is watered by rivers abound-
ing with fish ; for, besides the channel on the southern coast,
which one sails over on the way to Gaul, it stretches out three
noble rivers, the Thames, the Severn, and the Humber, like
32 JOHN OF fordun's chronicle
three arms, by which the commerce of various nations beyond
the sea is imported into it. What then ? Are there not any
other famous rivers in Albion ? But, in truth, if he had called
the whole of Albion, Britannia, he would certainly not have
passed over in silence the rivers of Scotia, which are much
broader than those above mentioned, more full of fish, better,
and more useful in every way ; such as the river Forth, which
is also called the Southern Firth, or Scottish Sea ; the river
Esk, which is called Scottiswath or Sulwath (Solway) ; as also
the river Clyde, and the river Tay, and the river of the Northern
or Crombathy (Cromarty) Firth, which, by reason of the excel-
lence of its holding-ground, gets the name of Zikirsount from
seamen. And, besides these, there are many others which are
more useful to seamen than the above-mentioned rivers of
Britain, from their shell-fish, and sea, and fresh-water, fish —
and safer, too, as they are incomparable places of refuge from
the perilous tempests of the ocean.
CHAPTEE III.
Passages of William of Malmesbury and the Venerable Bede
affirming the same thing.
William of Malmesbury likewise, a faithful historian of the
English, and one, they say, above suspicion, would not allow
that all Albion was called Britannia; nay, he states plainly, in his
writings, that only the territory of the Britons, by itself, like an
island distinct from Scotia, was Britannia, as it were the Britons'
land, or the country which they ruled over and inhabited. He
says : — The Saxons, involving, by their fleet, the tribes of the
Orkneys, together with the Scots and Picts, in equal calamity,
settled, at that time, and thereafter, in the northern part of the
island, now called Northumbria. Therefore, Northumbria is the
extreme portion of the island of Britain, towards the north.
He says again : — Bede, a venerable man, whom it is easier to
admire than worthily to extol, was born and educated in
the most remote tract of Britannia, near Scotia (in fact,
in the territory of the monastery at Wearmouth). That is,
therefore, the most remote tract of Britannia. Saint Cuthbert,
as the story goes in his History, appeared to King Alfred, while
watching in bed, saying, " Henceforth love mercy and judgment,
for, at my request, the empire of the whole of Britannia is
yielded to thee ;" and, not long after, he obtained the empire
which the saint had foretold. Now William^ again, describing
what manner of empire the king afterwards obtained, says : —
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK II. 33
Alfred, by his courage, "had subdued the whole of England, save
what the Danes possessed. Bede writes : — After that, they began
to come, for many days, from the country of the Scots into
Britannia, and to preach the Word of God to the Angles.
Again : — Meanwhile Bishop Colman, who was from Scotia, left
Britannia, and returned to Scotia. He then retired to a lonely
island not far from Ireland. Bede says further : — But Saint
Oswald was slain beside the wall wherewith the Eomans fenced
the whole of Britannia, from sea to sea, in order to keep off the
attacks of the barbarians. The kingdom of Scotia, says Tholo-
mceus, is a promontory, separated from Britannia by mountains
and arms of the sea, and has manners and a language and mode of
life quite distinct from those of the Angles; it is a region, indeed,
in all things similar to Ireland. Bartholomceus tells us : — The
progeny of the Angles possess the island of Britannia. He says
again: — Britannia, which is now called Anglia, is an island
over against Gaul, etc. Again : — It was called Britannia, from
Brutus, but finally, from the Angles who took possession of it,
it was called Anglia.
CHAPTER IV.
Passages from the same Writers affirming the reverse of this —
History very often distorted and falsified hy rival Tran-
scribers.
But, although these and numberless other passages, found in
the works of these writers, refer to Scotia as separated from
Britannia, from the beginning, it may be acknowledged, on the
other hand, that, in some of their writings, the whole of Albion is
called Britannia. Thus Bede says : — Britannia is an island in the
ocean, formerly called Albion, eight hundred miles long. Now this
is, in fact, the length of the whole of Albion. He says again: —
And then Britannia groaned, for many years, under the scourge of
two very savage transmarine nations, — the Scots from the north-
west, and the Picts from the north-east. We speak of these
nations as transmarine, not because they were located out of Bri-
tannia, but because they were remote from the part of it possessed
by the Britons. Geoffroy writes : — Britannia, the best of islands,
situated in the western ocean, is eight hundred miles in length.
Geoffroy says again : — Albanactus, son of Brutus, possessed the
country which in our times is called Scotia ; and he gave it, from
his own name, the name of Albania. Now, do not these pas-
sages seem to differ entirely from the preceding ? Verily, they
do differ. But histories do not hold consistent language, either
VOL. II. 'c
34 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
one way or the other ; for, frequently, in the very same work,
various passages are intermingled with others of contrary import,
so that clauses incompatible with each other are sometimes in-
serted even in the same chapter. Although, however, discrep-
ancies of this sort are very often found in chronicles, they
should by no means be imputed to their skilful, nay, holy,
authors, who have taken care to write their histories in strict
conformity with truth, and with an unswerving regard for their
original authorities ; but, rather, to transcribers of a rival nation,
by whose envy, lest the power of adjoining kingdoms should
be strengthened, certain chronicles are entirely perverted, cor-
rupted, violated, and, very often, indiscreetly so changed that the
assertion of one chapter seems to annul the purport of the next.
But, in truth, whatever variations of this sort, in the definition
of the boundaries of Britannia, may be found in histories, through
the fault of transcribers, the common opinion of modern time is
that the whole of Albion was called Britannia, from Brutus, who
only colonized its southern regions ; just as of old one third
of the world received an eternal name from Europa, Agenor's
daughter, although it was over only a small part of it that she
was the first, at that time, to exercise dominion.
CHAPTER V.
BrviuSy under xvhom the Britoiis first arrived in the Island
of Albion.
We have thus, in the foregoing pages, reduced to some sort
of order the accounts of the entrance, first, of the Scots into the
island ; and it now remains for us to clear up briefly the various
accounts given by historians of the arrival of the Britons therein.
The Britons, then, first settled in the island of Albion under
the leadership of a certain Brutus ; but who this Brutus was,
and of what race, historians are not all agreed. For some
hold that Britain was named and peopled by a chief-
tain of Trojan race, Brutus, and his followers, as is related
by Geoffroy and those who favour his version. Some, also,
assert that the Britons were named after one Brutus, son
of Isichyon, the eldest born of the leader Alanius. Now
Alanius was of the race of Japhet, and was the first, with his
three sons, Isichyon, Armenon, and Neguo, to traverse the
Mediterranean Sea and arrive in Europe. From these, it is
said, sprang four nations, the Latins, Franks, Alemanni, and
Britons, Some again make out that the Britons were called,
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK II. 35
in Latin, Britones, or brutish men, so to speak, from their savage
condition, as the Franks were so named from their ferocity;
and Isidore favours this view. Others, on the other hand, dis-
paraging the theories of the ancients, have derived the name
of the Britons from the Eoman consul Brutus. We, however,
passing over other less known assertions, pin our faith upon
the words of a page better known to us ; and, following Geof-
froy's chronicle in this particular, we may fitly begin our account
of the Britons from that Brutus who was the son of Silvius, the
son of Ascanius, the son of ^neas, the fugitive from Troy, whose
father, Anchises, was the son of Troius, the son of Dardanus.
CHAPTEE YI.
Division of the Three Kingdoms of the Britons among the
Sons of Brutus.
N'ow this Silvius, during his father's lifetime, begat Brutus,
of a woman of noble birth, the niece of Queen Lavinia. Brutus
was born in a.m. 4032, as appears from the following rhyme: —
" Four times a thousand years, and three times ten,
Came Brutus, after Adam, first of men,"
that is, in the year 848 of the third Age. He left" Italy a youth
of fifteen years, and began to reign in the southern provinces of
Albion at the age of thirty-five. Of his wife, the daughter of
Pandrasus, king of the Greeks, he begat three sons, on whom
were bestowed these names: — Locrinus, Albanactus, and Camber.
He reigned twenty-four years, and then died, and was buried
by his sons in the city of London. After his death his sons
apportioned amongst themselves their father's realm, which, after
him, or his Britons, was called Britannia ; dividing it into three
kingdoms, and prescribing boundaries to each, and a designation
after their own names respectively. The kingdom of Locrinus,
accordingly, was Locria, and, beginning from the southern shore
of the island, that is, the Totonian shore, it was bounded on the
north by the river Humber and the Trent. Then Cambria, the
territory of his younger brother Camber, adjoined the kingdom of
Locria, lying, not on its southern frontier, as some assert, nor yet on
its northern, but on its western side ; and, though divided from
it by mountains and the estuary of the Severn, as it were side
by side with it, over against Ireland. Likewise Albania, the
kingdom of Albanactus, the third region of the country of the
Britons, stretching from the aforesaid river Humber and the es-
36 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
tuary of the Trent, is terminated by the northern bounds of Bri-
tannia, as above described ; and such provinces of this kingdom
of Albania as were between the Humber and the Scottish sea
were the most northerly possessions of the Britons, who never
gained a footing farther north. Having so far dealt with the
entry of the Britons into this island, and the ambiguity as to
the line of demarcation of the kingdoms it comprised, it only
remains for us to explain what sort of country is Scotia, — the
land of the Scots and the name which moderns have given to
Albania, — and what is, or was long ago, its extent.
CHAPTEK VII.
Scotia: its Nature and Extent, now and formerly.
Scotia is so named after the Scottish tribes by which it
is inhabited. At first, it began from the Scottish firth on the
south, and, later on, from the river Humber, where Albania also
began. Afterwards, however, it commenced at the wall Thirl-
wal, which Severus had built to the river Tyne. But now it
begins at the river Tweed, the northern boundary of England,
and, stretching rather less than four hundred miles in length, in
a north-westerly direction, is bounded by the Pentland Firth,
where a fearfully dangerous whirlpool sucks in and belches
back the waters every hour. It is a country strong by nature,
and difficult and toilsome of access. In some parts, it towers
into mountains ; in others, it sinks down into plains. For lofty
mountains stretch through the midst of it, from end to end, as
do the tall Alps through Europe ; and these mountains for-
merly separated the Scots from the Picts, and their kingdoms
from each other. Impassable as they are on horseback, save in
very few places, they can hardly be crossed even on foot, both on
account of the snow always lying on them, except in summer-
time only ; and by reason of the boulders torn off the beetling
crags, and the deep hollows in their midst. Along the foot of
these mountains are vast woods, full of stags, roe-deer, and
other wild animals and beasts of various kinds ; and these
forests oftentimes afford a strong and safe protection to the
cattle of the inhabitants against the depredations of their ene-
mies ; for the herds in those parts, they say, are accustomed,
from use, whenever they hear the shouts of men or women,
and if suddenly attacked by dogs, to flock hastily into the woods.
Numberless springs also well up, and burst forth from the hills
and the sloping ridges of the mountains, and, trickling down
with sweetest sound, in crystal rivulets between flowery banks,!
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK II. 37
flow together through the level vales, and give birth to many
streams ; and these again to large rivers, in which Scotia mar-
vellously abounds, beyond any other country ; and at their
mouths, where they rejoin the sea, she has noble and secure
harbours.
CHAPTEE VIII.
Lowlands and Highlands of Scotia, and what is contained
in them,
Scotia, also, has tracts of land bordering on the sea, pretty
level and rich, with green meadows, and fertile and productive
fields of corn and barley, and well adapted for growing beans,
pease, and all other produce ; destitute, however, of wine and
oil, though by no means so of honey and wax. But in the
upland districts, ai;d along the highlands, the fields are less
productive, except only in oats and barley. The country is,
there, very hideous, interspersed with moors and marshy fields,
muddy and dirty ; it is, however, full of pasturage grass for
cattle, and comely with verdure in the glens, along the- water-
courses. This region abounds in wool-bearing sheep, and in
horses ; and its soil is grassy, feeds cattle and wild beasts, is
rich in milk and wool, and manifold in its wealth of fish, in sea,
river, and lake. It is also noted for birds of many sorts. There
noble falcons, of soaring flight and boundless courage, are to
be found, and haw^ks of matchless daring. Marble of two or
three colours, that is, black, variegated, and white, as well as
alabaster, is also found there. It also produces a good deal of
iron and lead, and nearly all metals. The land of the Scots,
says Erodotus, in the fertility of its soil, in its pleasant groves,
in the rivers and springs by which it is watered, in the number
of its flocks of all kinds, and its horses, where its shore rejoices
in inhabitants, is not inferior to the soil of even Britain itself.
Isidore teUs us : — Scotia, with respect to the wholesomeness
of its air and climate, is a very mild country ; there is little or
no excessive heat in summer, or cold in winter ; — and he has
written of Scotia in nearly the same terms as of Hibernia. In
Scotland, the longest days, at midsummer, are of eighteen hours,
or more ; and, in midwinter, the shortest are of not fuUy six ;
while in the island of Meroe, the capital of the Ethiopians, the
longest day is of twelve hours ; in Alexandria, in Egypt, of
thirteen ; and in Italy, of fifteen. In the island of Thule, again,
the day lasts all through the six summer months, and the night,
likewise, aU through the six winter months.
I
38 JOHN OF fokdun's chronicle
CHAPTEK IX.
The nations of Scotia, and their Languages, distinct — their
different Manners and Customs.
The manners and customs of the Scots vary with the (fiver-
sity of their speech. For two languages are spoken amongst
them, the Scottish and the Teutonic ; the latter of which is the
language of those who occupy the seaboard and plains, while
the race of Scottish speech inhabits the highlands and outlying
islands. The people of the coast are of domestic and civilized
habits, trusty, patient, and urbane, decent in their attire, affable,
and peaceful, devout in Divine worship, yet always prone to
resist a wrong at the hand of their enemies. The highlanders
and people of the islands, on the other hand, are a savage and un-
tamed nation, rude and independent, given to rapine, ease-loving,
of a docile and warm disposition, comely in person, but un-
sightly in dress, hostile to the English people and language, and,
owing to diversity of speech, even to their own nation, and ex-
ceedingly cruel. They are, however, faithful and obedient to their
king and country, and easily made to submit to law, if properly
governed. Solinus, the historian, in describing the manners and
customs of the Scottish nation of the olden time, says : — In its
social observances, the Scottish nation was always rugged and
warlike. For, when males were born to them, the fathers were
wont to offer them their first food on the point of a sword, so
that they should desire to die not otherwise than under arms, in
battle for liberty ; and when, afterwards, they are grown up, and
able to fight, the victors, after drinking of the blood of the slain,
besmear their faces with it. For they are a high-spirited race,
of sparing diet, of a fierce mettle, of a wild and stern counte-
nance, rugged in address, but affable and kind to their own
people, given to sports and hunting, and to ease rather than toil.
The Scottish nation, writes Isidore, is that, originally, which
was once in Ireland, and resembles the Irish in all things —
in language, manners, and character. For the Scots are a light-
minded nation, fierce in spirit, savage towards their foes, who
would almost as soon die as be enslaved, and account it sloth
to die in bed, deeming it glorious and manly to slay, or be
slain by, the foe in the field ; a nation of sparing diet, sustain-
ing hunger very long, and rarely indulging in food before sun-
set ; contenting themselves, moreover, with meat, and food pre-
pared from milk. And though they are, by nature, a people of,
generally, rather graceful figure, and goodly face, yet their
peculiar dress much disfigures them. .
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK 11. 39
CHAPTER X.
The Islands of Scotia, apart from the Orkneys.
Theee are also many islands, both great and small, at the
back of Scotia, between it and Ireland, separated from the
Orkneys by a great intervening tirth ; and the names of some
of these are as follows : —
Beginning first from the south, there is an island, formerly
called Eubonia, now Man, whose prince is bound to furnish to
his lord, the king of Scotland, ten piratical galleys, as often as
shall be necessary ; besides other regal services. Here is the
episcopal see of Sodor.
Arran, where are two royal castles, Brethwyk (Brodick), and
Lochransa.
Helantinlaysche (Lamlash, or Holy Island).
Eothesay, or Bute, where there is a fair and impregnable
royal castle.
Great Cumbrae, a rich and large island.
Little Cumbrae, renowned for sport, but thinly inhabited.
Bladay (Pladda).
Inch Marnoch, where there is a monastic cell.
Aweryne (Sanday), where is the chapel of Saint Sannian, and
a sanctuary for transgressors.
Eachryne (Rathlin), distant only six miles from Ireland.
Gya (Gigha).
Helant Macarmyk (Eileanmore), where is also a sanctuary.
A large island called He (Islay), where the Lord of the Isles
has two mansions, and the castle of Dounowak.
Helant Texa, with a monastic cell.
Colonsay, with an abbey of canons-regular.
Dura (Jura), twenty-four miles long, with few inhabitants, but
affording very good sport.
Scarba, fifteen miles long, where there is a chapel of the
Blessed Virgin, at which many miracles are performed. Beside
this island rushes down the mighty whirlpool of Corrievrekan.
Lunga.
Luing.
Shuna.
Great Seil.
Little SeU.
Helant Leneow (Eilean-na-naomh), that is, the Isle of Saints,
where is a sanctuary.
Garveleane (Garveloch), near the great castle of Donquhonle,
at a distance of six miles out at sea from the other islands.
40 JOHN OF FORDUN*S CHRONICLE
Mull, where are two castles, Doundowarde (Dowart), and
Dounarwyse (Aross).
Out at sea, at a distance of four miles from Mull, is Carne-
borg (Cairnaburgh), an exceeding strong castle.
Hycolumbkil, or lona, where are two monasteries, one of
monks and the other of nuns. There is also a sanctuary there.
Saint Kenneth's Island (Inchkenneth). His parish church
is there.
Kerrera.
Lismore, where is the episcopal see of Argyll at Lismore.
CoU.
Tiree, where there is an exceeding strong tower, and great
plenty of barley.
Helantmok (Muck), that is, the Isle of Swine.
Barra, where there is a chapel of the Holy Trinity.
Uist, thirty miles long, where whales and other sea-monsters
abound. There also is the castle of Benwewyl (Benbecula).
Eum, a wooded and hilly island, with excellent sport, but
few inhabitants.
Fuleay.
Assek.
Skye.
Lewis.
Hirth (St. Kilda), the best stronghold of aU the islands.
Near this is an island twenty miles long, where wild sheep
are said to exist, which can only be caught by hunters.
Tyreym (Eileantirim).
Thorset, where there is a very strong tower.
Stroma, near the whirlpool of the Orkneys.
Durenys, where, at midsummer, the sun is visible at night,
not shining, indeed, but as it were piercing through the gloom.
These above-mentioned islands, as well as many others, lie
scattered about in the sea, on the western confines of Scotia,
between it and Ireland ; and some of these, to the north-west,
look out upon the boundless ocean ; whence it is believed that
the inhabited world is bounded by this region of Scotia.
CHAPTER XL
The OrTcneys.
Theke are also the Pomonian islands, called the Orkneys,
situated at the northern extremity of Scotia, in the ocean
between it and Norway ; and these are separated from the
aforesaid islands by a considerable expanse of sea, although it
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK II. 41
is maintained by some that the other islands, as well as these,
are called Orkneys. Their name Orkneys, or Orcades, is de-
rived from the Greek Orce, " to receive ;" for, there, a vortex, or
whirlpool, of the ocean continually sucks in and pours forth
again the waters of the sea. Orcas, writes Isidore, is an
island near the British sea, and the neighbouring islands have
derived from it the name of Orcades. These are thirty-three
in number, of which twenty are desert, and thirteen inhabited.
But, in truth, if along with the Orkneys themselves we number
the rest of the islands of Scotia, both inhabited and unin-
habited, to wit, they will be found to be more than two hun-
dred ; while, in modern times, forty or more of the Orkneys
are inhabited. In order, therefore, that these islands may be
more clearly distinguished, the names of the Orkneys are given
below : —
The main island, called Pomona, or Orcadia.
North Eonaldsha. Lamholm (Lamau).
Great Papa (Westra). Glowmisholm (Glims).
Little Papa (Stronsa). Boroway (Burra).
Stronsa. South Eonaldsha.
Sanda. Plota.
Auskerry. Swona.
Eda. Switha.
Stromholme (Green Holm). Wawys (South Walls).
Westra. Hoy.
Para. Little Fara.
Egilsha. Gremsa.
Eollisay (Eowsa). Eisa.
Weir. Cava.
Enhallow. Calf of Flota.
Gairsay. Pentland Skerries.
Swynay (Swain Holm). Sowliskery.
Scalpandisay (Shapinsha). Brough of Birsa.
Heleneholm (EUer Holm). Brough of Dernes.
Colbansay (Copinsha). A third Papa.
CHAPTEE XIL
Fergus, Son of FercJmrd, the first King of the Scots, begins to
Beign in Scotia — The Arms he lore.
Fergus, having, as above recorded, come over to the island of
Albion, was created first king of the Scots therein, and having
given them laws and statutes, he extended his kingdom from
the western ocean, and the islands, to Drumalban, and there
42
established the boundary-line between the kingdoms : for the
Picts inhabited the country on the eastern seaboard. The be-
ginning of the reign of this king, and the arms he bore, have
been thus commemorated : —
" The first of Scottish kings that Albion boasts,
"Who oft to victory led the Scottish hosts,
Was Fergus, Ferchad's son, whose mighty shield
Bore a red lion on a yellow field.
Three hundred years and thirty was his reign
Before Christ came to break Sin's deadly chain."
At this time, that is, in the year 255 of the fifth Age, Alex-
ander the Great succeeded his father Philip ; and afterwards,
in the sixth year of his reign, he slew Darius, king of the Per-
sians, and took Babylon. At this time, likewise, amongst the
Eomans, Lucius Papirius was made Dictator ; and so generally
was he then held to be one of the most warlike soldiers of the
city, says Eutropius, that, when Alexander was said to be cross-
ing over into Italy, the Eomans chose him, in preference to
the rest, to withstand in battle the onset of Alexander. Then
a good while afterwards, as we read in the Histwy of Saint
Congall, there came over from Ireland a certain king, Fergus
by name, the son of Ferchad, bringing with him into Scotia
the regal chair carved out of marble, and, in it, he was there
crowned their first king by the Scots. All subsequent kings
who succeeded to the throne followed his example, and duly
assumed the crown in that same chair. This was the chair
which Smonbrec first brought to Ireland, as has been already
related. Now after the death of Fergus and that of some other
kings, his great-great-grandson Eether, called Eeuda by Bede,
succeeded to the throne of the Scots of Albion, and, during his
reign, was unwearied in his exertions to extend the frontiers of
the country ; and he even managed to annex to his kingdom
some parts of that of the Picts. But he was not content with
the gift of so much good fortune smiling upon him, for, too
much given to hankering after the extension of the frontiers of
his kingdom, he also undertook the task of subjugating some
of the northern border provinces of the territory of the Britons.
CHAPTEE XIII.
King Rether, the Gi^eat-great-grandson of Fergtbs, called
Eeuda by Bcde.
King Rether, then, assembling a great multitude of men from
Ireland, as well as the Scots inhabitin<j: the islands and the land
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK II. 43
t
of Albania, marched into the territory of tlie Britons with a
strong force ; and from his sojourn there, with his followers, for
some little time, that part of the country where he pitched his
tents derived, from his name, its present name of Eetherdale, or,
in English, Eethisdale, that is, the " dale," or " deal " (part) of
Eether. Some of the British writers, however, relate that, while
he was ravaging their country, he was slain in that valley,
which got its name from that circumstance. We read therefore,
that, under this king, a second incoming of Scots from Ireland
into Albania took place, for nearly all those whom he had
called thence to his assistance swore fealty to him of their own
accord, and joined the Scots of Albania, never more to return.
The Scots, says Bede, migrating from Ireland under their leader
Eeuterha, appropriated, either by fair means, or by force of arms,
those settlements among the Picts, which they still possess.
At any rate, while this king was on the throne, he restored
peace between the Picts and his Scottish subjects, both of the
islands and of the mainland, and skilfully concluded a fast
treaty of fellowship between them; providing that they should
thenceforth, by common consent, combine both defensively and
offensively against the hostile aggi-ession of any foreign nation,
when the contingency should arise. And this treaty was, for a
long time afterwards, strengthened by the ties of frequent inter-
marriage amongst them, and by many mutual offerings for the
sake of perpetuating the kindliness of reciprocal affection be-
tween themselves, and between their descendants.
CHAPTEE XIV.
Julius Ccesar sends an embassy to the Kings of the Scots and
Ficts, exhorting them to submit to the Romans.
Accordingly, the Scots and Picts were set at one by this
reasonable peace, and reigned, for a long time subsequently,
each content with the limits of their respective kingdoms, and
neither inflicting any annoyance or injury on the other. The
Britons, again, at that time, had monarchs who, far from harass-
ing the nations around them, on all sides, by lawless hostilities,
preserved, by their unvarying clemency and kindness, mutual
harmony with all men. While, then, all the island nations in
the north-west enjoyed such peaceful harmony. Gains Julius
Caesar, who,together with Lucius Bibulus, became Eoman consul
in A.u.c. 693, having made a bridge, crossed the Ehine, and struck
terror throughout all Germany, and nearly the whole of Gaul
44
t
lying between the Alps, the Khone, the Ehine, and the sea ; and
after he had, in nine years, subdued that most ferocious nation of
the Gauls, he turned his arms against the Britons, to whom, says
Eutropius, the Komans had not theretofore been known, even
by name. Bede writes : — Britannia, indeed, had never been
visited by the Eomans, and was unknown to them before the
time of Gains Julius Caesar ; who, being consul with Lucius
Bibulus, after having daunted or subdued the nations of the
Germans and Gauls, compelled Cassibellaunus, the king of the
Britons, to surrender. Cassibellaunus, says Geoffroy, promised
Julius Csesar a yearly tribute of three thousand pounds of silver.
In A.u.c. 703, or B.C. 49, Caesar, after having conquered the Bri-
tons, wishing to subject the kings of the north country to a similar
yoke, first sent envoys on before, to expound the conditions he
wished them to observe; and, traversing Britannia, he reached
the Scottish sea, by which the Britains were, at that time, sepa-
rated from the Scots, and intrenched himself for some time with
a large army on the shore of that tide. In the meantime, he
addressed to them, that is, to the kings of the Scots and Picts,
by his ambassadors, two letters, one kindly, and the other harshly,
worded; with instructions that, if they, as though perchance
unmindful of their own welfare, should, with knitted brows,
stubbornly reject the former, the ambassadors should present
the other, breathing war and discord.
CHAPTER XV.
Answer these Kings returned to Julius hy Letter,
Now, when the kings had heard the ambassador, they were
exceedingly indignant, and, having agreed as to the terms of
their answer, they curtly wrote back on this wise : — " We, the
kings of the Scots and Picts, to Julius, the Procurator of the
Koman citizens, with one voice wish, Welfare and Peace — if
indeed thou know the things of peace and welfare ; " — and so
forth, down to this sentence : " Think not, 0 Caesar, that thou
canst entice us, like children, by the blandishments of cajolery
like this — that thou canst succeed in leading us astray, to
wander in that most loathsome vale of slavery, along a path
impassable, crooked, rough, and horrible to every noble-hearted
man; leaving the pleasant and noble road of freedom, our birth-
right, a road wherein our fathers, sustained by help from the
gods, were ever wont to walk straight forwards, bending neither
to the right hand, nor to the left ; more especially as thine em-
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK II. 45
bassy came without those gifts which are well suited to those
who are unsophisticated in blandishments, to wit, such toys as
whirligigs and apples; for shallow fools yearn more strongly for
a complimentary offering than for some one, prostrate on his
knees, to freely offer them a kingdom. As for the threats
which, from thy letter, one might suppose thou hadst just
belched forth, we care little, if at all, for them, since we
hope that they do not flow from the ordinance of the gods,
but, doubtless, rather from the rash arrogance for which thou
art notorious ; inasmuch as thee, and those whose consul thou
proclaimest thyself, we have never offended — nay, we call the
world to witness that we do not even know you. Yet, inno-
cent as we are, thou unjustly threatenest us with war forth-
with, if we do not pursue these paths of homage to thee
— if, casting down the choice garland of our old nobility,
which the gods forbid ! we kings, blasphemers, as it were, of our
own race, and a scorn to all kings, do not, reversing the order
of reason, become the servants of citizens, and hasten meanly
to submit, to the dismal chain of slavery, heads hitherto accus-
tomed to golden crowns and kingly dignity. As, therefore,
what thou hast just addressed to us by thine embassy seems to
jar with the laws of both gods and men, we doubt not that the
gods will straightway arise to our help, and to thy confusion, if
thy words should be followed by deeds. Now, we do not write
back this as if, like braggarts, to defy thee to battle ; but humbly,
with all earnestness, entreating peace and, even more fervently,
thy friendship, provided only the traditions of our forefathers
are saved harmless. For, the freedom our ancestors have
handed down to us, which we must cherish above gold and
topaze, and which, in our judgment, far beyond all comparison
transcends all worldly wealth, and is infinitely more precious
than precious stones ; which our high-souled forebears have
from the beginning nobly, even to the death, preserved un-
tainted for us, their sons — this freedom, we say, shall we like-
wise, as not having, in our unworthiness, degenerated from their
nature, but as strenuously imitating their standard, preserve
inviolate for our sons after our death, and transmit to them
unspotted by a single jot of slavishness. Farewell," etc.
46 JOHN OF fordun's chronicle
CHAPTEE XVI.
Sudden Return of Julius in order to quell the repeated Re-
bellion of the Franks or Gauls — The Stone LandmarJc, the
extreme Limit of the Roman Possessions to the North- West
While, therefore, Caesar tarried all this time, with his army,
on the southern shore of the Scottish sea, awaiting their answer,
there came vessels from Gaul informing him that King Ambio,
instigated by the advice of the Treveri, had, with the Ebur-
naces and Aduatici, surrounded the Eoman legates and the
entire legion which was advancing against him, and slain them
in an ambuscade at Embronse ; and that the Gauls had again
conspired and leagued themselves together for relentless war-
fare against the Eoman s. Accordingly, apprehending that
these matters were of more importance than the subjugation of
those kings, Csesar determined to sail across to Gaul, but being
uncertain as to his return, he hastily caused a small round
chamber, like a pigeon-house, and of no use, apparently, but as
a landmark, to be built, of large smooth stones, without
mortar, not far from the mouth of the river Caron ; and he
wanted to build this little chamber as marking the extreme limit
of the Eoman possessions to the north-west, almost at the world's
end, and as a lasting monument of his military renown ; just
as Hercules of old planted pillars in the island of Gades, at
the western extremity of Europe, as a memorial of his eternal
fame and long-drawn labours. Another version, that, especially,
of common report, is that Julius Caesar had this chamber car-
ried about with him by the troops, with each stone separate,
and built up again from day to day. wherever they halted, that
he might rest therein more safely than in a tent ; but that, when
he was in a hurry to return to Gaul, he left it behind, with
the intention of coming back without delay; and it was built up
with one stone merely laid upon another, as is to be seen to this
day. On the east side of this chamber, there is an entrance so
large that an armed soldier on horseback can pass in, without
touching the top of the doorway with the crested helmet on his
head. This Julius, says Richard, defeated the fierce nation of
the Gauls in many battles, and finally, sailing over into Bri-
tannia, extended the Eoman empire beyond the barrier of the
ocean ; all which he accomplished within ten years.
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK II. 47
CHAPTER XYII.
Julius Ccesar, first Emperor — His Usurpation of the
Sovereignty of Borne.
Now as the rumours of this league of the Gauls grew more fre-
quent, Csesar, thinking a matter of so much importance should not
be neglected, lest, by impunity, it should occasion the rebellion
of others, deferred for the nonce attacking the aforesaid kings,
intending to return in the following spring, and subdue them ;
so he hastily manned his vessels, and returned to Gaul, taking
with him the conquered Britons, after they had given him hos-
tages. And there, according to Orosius and Bede, on his return
from Britannia, he was beset and harassed by sudden insurrec-
tions and wars on every side. When, therefore, says Orosius,
Csesar considered that the whole of Gaul was tranquillized, and
durst not compass any disturbances, he sent the legions to Ire-
land; and he devastated, by dreadful massacres of the inhabitants,
the territory of King Ambio, who had instigated so many wars
against him. Then, when the rebellion of the Gauls had been
stamped out, straightway there broke out among the Romans
an execrable and lamentable civil war, which occupied the
whole Roman world for four years, even until Caesar's death,
and by which the fortunes of the Roman people may be almost
said to have been changed. Meanwhile Caesar, being opposed
by Marcellus, Jubulus, Pompey, and Cato in the earnest re-
quest he had sent, by messengers, that he should be reappointed
consul without any contest, was ordered to disband his legions,
and return to the city without delay. Stung by this insult, he
at once, with his army, marched against his native land, from
Arantinium, where he had massed his troops. "Whereupon the
consuls, all the Senate, and the entire nobility, alarmed at his
approach, fled from the city into Greece ; and, under the guid-
ance of Pompey, the Senate prepared, in Epirus, Macedonia, and
Achaia, for war against Caesar. Caesar, however, entered the
evacuated city, and, in order that he might place himself above
the power of the consuls, he made himself Dictator — an office
whose authority dated from the earliest times. Then, after
having been occupied with civil war for four years, as has been
already said, and having either conquered or slain nearly the
whole Senate, together with Pompey and the rest of the nobility,
he held the sovereignty of Rome, by himself, for five years ;
and, during that time, the noble Roman leaders Cato, Scipio,
Petreius, and Juva miserably slew themselves in Africa, be-
cause they had been vanquished by Caesar.
48 JOHN OF fordun's chronicle
CHAPTEE XVIII.
The Bates of the Roman Emjperors must necessarily he given in
this Chronicle — The Four Monarchies of the World.
CHAPTEE XIX.
Death of Julius Ccesar — Signal Vengeance on his Betrayers^
inspired from Htaven^ as I believe.
CHAPTEE XX.
Date of the Accession of the Emperor Octavianus, Nephew of
Julius Ccesar — Vision revealed to him from Heaven.
CHAPTEE XXL
Conception and Birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
In the first year of grace, which was the forty-second of
Augustus Cajsar, the Blessed Virgin Mary, on the annunciation
of an angel, became pregnant, in her virginity, of the Eedeemer
of the perishing world, in the sixth month after the conception
of His forerunner; that is, on the 25th of March, when the
days begin to lengthen. For Our Lord Jesus Christ, God and
Man, who, being in the likeness of God, humbly took upon
him, from her, the likeness of a servant, deigned to be born in
Bethlehem Judah, the city of David, in the tenth month of that
year ; that humility might the more fitly be established just at
that time when the penalty of pride was already an example to
all throughout the world. While, therefore, the tumult of war
was everywhere hushed, and everything was wrapped in unbroken
silence, when night had run through half its course, the Word
of God the Father was made flesh, and began to dwell amongst
us, 5199 years after the beginning of the world, 2452 after the
crossing of the Eed Sea, 1206 after the taking of Troy. Seven
hundred and fifty -two years had passed from the building of
Eome, when Christ sanctified the world. The reign of the
first king of the Scots in Scotia, was three hundred years
and thirty before Christ. One hundred and fifty -eight
years elapsed from the restoration of the kingdom of the
Jews by Judas Macchabceus to the birth of Christ. 0 rosins,
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK 11. 49
in his Apologeticum on this passage in the prayer of the prophet
Habakkuk — "0 Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years,"
in describing this event, says : — Christ, the Son of God, in the
power and glory of the Father, redeemed in the middle of time,
and will judge in the end, those things which He had made in
the beginning. And thus the world is divided into three
periods, under different laws. For, in Adam began the period
of the Law of Nature, which lasted down to Moses, in whom it
was terminated ; in Moses began the period of the Law of the
Scripture, which continued down to Christ, in whom, also, it was
terminated ; in Christ, likewise, began the period of the Law
of Grace, which shall last until the consummation of Time.
CHAPTEE XXIL
Various Events after the Incarnation — Tiberius succeeds to
the Throne.
CHAPTEE XXIIL
Passion and Resurrection of Christ — Various Events,
CHAPTEE XXIV.
Accession of Claudius Caesar — He makes War on the Britons —
Accession of Nero.
In the fourth year of his reign, Claudius, because they refused
to pay the tribute, made war on the Britons, whom none had
approached since Julius Caesar's time ; and, having slain their
king, Guyderius, he compelled his brother Arviragus, who had
been raised to the throne in his stead, to surrender, and to pay
the tribute. According to Geoffroy, he remained in Britannia the
whole winter, and gave his daughter Gewyssa to Arviragus to
wife ; after which he returned to Eome. Bede tells us : —
Claudius, without any fight or bloodshed, took the greater part of
the island within a very few days, and returned to Eome on the
sixth month after his departure. He also, then, with the assist-
ance of the Britons, brought under the sway of Eome the Orkney
Islands, which lie between Scotia and Norway. The Britons,
however, were not all subdued at that time; for, after his depar-
ture, they broke out into a fresh rebellion, which was suppressed
by Vespasian, Nero's successor on the throne, who was sent by
this same Claudius to Britain, and who, also, then first reduced
VOL. II. D
50 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
the Isle of Wight to subjection to Eome. Nero, then, after him
succeeded to the throne. He resembled his uncle Caius Cali-
gula. He began to reign in a.d. 56, and reigned thirteen years
and eight months. This emperor disgraced and weakened the
Roman empire ; for he indulged in such extraordinary luxury
and extravagance, that he would fish with golden nets, which
he would draw up with cords of purple silk. He put to death a
great part of the Senate ; he was the enemy of every good man;
he set the city of Rome on fire, that he might enjoy the sight of
a spectacle such as Troy formerly presented when taken and
burned. In the sixth year of this emperor, James, the brother
of Our Lord, was stoned by the Jews ; in the seventh, Mark, the
Evangelist, and Mary Magdalene departed this life ; and in the
last year of his reign, he crucified Peter, and beheaded Paul.
In the self-same year he was adjudged a public enemy by the
Senate, and when they sought him, to take him to punishment,
he fled from the palace, and killed himself
CHAPTER XXV.
In the Twelfth Year of Claudiiis hegins the War of the Britons
against the Scots.
About this time, therefore, that is, the twelfth year of Clau-
dius, is said to have first broken out the war of the Britons
against the Pictsand Scots, which lasted one hundred and fifty-
four years, to the fifteenth year of Severus, unbroken by any
peaceful settlement for any length of time. At any rate, it
broke out in the following way : Vespasian was, with several
legions, sent over to Britannia by the Emperor Claudius, and,
after he had totally suppressed the rebellion of the Britons,
and subjected them to a yearly payment of tribute, he returned
to Rome, leaving part of his army behind him for the protec-
tion of the country, with instructions that it should, with the
assistance of the Britons, reduce to servitude, or exterminate,
the Irish nation, as well as the Scots and Picts. Ultimately,
the Britons did accompany the Romans to Ireland; but, after
various losses inflicted and suffered on either side, they made
little, if any, way. Returning thence, they everywhere plunder
and devastate, with fire and sword, the contiguous lands of the
kingdom of the Scots and Picts, because these nations would
not submit to the Romans. Meanwhile, as hostilities on the
part of the Romans and Britons became more vigorous, these
fierce nations, the Irish, the Picts, and the Scots, impelled, by
a common need, to come together, bound tliemselves in a fast
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK II. 51
league against them, because a threefold cord is hard to break ;
and they began to lay Britain waste on every side. For the
Irish, bursting forth from the westward, the Scots, from the
north-west, and the Picts, from the north, parcelled out the
country amongst them, and desolated it by deplorable massacres,
sparing neither sex nor age, and devouring with fire or the edge
of the sword everything they could lay hands upon. The
Britons, again, on the other hand, did their best to inflict upon
them, and not undeservedly, mischief as great ; and, whatever
they saw, besides earth and stones, they everywhere either con-
sumed with fire or slew with the sword.
CHAPTEK XXVI.
The savage Wars of the Scots and Picts against the Britons, and
their first Conquest of the Begion of Albania ^ beyond the
(Scottish Firth.
Thereupon there broke out between them a most cruel war,
the like whereof had never been heard of before ; nay, none
of equal or greater cruelty, between two nations, has ever
been recorded in history. The populace of both nations,
whose part it is to give themselves up to agriculture only,
and not to war and slaughter, was exposed, on all sides, to
widespread war, pillage, and rapine ; and, wretched men, the
dregs of the people, who could neither help the citizens, at
all, nor hurt their enemies, they were massacred without mercy.
Accordingly, the remainder of the people, who were able in any
way to escape the edge of the sword, being left defenceless,
lurked stealthily in mountains, caves, and the recesses of the
woods. Here they kept themselves alive in sorry plight, but in
perfect contentment, with herb roots, the fruit, leaves, or bark
of trees, or only with the milk of some ewe, if at least they hap-
pened to have one ; whence, also, it came to pass that the citizens
who were shut up within strong city walls, and the garri-
sons of the towns, on the inhabitants of the rural districts
being thus cut down by the sword or driven to flight, were
brought into such straits of hunger and starvation that, laying
no store by their houses, their whole property, and all their furni-
ture, and wishing to save themselves, their wives, and their chil-
dren, from this calamity, they would take them away to lands
far remote. Meanwhile, the enemy would surround the towns,
thus very often empty, abandoned as they were by their garri-
sons, except a few foolish people entirely unskilled in defence;
nor would their fierceness be long delayed, but, gathering their
52 JOHN OF fordun's chronicle
columns into one, they would scale the walls with ease, and,
breaking them down, without delay, to their very foundations,
and scattering the stones thereof down into the ditch, would at
once level them with the ground. The strongest towns of the
Britons bear witness to this desolation, namely, Agned, which,
restored by Heth, king of the Scots, was afterwards called
Hethinburgh (Edinburgh) ; Carlisle also, and Alneclud (Dum-
barton), and a large number of towns which were by them razed
to the very ground, and have not yet been restored by any one.
Eutropitbs in his Bomanorum Historice, in recalling this calam-
ity, says : — Nero ventured on no military exploits, and nearly
lost Britannia ; for in his reign two or three noble towns were
taken and demoKshed.
CHAPTEE XXVII.
The Moravienses driven out hy the Bomansfrom their native
soil of Moravia — They afterwards join the Picts.
As the folly and sloth of that most wicked emperor, Nero,
were not unknown, some hope of recovering their ancient
liberty sprang up among the nations. In his days, the Eomans
suffered innumerable evils. For the Parthians, after having
subjected the eastern legions to their yoke, took Armenia, and
reduced it to servitude. Britannia, also, was weakened, and nearly
devastated, by the surrounding peoples. Moreover, the Ger-
mans and Pannonians wanted to engage in a fresh rebellion, but
were vanquished by the Koman troops. The people of Mor-
avia, likewise, a district of Pannonia beside the river Danube,
were roused by sedition, as they were very often wont to be,
and, led by Roderick, they rebelled, and treacherously sur-
rounded and cut to pieces the entire legion which garrisoned
that country. These Moravienses had, in truth, before this,
been nearly destroyed in a bloody massacre by Augustus Caesar's
stepson Tiberius, before he was emperor. When, therefore, the
provincial legions near heard of so wicked a deed, they deter-
mined either to punish the ringleaders of the Moravienses by
the sword, or to exile them under sentence of perpetual banish-
ment. Accordingly Roderick, panic-stricken, and unable to sustain
the onset of the approaching legions, provisioned a fleet, and
went an exile with his followers, down the river Danube to the
sea ; and after going about plundering, as a pimte, various bays
in the northern ocean, he betook himself over to the Belgic
sea. He there, for some time, made head against the Romans,
sweeping the seas, and making constant attacks upon the sea-
r
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK II. 53
ports and ships of the Gauls and Britons ; and, at length, wish-
ing to rest, he by treaty submitted to the Picts, among whom
he had frequently before made some stay. The Picts, much em-
boldened and strengthened by the multitude of these people there,
exhorted the Scots, without ceasing, to go to war with the Britons;
and it so came about. For, combining their hordes into one mass,
they swoop into Britannia, without fear of being attacked by any
foe ; and, after scattering the population on all sides, and griev-
ously devastating the country, they return homewards by forced
marches; but, on their way back over the border, laden with spoil
and plunder, they were met by Marius, a patrician of the Britons,
at the head of the legions of the Roman nation ; and, after most
ruthless slaughter on both sides, he put them to flight; Roderick,
the chief of the Moravienses, having first been slain in the battle.
Geoffroy, in his writings, has laid it down that these Moravienses
were Picts from Scythia ; and rightly so, for all the regions
from the Baltic Sea to the Danube were formerly called Lower
Scythia ; and it was from one of these that they came and were
permanently united with the Picts. The Pictish people, then,
after their defeat, retraced their steps to their homes, in great
confusion ; and they also gave the nation of the Moravienses,
who were deprived of their leader — for their chief had fallen in
the battle — their daughters to wife, and a spacious country to
bring under cultivation. To this district, according to Geoffroy,
they gave the name of their old country of Moravia, that is, to
Katania (Caithness) ; and abode there with the Picts.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Monument which Marms, leader of the Roman legions^ caused to
he erected in memory of the battle — Succession of Emperors.
Having gained this triumph, this Roman, Marius, wishing to
transmit to posterity a perpetual memorial of so great a battle,
caused to be erected, close to the scene of the victory, a certain
monument in the likeness of a nearly square chamber, but of
not much utility, built of hewn stones laid together, without
the artificial connexion of mortar, and roofed in with concave
cut stones of a workmanship entirely unused before.
CHAPTER XXIX.
Account given hy Orosius and Augustine of the rise and fall
of the Roman power — Succession of Emperors.
64 JOHN OF FOKDUN*S CHRONICLE
CHAPTER XXX.
Succession of various Emperors.
CHAPTER XXXL
Alliance of Fulgentius, leader of the Britons in Albania^
with the Scots and Ficts.
In the time of the Emperor Commodus, civil discord
began to arise in Britannia, amongst the Britons, with reference
to the payment of the tribute. Eor on the death, or, according
to others, the want of compliance of their king Lucius, after
whom their royal race ceased to reign in Britain, tribunes are
appointed, instead of kings, by the Romans. Meanwhile, Fulgen-
tius, the consul of the Britons of Albania, who was sprung from
the stock of the ancient kings, asserted that he would on no ac-
count pay tribute to the Romans, and even ought not to do so,
for that he had never promised either allegiance or submission
to them. His fellow-countrymen, then, being on this account
excited to envy, determined to force him to contribute by taking
his lands ; while he repaid them with usury, by not only re-
taking his own, but also committing depredations upon them,
as one maddened against them. Thence, afterwards, followed
sore rapine, sedition, and incendiarism, neither side sparing the
other, but everywhere consuming everything and each other, as
if the northern Britons were totally divided from the southern.
The Scots and Picts, however, as they were wont, wasted and
devastated, by frequent irruptions, the lands of Eulgentius in
their neighbourhood, carrying off unnumbered spoils ; so Eul-
gentius, not able to sustain the shock of wars on all sides,
entered into a treaty with the Scots for a time ; and, as soon as
peace was established by this agreement, he turned all his energies
to attacking the Roman patricians who ruled the country at the
time, and their British allies. While, therefore, Britannia was
labouring under these the evils of civil discord, the amount of
the tribute which was wont to be sent over yearly to Rome re-
mained altogether unpaid ; and many of the Britons, after him,
abjured fealty to Rome, hoping thus to be freed from subjection
to taxes.
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK II. 55
CHAPTEK XXXII.
The Emperor Severus, to shut out the Scots and Picts from
invading the Britons, has a wall made across the island.
On his accession to the government of the empire, Severus,
as already said, found the commonwealth eveiy where in great
disturbance ; and he laboured hard to reduce it to order. Thus
lie slew Pascenius Niger, who was attempting a rebellion
throughout Egypt and Syria ; he conquered and quieted the
Parthians, Arabs, and Azabeni ; he smothered the revolt again
meditated by the Jews and Samaritans ; and, after having quelled
many insurrections throughout the whole Eoman world, he, at
at the city of Lugdunum, defeated and slew Clodius Albinus,
who had made himself Caesar in Gaul. When, therefore,
civil war had been repressed on all sides with the utmost
diligence, Britannia alone remained uncurbed, through the fac-
tiousness of Fulgentius. Accordingly the emperor called
a council, and asked which of all the military chiefs was pre-
pared to take some legions with him, and go to Britain ; and,
hearing no one say he was ready, he took up his sword, and
said — " Here am I ! Prepare ye all to follow me ; for with me
ye shall go." And he thus set out for Britannia forthwith. The
cause of his arrival was not, however, hidden from Fulgentius,
who was forewarned thereof by his friends, by means of mes-
sengers secretly sent on before, and also that he need not hope
in any degree to prevail against the onset of such a multitude
of warriors. When he had hastily marched into Scotia, there-
fore, he and the kings of the Scots and Picts entered into a stable
treaty of perpetual peace and eternal fellowship between their
respective nations, while he, at the same time, give up his two
sons as hostages. He then, supported by a strong army of the
Scots and Picts, went back into Britannia, prepared to do battle
without delay. And he went backwards and forwards, making
expeditions of this sort, very frequently, until impeded by the
bulwark of a very broad vallum drawn across the island by
Severus ; and then only did he become rather more quiet.
CHAPTEK XXXIII.
Fulgentius, supported hy an auxiliary hody of Scots and Picts,
besieges the city of York, and slays the Emperor Severus.
Now the emperor, when he had overcome Fulgentius, 8,nd
made him flee into Scotia, had, at that time, a vallum made
56 JOHN OF fordun's chronicle
across the island, between two rivers on either side, namely,
the Tyne and the Esk, that there might, for the future, no spot
seem open for the invasion of the allies by their constant
enemies the Scots and Picts, or even by the Britons of Albania
themselves, as was their wont. So Fulgentius, knowing that
the way to York, by land, was closed to him by the vallum,
speedily made ready some small vessels, laden with victuals,
warlike engines, and cavalry ; while the infantry and the other
leaders of his land forces went with him to the river, and set
busily to work making coracles, or portable boats, of wicker-
work, cunningly sewed round about with skins, each of which
could carry across two, or only one, with his arms, and the boat-
man. Kowing over in these, as well as swimming across, in
the darkness of night, they safely crossed the river before day-
break. He then massed the troops together, and laid close
siege to the city of York, which he had previously lost, when
Severus had assaulted it; and he, at the same time, received again
into the bonds of their pristine allegiance to him some of his
nobles, who had formerly seceded from him, but who, inspirited
by the great multitude of warriors who accompanied him, chose
to cleave to him rather than to the Komans. When, therefore,
a few days after, Fulgentius was applying himself intently to
the siege, and, after having made extensive preparations in
the scaffolding of the engines for scaling or breaching the walls
of the city, was diligently occupied about the assault, this
Roman emperor, like the high-spirited chief he was, suddenly
sallied out with his troops, and rushed amongst the enemy; and,
engaging in mortal combat with Fulgentius, he was slain. Bede,
indeed, relates that Severus died a natural death in this same
city ; but Geoffroy bears witness, in the following passages, that
he was killed by Fulgentius, even as is here related.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Bedels account of the said Wall, and of the Siege, and of the
Death of Sevencs.
Severus, then, says Bede, having been victorious in the civil
wars which grievously came upon him all at once, was drawn
into Britannia by the revolt of almost all the allies ; and, after
many a great and serious battle, he thought fit to divide from
the other unconquered nations that part of the island which he
had recovered — not, as some imagine, with a wall, but with a
vaUum. Accordingly, he drew this massive vallum, fortified with
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK II. 57
frequent towers upon it, from sea to sea ; and there — that is, at
York — he fell sick and died. Geoffroy writes : — Severus, as soon
as he had arrived in Britannia, gave battle to the Britons, and
subdued part of the country ; while the inhabitants of the other
part, which he could not reduce, were so hard pressed by him
that they were forced to flee into Scotia. They, however,
resisted him with all their might, under the conduct of Ful-
gentius, and often inflicted great slaughter upon both their own
countrymen and the Eomans. For they brought to their assist-
ance all the people of the islands that they could get, and thus
often came back victorious. The emperor, therefore, unable to
endure the frequent inroads of Fulgentius, commanded a
vallum to be built between Deira and Albania, so as to check
his further advance ; and they built one at the common charge
from sea to sea, which, in after time, served more easily to
hinder the approach of the enemy. But Fulgentius, when no
longer able to resist Severus, crossed over into Scotia, that by
the help of the Scots and Picts he might be restored to great-
ness ; and when he had collected all the youth of the country,
he returned by sea to Britannia, and besieged the city of York.
Upon this news being spread among the other nations of
Britannia, the greater part of the Britons deserted Severus, and
went over bodily to Fulgentius. However, Severus did not, on
this account, desist from his undertaking ; but, summoning the
Romans and the rest of the Britons together, he marched to the
siege, and fought with Fulgentius. The engagement proved
very sharp. Severus was slain, with many of his followers, and
Fulgentius mortally wounded.
CHAPTER XXXV.
The Pojpe Saint Victor /., under whom the Scots began to embrace
the Catholic Faith.
In the seventh year of the Emperor Severus, Victor I., the
fourteenth Pope from Peter, who was spmng from a nation of
Africa, and whose father's name was Felix, ascended the Papal
throne, and occupied it ten years two months and twelve days.
Under him, the Scots began to embrace the Catholic faith, that
is to say, in a.d. 203 ; whence the following : —
" After Christ's birth two hundred years and three.
His true faith flrst on Scotland shed her rays ;
Then the first Victor filled the Papal see,
Who died a martyr in Severus' days."
^8 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
This Victor, like his predecessor Eleutherius, appointed that
the holy Easter should be celebrated on Sunday ; and, at the
request of the clergy, he held a council at Alexandria of Pales-
tine, on the limits of the celebration of Easter, and other most
urgent ecclesiastical matters. There were present, at this
council, the holy Pope Victor himself, Narcissus, patriarch of
Jerusalem, and Theophilus, bishop of Csesarea ; and it was there
determined that Easter should always be celebrated on the
Sunday after the fourteenth day of the moon of the month of
April. For many bishops, both of the East and of Asia, at that
time, and for a long time after, used to celebrate Easter in ac-
coixiance with the Jews. This Pope also ordained that, in a
case of urgent necessity, a man may be baptized in a river, in a
pool, or in the sea, provided only he has made open profes-
sion of the Christian faith. He received the crown of martyr-
dom under Severus, and was buried beside Saint Peter, in the
Vatican. His feast is held on the 28th of July.
CHAPTEE XXXVI.
Sticcession of many insignificant Fmperors.
Severus, says Eutro'pius, left two sons to succeed him,
Basianus, and Geta. The Senate conferred the name of An-
toninus on Basianus ; while Geta was adjudged a public enemy,
and speedily put to death. Basianus Antoninus, then, who was
also called Caracalla, succeeded his father in a.d. 2 1 3, and reigned
six years. He paid the debt of nature in the city of Edessa,
whUe attempting an expedition against the Parthians. Sigihert
relates that Basianus was slain by the Parthians, at the city of
Edessa. Geoffroy tells us that Basianus was slain by Car-
ausius, in Britannia. But I think we should rather give credit
to the histories of the two former ; because it is certain that
Carausius first usurped Britannia from the Komans in the time
of Diocletian and Maximian. For, seventy-two years after the
death of this Basianus, Carausius rebelled, in Britannia, against
the Eomans, and the Emperor Diocletian ordered his associate
Adlectus to slay him, as will presently be related below.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
First occasion of the Dissensions which sprang up "between the
Scots and Picts, in the time of Diocletian, or a little before.
On Cams having been struck by lightning, Diocletian, the thirty-
second from Augustus, succeeded to the throne in the year
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK 11. 59
287, and reigned twenty years; and, having created Maximian
Herculius first Csesar, then Augustus, he sent him into Gaul.
It was in this expedition that the Theban legion suffered. In their
time the fury of the persecution of the Christians was so much
increased that, within thirty days, twenty-two thousand persons of
both sexes, throughout the various provinces, were crowned with
martyrdom. In this persecution, Christianity was almost en-
tirely stamped out in Britannia. While, however, such things
were being done, by their command, throughout the whole extent
of the Koman Empire, the grievous thunderbolts of sudden dis-
turbances crashed upon them. In Britannia, Carausius, who had
been set to watch the sea-coast, rebelled, as did Achilleus, in
Egypt ; while Narseus, king of the Persians, oppressed the east,
and the Quinquegentiani, Africa, by their wars. Now, in the
time of this Diocletian, or a little before, while the nations of
the Scots and Picts reigned together in peace, and everywhere
protected their territory with their combined strength, it so hap-
pened that, on a day appointed, some nobles of both nations
met on the confines of their respective countries, as they were
wont, for the purpose of hunting ; and, when they had been
coursing about hither and thither nearly a whole day, with their
dogs uncoupled, in pursuit of game, a certain hound, which was
accustomed to follow the blood-stained tracks of the quarry,
was stolen away by the Picts, and incontinently found among
them. The Scots asked to get it back, but they would not re-
store it ; so they fell out, and the Scots strove to wrest it from
them by force. They, on the other hand, taking no manner of
trouble to lessen, by reparation, the wrong they had committed,
but even more crueUy aggravating it, hastened to battle ; and
thus many, on both sides, of those who had met together were
slain with the sword, one by another. This, then, was the oc-
casion and beginning of the first dissension between them; who,
for five hundred years, had lived harmoniously in a united
peace, with their united power resisting all other nations what-
ever. But, not long after, in proportion to the earnestness with
which they formerly nurtured the friendship between them,
as if they two were one people, by frequent kind turns done
to one another ; by firm alliances between their children, in
connexion by marriage ; and often, also, by mutual banquets —
was the bitterness with which their enmity thenceforth grew,
from day to day, by rapine, fire, slaughter, treachery, and various
tumults and raids. And though confirmed peace, and negotia-
tions for a truce, were often agreed upon between them ; still
things went daily from bad to worse, so that each nation set to
work, with all its might, to annihilate the other. However,
60 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
peace was restored by Carausius, a Briton, whose object,
indeed, was to take them with him to fight against the Komans,
as will be shown in the sequel.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
Covenant of Caratcsius with the Scots and Picts — First Eotypulsion
of the Romans from Britannia.
While fickle Fortune was thus turning her wheel at random,
such a change came over the impaired strength of the Romans
that the whole of their dominions were disturbed, both by sea
and land. Then this Carausius, a man of very mean birth, but
of great skill in the art of war, received power from the Senate
to restore to order the face of the Belgic sea, and its shores,
which were devastated by the piracy of Saxon and Frankish ves-
sels. So he immediately assembled, from all parts, freebooters,
always at hand, and ready for sedition ; and great was the booty
that he many a time took from the enemy. He did not, however,
share it equally with his associates, nor restore the natives their
own; neither did he give any part thereof for behoof of the com-
monwealth, or to the Senate, but took good care to keep the whole
heap for himself, and enrich himself. On this account, therefore,
the Senate secretly, by letter, ordered him to be put to death, for
fear he should become too friendly with the barbarians, and, hav-
ing assembled them, to the prejudice of the Roman interests,
bring them into the island. He, however, being in all things
prudent and cautious, got a clue to Csesar's instructions ; and,
rising with the greatest courage against the Romans, he kept
the whole of Britannia for himself, allowing them none of it, and
brought it all under his own dominion. He, moreover, without
delay, pressingly solicited all the nations of the island, as well
as the Scots and Picts, upon whom he had formerly committed
the most cruel depredations, to enter into a friendly treaty
with him ; and, with promises of many gifts, he assiduously
besought them to rise, and join him in driving the Romans out of
the island. Nor would he have been able to lure them on to
contract such a treaty of peace, had he not conceded to them
that the possessions they had acquired by the sword, in Nero's
time, should subsist in the same peaceful state, and remain
theirs, in their integrity, for ever. With the help of these nations,
then, he assailed the Romans ; and, having wrested from
them all their fortresses and towns, he cruelly expelled them,
every one, from Britannia, and invested himself with the diadem
of the kingdom.
r
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK II. 61
CHAPTER XXXIX.
Batification of this Covenant^ and Treaty negotiated hy Car-
ausius between the Island Nations — the Scots, Britons, and
Picts — to last for ever.
The Britons, then, though they all knew that Carausius was
of obscure birth, and had risen to fame merely during the late
campaign, nevertheless, on account of his practised skill in war-
fare, gladly accepted him as their king, hoping, through his
energy, to be the sooner snatched from the power of the Romans.
So they willingly ratified the covenants he had lately entered
into with the Scots and Picts ; and, to seal the compact, they
freely granted him, in perpetuity, the possessions of their late
leader Fulgentius, which Gotharius, his grandson through his
daughter, had until then, by the help of the Scots, through a long
course of years withheld, though with difficulty, from the Romans;
and it was settled that, in future, having become, as it were, one
people, they should, without treachery, give each other faithful
help against the Romans, or any other nations that might wish
to make war on them or any one of them. Meanwhile, a Roman
force was sent by the emperors into Britannia, under the command
of Basianus, to recover it from those barbarous and untamed
nations, after Carausius should have been slain or put to flight,
and to reduce it to its accustomed condition of a republic ; or
else dismally to bestrew the fields with the corpses of those of
the inhabitants who would spurn them. Accordingly Basianus
(not, however, that Basianus Caracalla who had, many years
before, succeeded his father Severus in the empire, but another
who, on account of his military renown, had at this time been
chosen to take command of the legions), on his first arrival,
besought the Picts with words of kindness, saying that, if they
would make a treaty with him, and exert themselves to help
him in warring against the Britons, he, for his part, would not
refuse to give them his constant assistance against the Scots.
As, however, they were already committed by the covenant Car-
ausius had made with them, they gave no final answer to his pro-
mises; but cunningly sent him away under the illusion that they
would either give him their help at once, or, at least, withdraw
themselves from the war. For, in their disingenuous wariness,
they wished first to be able to foresee the result of the war ; so
that, when certain which side would be victorious, they might
then more safely enter into an alliance with the victor. So
Basianus arrived, and crushed the Britons by sundry mas-
h
62 JOHN OF fordun's chronicle
sacres and proscriptions ; but he was afterwards, with many of
his soldiers, slain in a most hard-fought battle, by Carausius,
and the Scots and Picts, who had joined with him.
CHAPTER XL.
Death of Carausius ly Treachery, at the hands of Adlectus, a
Soldier — His ExJwrtation, or Instructions, to the Islanders,
hoio they might always defend themselves from the Homans,
or any other foreign Foes.
After this victory, then, Carausius, who outshone every one
in all military qualities, and was the first, after the Britons had
been subdued by the Emperor Julius, gloriously to rule over
them, when restored to their pristine freedom on the expulsion
of the Romans from their midst, was betrayed, in a measure by
the treachery of one of his soldiers, and slain with the sword.
Carausius, says Bede, possessed himself of Britannia ; and, having
most valiantly retained it for the space of seven years, he was,
at length, put to death by the treachery of his associate Adlectus.
This Carausius was remarkable for his faithfulness to his engage-
ments, keeping all his promises to the very letter, and especially
the covenants he had made with the Scots and Picts, whom he
frequently, by embassies to and fro, and very often by letter,
exhorted to mutual and loyal concord. " I do not consider,"
he would say to them, "that there need be any fear of the
Romans in the island, so long as the various nations therein,
united in faithful communion under trusty chiefs, firmly keep
the peace one towards another. So that, on a sudden arrival of
their foes, they should not, without preparation, rush head-
long into a hasty war, before being joined by their friends or
allies; but, by wisely cutting off the enemy's supplies, they
should put off hostilities as long as should be necessary ; and
thus, after careful discussion of some common plan, seize a fit
time for fighting." Meanwhile, the greater part of the British
nation renewed the treaty of alliance they had formerly made
with the Scots, and strove, if possible, to put Adlectus to death,
or drive him out of Britannia, on account of the death of Carausius,
their chief. Adlectus, on the other hand, accompanied by
the Picts, who had broken the treaty they had previously sworn
with the Britons, inflicted many injuries upon Britannia; and
at length, a few years after, advancing to battle with them,
he himself, after great slaughter on both sides, fell amongst
the slain, as he so well deserved. Eutropius writes: — After
I
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK II. 63
Carausius, Adlectus held Britannia for three years, and was over-
thrown by the Praetorian troops of Asclepiodotus. Afterwards,
as often as the Komans made war on the British nation, the
Scots would help the latter, and come faithfully to their rescue;
while the Picts would assiduously give their support to the
Ptomans, against the Britons. For the cunning of Adlectus had
separated the Picts from the Britons, and these two nations
thenceforth wasted each other, with mutual massacres, until the
time of Maximus, emperor of Gaul. Let us now return to the
enumeration of the emperors, as they succeeded to the throne.
! CHAPTER XLI.
Accession of the Emperors Galerius and Constantius — War of
Constantius against the Scots and the Britons of Albania,
When, therefore, the commonwealth was in danger, imder
I the aforesaid emperors Diocletian and Maximian, two men
were created their coadjutors : Constantius, father of Constan-
tine the Great, and grandson of Claudius through his daughter ;
i and Galerius Maximin. And the emperors, also, that they
might attach these men to themselves by family ties, gave in
marriage, Diocletian, his daughter Valeria to Galerius, and
Maximian, his stepdaughter Theodora to Constantius. Of
; Theodora, Constantius begat seven sons, brothers of Con-
i stantine. He was afterwards sent by Maximian to Gaul,
i which was ravaged by the Alemanni, and to Britannia, which
was labouring under civil war. Accordingly, after having tran-
quillized Gaul, he went across into Britannia, bringing over
\ three legions with him, and easily compelled the southern
I Britons to make peace — not by war, indeed, but by threats of
war. Then, declaring war against the Britons of Albania and
the Scots, he stirred up against them the nation of the Picts,
who were always prone to harm their neighbours. In those
days, the young Constantine, son of Constantius by his former
wife Helena, was serving with Diocletian ; who, at the instiga-
tion of Galerius, was bent upon compassing his death by foul
play. The plot was detected by Fausta, Maximian's daughter,
whom Constantine had taken to wife ; and he hurried back, in
safety, to his father. On Diocletian and Maximian retiring
from the imperial throne, they were succeeded by the aforesaid
Constantius and Galerius, in a.d. 307; and these, after they
were raised to the dignity of Augustus, were the first to split up
the Eoman empire into two divisions, the Eastern, and the
Western : so that Constantius got Gaul, Africa, and Italy ; while
64 JOHN OF FOEDUN'S CHRONICLE
Illyricum, Asia, and the East, fell to the share of Galerius.
Constantius, however, content with the dignity of Augustus, and
the sovereignty of Gaul, refused to undertake the care of
governing Italy and Africa ; and, thus, Galerius held the im-
perial sceptre, alone, for two years. Constantius, writes Bede,
who, whilst Diocletian was alive, governed Gaul and Spain, a
man of the greatest kindness and courtesy, died in Britannia.
He left his son Constantine, begotten of Helen, his concubine,
as emperor of Gaul.
CHAPTEK XLII.
Accession of the Emperor Constantine the Great — His maternal
uncle Traherius slain hy the Scots and Britons.
Constantine, therefore, says Eusebius, begotten of Helen, the
concubine of Constantius, came to the throne in a.d. 319, and
reigned thirty-one years and ten months. Immediately upon
his father's death, being minded to usurp the whole empire,
he assembled as many as he could of the Gauls and Britons,
and set out towards Italy. Meanwhile, an insurrection was
stirred up at Eome, and the Praetorian bands conferred upon
Maximian's son, Maxentius, the title of Augustus. At that
time, writes Eutropiics, four emperors watched over the
commonwealth — Constantine and Maxentius, born in the
purple, and Licinius and Maximin, who were upstarts. In the
fifth year after he assumed the imperial dignity, Constan-
tine vanquished Maxentius, and took possession of Italy ; then,
in the ninth year, on Maximin being accidentally overtaken by
death, he defeated, by sea and land, Licinius, who had married
his sister Constantia, and slew him ; and he thus obtained
complete sovereignty over the empire. In the tenth year of
this reign, the holy Pope Silvester, a Roman by nationality, sat
upon the throne of St. Peter, at Rome. He cleansed the em-
peror from leprosy, by baptism ; whereupon the Church had
peace for the future. For, according to all historians, it had
laboured under a continual whirlwind of persecution ever since
Nero's time ; although ten years are noted as more cruel than
the rest. All the pontiffs, moreover, who had been at the head
of the Church at Rome, down to, but exclusive of, this
Silvester, had been martyred, save Marcus only. In these
days, the Romans in Britannia, and the Gauls whom Constan-
tine had sent over for their protection, were conquered
by the Britons — but not driven out ; for there were sent to de-
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK II. 65
fend them some fresh legions, which brought back the Britons
under the yoke, and also wofully defeated the Scots, and cut
them to pieces. In the meantime, a certain commander of
British extraction, named Octavius, rising unexpectedly, with
a few adherents at first, destroyed the commanders of the legions,
and the patricians who sat with them in the Prsetorium. And,
soon, all the natives who wished to ascend the ladder of liberty
hastily flocked to his standard, and, having cast out the enemy
from the island, unanimously raised him to the throne. Some
more legions were afterwards sent against him, under the com-
mand of Traherius ; and, being vanquished by him, Octavius
went into Scotia. He there conciliated into the security of
peace the Scots, and even the Picts, whom, until then, the
Britons had looked upon as their enemies ; and, returning to
Britannia, accompanied by them, he slew this Traherius, to
whom the whole strength of the Britons had been utterly
opposed.
CHAPTEE XLIII.
Octavius, King of the Britons, restores the three nations of the
island — the Scots, Britons, and Picts — to the unity of peace,
as Carav^ius had formerly dmie — Accession of the sons of
Constantine.
Now Octavius, being raised to the throne, stood forth as
a faithful intercessor, and restored to the unity of peace the
three nations of the island — the Scots, Britons, and Picts — as
Carausius had formerly done. He further promised that he
and his would always be ready, according to agreement, to
lend assistance for their defence, if they would come with
him and fight against the Eomans, whenever necessary; and
this they each confirmed to the other with an oath. At any
rate, this treaty of alliance was faithfully observed by all
parties for some time, even down to the time of a certain
tyrant, named Maximus, by the cruel craft of whose tyranny
these nations were again separated, and almost annihilated,
as the facts of the case will show further on. Upon the
death of Constantine, at Nicomedia, he was succeeded by his
three sons, Constantius, Constantine, and Constans, to wit, in
A.D. 340. Constantius obtained the sovereignty of Eome;
while Constantine reigned over Constantinople ; and Constans
over Antioch. In course of time, Constantine was slain while
he was bent on making war on his brother. Constans,
VOL. II. E
66 JOHN OF fordun's chronicle
also, was put to death by Magnentius, at a castle whicli
bears the name of Helena, in the seventeenth year of his reign.
But Constantius, an eminently peaceable man, after he had
reigned twenty-four years, devoted his energies to a civil war
against Julian the Apostate, and died on the road between Cilicia
and Cappadocia. In the sixteenth year of this Constantius,
Maximus, above referred to, received from him authority to
govern Gaul, and set out with his legions; but being enticed by
the treachery of some Britons, he left Gaul at peace, and came to
Britannia, with his forces, composed equally of Eomans and Gauls.
This Maximus was descended from the imperial race, being the
cousin of Constantine the Great ; and he was accused of aim-
ing at a share in the empire. In a catalogue of the chiefs of
Eoman lineage who ruled over the Britons, we read that Maxi-
mus reigned over the Britons thirty-three years, from the first
year of Gratian onwards, that is, from a.d. 381 ; and he would
thus be made out to have lived until the fifth year of the
Emperor Honorius. But this we believe will not bear sifting ;
for, in the second year of the elder Theodosius, that is, in a.d.
388, this Maximus was taken prisoner by Theodosius, at
Aquileia, and slain, on account of the iniquitous murder of
Gratian, whom he had killed by treachery, rather than in fair
fight. The truth thus appears to be that Maximus entered
Britannia, with the intention of conquering it by force of arms,
in the sixteenth year of Constantius, a.d. 355.
CHAPTER XLIV.
Conatii Tiephew of Odavius, leads tlie Scots and Picts to fight against
the tyrant Maximus, cousin of Constantine tlie Great — Maod-
mus, afterwards, hy a feigned jpeace, cunningly separates the
Picts from the Scots.
When, therefore, this tjrrant Maximus came, to Britannia, the
greater part of the Britons cleaved to him, at his first nod —
those, especially, who had invited him over to invade their
native land; but the remainder were steadfast in their adherence
to Octavius. Then was civil war kindled amongst them in
Britain, and various were the conflicts between them. Max-
imus, however, gained the advantage in the end. But Conan, a
Briton, who was the nephew of King Octavius, and conducted
the war on his behalf, retreated into Scotia ; and, assembling
his allies, the Britons of Albania, the Scots, and the Picts, and
having collected other reinforcements from all parts, he returned,
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK II. 67
and gave battle to Maximus ; but he was beaten. Thereupon
King Octavius, in despair, surrendered to the victorious Maxi-
mus. Nevertheless, Conan again sought refuge in Scotia ; and,
again gathering his forces together, he hastened to the theatre
of war, and wasted the provinces, across the Humber, of the
adherents of Maximus, ravaging them most mercilessly. And
thus the horrors of war between them went on interruptedly
for the space of three years ; until the strength of the Scots was
so much exhausted by such great disasters, that they declared
they could no longer accompany Conan into battle, as they had,
in past battles, lost so many of the noblest men of their
nation ; but their advice was that he should enter into nego-
tiations for peace, without prejudice to the league between
them. The Britons who wished to set up Conan, accordingly,
did themselves, as Maximus had more than once besought them
to do, make peace with him forthwith, in order to guard against
the Scots secretly concluding a treaty with him, without their
being parties thereto ; and also, because they saw these allies
of theirs, without whom they would not have plunged into the
war at all, falling away from their side. Maximus, therefore,
writes Gmffroy, sometimes returned victorious, sometimes re-
tired defeated, from the battles he fought with them. At last,
after each had done the other infinite mischief, they were re-
conciled with the approval of their friends. So Maximus,
feigning to have established peace with the Scots for the space
of one year, as he had promised Conan on his word of honour
in the preliminary negotiations, privily entangled the Pictish
king and people in a cunning alliance with himself, and roused
them by his wiles to declare war against the Scots. He, in-
deed, intended to bring both peoples under subjection, so he
craftily first parted them asunder, that he might afterwards be
able to conquer them more easily. For he knew they were in-
vincible when joined together as one power ; and he designed
to separate them by outwitting them, and then conquer them.
This design was soon after duly carried out.
CHAPTEK XLV.
The Britons and Fids, led hy Maximus, cast out the Scots
from the Kingdom.
Unmindful, then, of the treaty which had formerly been
successfully concluded between them and the Scots, through
the good offices of Carausius, the Picts, not only those who
accompanied Maximus, but also their principal chiefs, with
I
68 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
fully more cruelty than the rest, laid waste their provinces
there ; and, rejecting all ofifers of ransom, massacred all who
fell into their hands during their plundering expeditions, or
after a successful engagement ; nor spared they the unarmed
and. peaceful populace. While, however, the whole forces of
the British nation combined lost no time in cleaving to the
Picts, in order to destroy the Scots, Conan and his followers
alone, although they were indignant at the disgrace they had
incurred at the hands of Maximus, refrained from pillage and
slaughter, and would give the Scots neither countenance nor
help. " I am mindful," said Conan, " of the faith I plighted
to them, and they to me, for a perpetual alliance, and I can
by no means honestly violate it, even as they for their part
have hitherto preserved it inviolate." Thereupon there broke
out again between them an execrable war, far more savage than
ever before ; in which, by and bye, neither side had compassion
on men worn out with age, or babes suckled at the breast, or
women in childbirth ; but all of both sexes, all at least who
were captured, were destroyed in this deplorable carnage. But
why dwell on this ? —
At length proud Victory yields a hard-won smile,
To the fierce wooing of the Pictish arms.
The Scots are humbled. They, whose iron hand
Dealt fear around, struck down the haughty foe,
Wielded the sceptre o'er the cringing land,
Yet tempered might with right ; whose faithful arm
Had ne'er refused to strike in friendship's cause,
Now crouch deserted, none at hand to save
Or comfort them ; the greedy sword pursues them
To death or banishment ; their enemy
Judges their people ; while their high-born chieftains
Mourn in despair their king and empire dead.
In those days, therefore, there fell in battle the Scottish king
Eugenius, with his son, and many chiefs and princes, and
common people without number ; and the rest who survived
the war, being unwilling to be subject to the enemy, as the
rabble was, and to serve them, abandoned their estates, and
chose rather to live free as strangers in a foreign land, than, in
their own, to be subjected to continual slavery. The king's
brother, also, Echach, with his son, Erth, and many others,
went to Ireland ; others to Norway ; while some sought refuge
in the islands, where they lay hid during the whole time of
this affliction. And, with the exception of these islands, they
lost the whole kingdom, about the year 360 of our era.
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK II. 69
CHAPTER XLVI.
The Emperor Constantius transfers the Belies of the blessed
Ajpostle Andrew from the City of Patras to Constantinople.
About the same time, also, the emperor Constantius, son of
Constantino the Great, who has been already spoken of, induced
by his zeal for the Christian religion, and stimulated by the
especial devotion he had, long before, conceived in his heart
towards the blessed apostle Andrew, wished to satisfy it by
some deed. So, in the twentieth year of his reign, he went to
Patras, a city in the country of Achaia, where the apostle
suffered and was buried ; and, carrying off thence his relics by
force, he brought them over, with the greatest rejoicings, to
Constantinople, on the 9th of May, with hymns and canticles ;
and he there placed them, with the highest honour, in caskets
of gold and silver. Achaia is one of the seven provinces of
Greece, and a peninsula ; for, save on its northern side, where
it adjoins Macedon, it is hemmed in by the sea on all sides.
Now the blessed apostle Andrew was one of the first called to
the apostleship, and was second, or, at most, third, in order
among the apostles. He was dark in complexion, comely in
appearance, of middle height, and with a long beard. Some of
his bones were brought over from Patras to Scotia, in the
following manner. On the third night before the emperor had
entered the city, the angel of the Lord came down, by God's
command, to a certain holy abbot, a God-fearing man, named
Regulus, who was the keeper of the relics, and said to him, —
" Take with thee fit brethren, and go to the sarcophagus where
the bones of the blessed apostle Andrew are enshrined; and
take thence three fingers of the right hand, the bone of the
arm hanging down from the shoulder, one tooth, and the
knee-cap, and keep them carefully where I shall show thee,
until I come again." Thereupon he summoned the brethren
he had selected, and, taking away with him all the bones he
had been enjoined to take, he concealed them in a secret place
assigned by the angel. The emperor, then, came two days
after, with his light-armed legions, and captured the city, after
having caused it to be evacuated by its troops ; and, taking the
shrine in which the relics were ensconced, he bade it be brought
to Constantinople with becoming reverence, he himself accom-
panying it with his army.
70 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
CHAPTER XLVII.
The Angel of the Lord had commanded the blessed Abbot Regulus
and his companions to take part of the relics, and go to the
northern parts of the world without delay.
At length, after the lapse of some years, the angel from
heaven returned again to the abbot, and, with awful counte-
nance, gave him the following command, in the name of
Almighty God, and in these words : — " Take up again," said he,
"the relics of the blessed Andrew, the beloved, which thou
didst lately keep back by my instructions, and lose no time in
going westwards, to the north-westerly ends of the earth, under
the sign of the Lion, attended by a company of saints, worthy
to be praised ; and, in whatever place the vessel which bears
thee shall, God willing, be in danger of shipwreck, though thou
and thy comrades shall continue in safety, there thou mayst
know that the course of thy labours, or rather of thy lengthened
voyage, has come to a prosperous end. Furthermore, take heed,
and be not careless nor unmindful of this behest, that thou
firmly lay, in that same place, the foundations of a church, to
the honour of God's name, and to the praise of His apostle, of I
venerated memory ; for it shall come to pass that, as in days of j
old the East was adorned by the sound of his living preaching,]
as thou art well aware, so shalt thou know of a truth that tho
whole West also will be graced for everlasting by the wonders I
which shall be worked by his relics. For that spot, forasmuch
as chosen by God, shall be an Apostolic See for ever, and a I
firm rock of faith ; and not undeservedly so, as being that of
the brother of the blessed Peter, to whom the Lord said, ' Thou
art Peter,' etc. ; and it shall likewise be the stanch and steadfast
anchor of the kingdom wherein it is situated ; and of exceeding
renown, for the worship of the apostle, among all the faithful,
and especially among the kings and other potentates of the
earth, with whose lands and gifts it shall be abundantly en-
riched. For crowds of the faithful shall wend thither their
toilsome way from all the ends of the earth, that they may
receive health of body and soul ; and shall wondrously obtain
their petitions, and retui'n to their own in joy, magnifying God
in His apostle, with voice of praise ; for He is always glorified
in His saints." And with these words the angel vanished from
his sight, and the blessed Regulus addressed himself to execute
his commands. Wishing, therefore, to comply with the instruc-
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK II. 71
tions of Heaven, he called to him prudent and religious men,
conspicuous for their learning and morality, each of whom also
the angel had previously forewarned and exhorted to become
a participator in his pilgrimage ; and taking away with him the
sacred relics on board ship, he went to sea, prepared to go to
the north-west. Now, the following are the names of this com-
pany of saints : — First, the holy Abbot Regulus, and Saint
Damianus, the priest ; the deacons Gelasius and Thubaculus ;
Merinacus, brother of Saint Damianus ; Nerius and Elusenius,
from Crete ; Mirenus, Machabenus, and his brother Silvius ;
eight hermits, namely, Felix, Sajanus, Matthew, Maurice,
Madianus, Philip, Lucius, and Eugenius ; and three holy virgins
of Colossia, namely, Tiiduana, Potentia, and Emerea,
CHAPTER XLVIII.
Shipwreck and first arrival in Scotia of Hegulus and his com^
panions, with the relics^ in the time of Hurgust, Kin^ of tJie
Picts.
AccoEDiNGLY, these holy men and virgins embarked on board
a small vessel stored with all things needful, and went round
the coasts of Europe along the ocean path of the inland sea,
until, worn out by many hardships, they came to some islands
lying in the ocean to the west. And when they had been
wandering about an unknown sea, at the mercy of the winds,
for the space of nearly two years, not knowing what to do, a
gale of unusual strength suddenly sprang up from the east, and
rushed into the sail ; and their barque was driven, by its force,
on to the kingdom of the Picts, and struck among the rocks of
the island of Albion, as had been foretold by the angel. The
blessed Regulus, however, fortified by God, safely got to land,
in joy, with his companions, on the 28th of September, with
the emblem of our Lord's cross borne before them ; and he,
afterwards, there dedicated a cathedral to the honour of the
apostle, in the Swine's Wood, which is called, in the mother
tongue, Mucrossis. In that place, by the touch of the relics,
many astounding miracles were worked, and are worked to this
day, such as had not until that day been seen or heard of in
these islands since they embraced the faith ; for instance, the
blind from their mother's womb received their sight, the dumb
were made to speak, the lame to walk, and all who piously be-
spoke the favour of the apostle were immediately, by God's
72 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
mercy, healed from any sickness that possessed them. As
miracles were thus daily multiplied, people of all nations
hastened thither with their gifts, clapping their hands, and
humbly sending up boundless praises to God for so great a
patron. The king of that country at the time, moreover, Hur-
gust, son of Forgso, taking delight in the sanctity of the place,
built his palace there, close to the cathedral, and granted to the
blessed Kegulus and his brethren certain lands to sow produce
on, and to be held by them, as alms, in perpetuity. His
example was followed by succeeding kings, according as the
intensity of their devotion might dictate ; so that the property,
although by small degrees, still went on increasing, until King
Hungus, who reigned over the Picts after a.d. 800, gave the
tenth part of the kingdom to the blessed Andrew, on account
of the miraculous assistance he had rendered him in an expedi-
tion against the Saxons, as will appear in Chapters xiii. and xiv.
of Book IV. Having then founded a little cell, after the
manner of a monastery, and told off keepers of the relics,
these holy men went forth preaching throughout the country,
not on horseback, but, like the apostles of old, two and two,
sowing the word of God everywhere among the nations, and
miraculously working wonders without number. When, there-
fore, they had imbued these nations with the faith by their
heavenly teaching, and had confirmed them therein by various
miracles, the blessed Abbot Regulus died full of days, and at a
great age, at Kilremont (the name to which that of Mucrossis
had been altered by the king), thirty-two years after his arrival
in the isle of Albion, through shipwreck ; during which time he
laboured at the work of the Gospel, and pleased God ex-
ceedingly.
CHAPTER XLIX.
Mcudmus crushes the Scots in War, after having separated them
from the Picts ; and subdices the latter also — Succession of
Emperors.
But the nation of the Picts themselves did not remain long
unpunished for breaking the treaty, after they had craftily de-
ceived the Scots, and thrust them out of the kingdom ; for they
immediately afterwards felt the weight of the tyranny of this
same Maximus, and themselves also drank, as they deserved,
of the same bitter draught they had wickedly compounded for
their allies to drain.' This tyrant Maximus, when he knew
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK II. 73
that the Scots had been utterly driven out of Scotia, sud-
denly brought the whole strength of his forces into Scotia;
and, after defeating the Picts in many a battle, much weakened
as they were by the Scots in the former war, he compelled
them to serve him, and captured all their fortresses, as well as
those they themselves had taken from the Scots. Meantime,
the Emperor Constantius, while engaged in civil war against
the son of his father's brother, Julian the Apostate, who was
struggling to usurp the throne, died after the twenty-fourth year
of his reign, on the way between Cilicia and Cappadocia. On his
death, Julian attained the dignity of the empire in a.d. 364, and
reigned a year and eight months — others, however, say, three
years. Eutropius relates that it was seven years. He was the
nephew of Constantine the Great, who ordained that Byzan-
tium should be called Constantinople, after him ; for Constan-
tine had two brothers by the same father, though not of the
same mother, namely, Dalmachius, and Constantius ; which
Constantius begat this Julian. Under him suffered Saint
Damianus, Saint Gordianus, Saint Epimachus, Saint John, and
Saint Paul, and many other saints. Then, after the death of
Julian, who was slain by the holy martyr and soldier Mercurius,
as was revealed to Saint Basil, Jovinian came to the throne,
and governed during eight months. Then Valentinian the
Great succeeded him in the empire in A.u.c. 1116, according to
Paulus Diaconus, and a.d. 368, according to Hugo. In the reck-
oning up of the Eoman emperors, he was the thirty-eighth, and
he reigned eleven years. This emperor was conspicuous not
only for physical courage, but also for wisdom, temperance, and
justice, and for stature of body. He had previously, under the
emperor Julian, been tribune of the Scutarii ; and, holding the
perfect faith of Christianity, on being commanded by the
sacrilegious emperor to sacrifice to idols or leave the army, he
resigned of his own accord. On Julian being killed, and
Jovinian dead, therefore, this Valentinian, who, for Christ's
name, had lost his tribunate, obtained the empire, without de-
lay, in the stead of his persecutor. He took his brother Valens
to share the throne with him ; and, in the third year of his
reign, he caused his son Gratian to be raised to the dignity of
emperor. At this time, Maximus tyrannously invaded Britannia,
and overcame the Scots and Picts, who were making inroads
into the country, and after he had taken the daughter of King
Octavius to wife, he invested himself with the kingly diadem.
74 JOHN OF fordun's chronicle
CHAPTER L.
Fresumpttious Attempt of Maximus upon the Roman Empire —
He is slain — Conan, to wJiom he had handed over the Kii^g-
dom of Armorica, thenceforth called Britannia Minor —
Succession of Emperors.
After the death of Valentinian at Brigio (Bregetio), a town
of the Squadi (Quadi), of a sudden rush of blood, called
apoplexy, his brother Valens, together with his nephew
Gratian, governed three years and six months ; and on Valens
being burnt to death, in a mean hovel, by the Goths, Gratian
remained emperor with the young Valentinian, his brother.
He began to reign in a.d. 381, and reigned six years. He made
Theodosius Augustus coadjutor ; and when Gratian himself had
been slain by Maximus, Theodosius governed alone, for eleven
years, after having already reigned six years in the East, during
Gratian's lifetime. He began to reign in a.d. 387. To pro-
ceed : Maximus, whose name with good reason meant the
greatest, if you add of tyrants, being exalted to the height of
the kingship of Britannia, began to swell with pride when he
saw the Scots wickedly beset, and thrust out into banishment,
by their allies, the Picts ; and the victorious Picts, in their
turn, subjected to his domination, and all through his might
and crafty wiles ; so he began to give his tyrannous spirit
scope against the Roman empire. For, as soon as the death of
Valens was published, Maximus, notwithstanding that he had
long before plighted his faith to Valentinian and his son
Gratian while they occupied the throne, and confirmed it
with an oath, invested himself with the purple, which he had
tyrannously seized upon ; and, leaving the tribune Dionotus
to be judge over the Britons, he wrested from the empire, and
usurped, all the regions of Gaul with the government of which
he had been intrusted under those emperors. He called him-
self the heir of Constantine the Great, and therefore contended
that he ought to rule over the Gauls and Britons at least.
Then, after he had obtained the kingdom of Gaul, he handed
over to Conan Meriodok, in A.D. 386, the kingdom of Armorica,
in exchange for Britannia ; and, having driven out the natives,
he peopled that country afresh with inliabitants of British blood,
of both sexes, and thenceforth named it Britannia Minor. For
he feared lest, if Conan returned into Britannia, the Britons
should rise with him in revolt against the power of his majesty,
as they were always wont to do against strangera. He, there-
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK II. 75
fore, brought him, and many other nobles he suspected, over
with him to Gaul, and established them in Britannia Minor,
together with many thousands of the common people whom
he had brought away from the island. Maximus, writes Bede,
a man worthy to bear the title of Augustus, had he not broken
through his oath of allegiance, crossed over into Gaul, and there
ensnared Gratian by a stratagem, and slew him. Theodosius,
however, in the second, or, according to others, the first year
of his reign, being not unmindful of the benefits he had received
from Gratian, slew that stern and terrible enemy of his, Maxi-
mus, at Aquileia, and restored Gratian's brother, Valentinian,
to the empire of the West. In the time of the elder Theodosius,
as we read in Sigibert, Saint Patrick, a Scot, was, with his
sisters, sold in Ireland; and, while he was swineherd to a
certain chieftain there, he oftentimes held converse with an
angel.
CHAPTEE LI.
The most Christian deeds of the Emperor Theodosius the Elder,
and of his wife Placella.
CHAPTEE LII.
On the death of the Tyrant Maximus, the Scots begin to win
lack their Kingdom — Succession of Emperors.
Now Theodosius, when the commonwealth was thoroughly
tranquillized, went to his long rest by a natural death, at Milan.
He was succeeded, in a.d. 397, by his two sons, Honorius and
Arcadius, whom he had begotten of Placella ; and they reigned
together for thirteen years. Sigibert tells us that Saint Martin
died in the second year of their reign, but Prosper says it was
in the fifth. In the time of these emperors, moreover, the
Scottish nation, which had long been prostrate, and scattered
abroad, began, immediately after the death of Maximus, to raise
itself up again, and bethink itself of wreaking condign vengeance
on its enemies for the wrongs they had so long inflicted upon it.
When therefore Maximus had been put to death by Theodosius,
and his son, Victor, whom he had left to govern Gaul while he
made for Italy, had also been made away with by him, one of
his ofi&cers, Count Andragatius, on hearing of this, threw him-
self headlong into the sea off a vessel ; and when his party had
Y6 JOHN OF FOEDUN^S CHKONICLE
no longer any hope of being revived, Gracian Municeps was, by
some of the Britons, created emperor in his stead in Britannia.
Others, however, who feared his tyranny, lest he should wrong
them as Maximus had done, cut him off soon after his eleva-
tion. Paulus and Bede have the following : — In Britannia, Con-
stantine was chosen in Gratian's stead, from the lowest ranks
of the soldiery, only because of the hope inspired by his name,
without any worth of his own to recommend him. He passed
over into Gaul, and did more harm than good to the common-
wealth ; and he sent his son Constans, whom of a monk he had
created Caesar, into Spain. Honorius, hearing of this, and dis-
cerning that the power of the commonwealth was being shaken
by continual disasters, sent into Gaul, with an army, his son-
in-law. Count Constantius, an energetic man, who, as soon as he
had marched thither, put Constantino to death at Aries. His
son CoDstans, also, who, from being a monk, became Caesar, was
slain by Count Gerontius at Vienne. Geoffroy, indeed, informs
us that these two, father and son, were killed in Britannia by
the treachery of the Picts ; various histories, however, hold a
contrary opinion.
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK III.
BOOK III.
CHAPTEK I.
Fergus, son of Urth, joiTis the Picts, arid regains the Kingdom
which had been, through the Treacher^/ of the Tyrant Maxi-
mum, held by the Romans and Britons for Forty-three Years.
While, therefore, these and other evils everywhere befell the
Komans, and Britannia, moreover, was labouring under civil dis-
cord, the Picts, whose fortresses Maximus had previously taken
from them and handed over to his own troops to garrison, wish-
ing to be loosed from the chain of slavery, secretly renewed
their former treaty of peace and reciprocity with the Scots ; ex-
horting and beseeching them to join their forces to theirs and
recover the kingdom and liberties of their forefathers, when a
fit opportunity should present itself. The latter, for their part,
were prepared to listen to their suggestions ; but they made up
their minds to beware most carefully of the treachery they had
formerly experienced at the hands of that false nation ; so as
never, in future, to undertake, in concert with them, any general
war, or predatory expeditions on a smaller scale, nor to be so rash
as to take up a position in the forefront of the battle, between a
mistrusted friend and a declared enemy ; for the incautious are
oftentimes overthrown by their treacherous enemies, after a
treaty has just been concluded between them. In a.d. 403,
therefore, the sixth year of the emperors Arcadius and Honorius,
— that is, the year 733 of the reign of the Scots in the island of
Albion, 1903 years having elapsed from their origin and first
going forth out of Egypt (namely, from the time of Scota to that of
Fergus, son of Erth), in the year 5589, to wit, from the creation
of the world, Fergus, the son of Erth, the son of Echadius, who was
brother to the King Eugenius who had been overthrown by the
tyrant Maximus, being an energetic youth, excelling all others
in courage, of great bodily strength and daring, forward withal,
and mighty in battle, fearlessly arrived, with his two brothers
Loam and Fenegus, and his fellow-countrymen, the Irish and
78 JOHN OF fordun's chronicle
Norican islanders, in the kingdom of Scotia, which was his by
right ; and he drove the enemy far away out of the country
wherein they had long been dwelling.
The sails are spread to the fast-following breeze,
And swarming fleets rush through the hissing seas.
A glittering host of heroes throng the decks,
Eound their proud chief ; who toil nor danger recks,
But hastens to his native soil, to rear
His prostrate throne, and break the oppressor's spear.
The dauntless Lion floats above his head,
Emblem of his fierce valour, bloody red.
Twice twenty years and three the Scots, forlorn.
The whirlwind fury of their foes had borne ;
But now their day of hope broke calm and clear,
A king of their own kith was drawing near,
And they to freedom fly, to every heart so dear.
Moreover, while Fergus was advancing with his army through
the country, which, with its inhabitants, he gradually restored
to peace, the Pictish tribes met him, with their columns ; and,
for fear that a single jot of hatred or perfidy should be supposed
to lurk amongst them, they, of their own accord, threw open
the gates of all the Scottish castles and fortresses, which, by the
permission of Maximus, they had held up to that time, and
restored them to the Scots.
CHAPTER II.
The same continued — Expulsion of the Eomans and Britons
from his Dominions.
Be that as it may, the Scots and Picts fetched over the Ves-
piliones, from Dacia, and the Huns, to disturb the peace of the
British sea, promising them much plunder, and a secure shelter
thenceforth, against the Romans, in the harbours of their king-
doms. The above-mentioned nations, therefore, the Scots and
Picts, being united, renewed the treaties between them by a
solemn oath, for both were in the same predicament ; land,
ranging through the country, they cast out the strangers from
their lands ; nor would they grant any delay to any one — for a
prudent man will " ne'er delay when fortune serves " — nay, all
those, of whatever condition, who did not snatch a hasty de-
parture out of the country, or who did not, on being summoned
to do so, willingly surrender the castles they had held up to
that time, were immediately besieged, taken, and put to death.
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK III. 79
So this Fergus united under his dominion, within the space
of three years from that time, the whole extent of the kingdom,
on hoth sides of the Scottish firth, which had been possessed by
his fathers from days of yore, — that is, from the stony moor
and Inchegal to the Orkney islands. From the first king of this
country, Fergus, son of Ferchard, down to this king, Fergus,
son of Erth, inclusive, there reigned, in this island, forty-five
kings of the same nation and race ; but we refrain, for the pre-
sent, from specifying the dates of their respective reigns, as we
have not found them given fully. From this king onward,
then, it will be convenient to insert the years of the reign of
every king in succession, down to the present time, according
to various chronicles ; so that it may be clearly shown forth to
posterity who were the kings who reigned, and what the dates
and duration of their reigns. This king, therefore, reigned
sixteen years in Scotland ; during the last three of which he
was the first king of Scottish descent to reign in the land of the
Picts, beyond Drumalban, — that is, beyond the backbone of Al-
bania, from the mountains to the Scottish sea, where none of
his predecessors had held the sovereignty before ; but whether
he did so by virtue of the sword, or by some other title, I
have not been able to ascertain. So the Scots and Picts, after
they had conjointly, as above related, driven out the Eomans
and Britons from their own homes, made frequent raids, in
dense bodies, into their kingdom of Britannia, which was, at that
time, entirely bereft of the help of fighting men ; and, as is
noted in divers chronicles, they slew part of the wretched
populace, and part, who were left in life, they led off into
slavery.
CHAPTER III.
Cruel slaughter of the Britons and the Roman Legion hy the Scots
and Picts — Building of a dyke, called Grimsdyke, across the
Island.
For Maximus had taken away with him all the warlike
youth of the island that he could find, and left none but un-
armed peasants, who, as they could not resist the fierceness of
the Scots and Picts, nor cope with them in war, abandoned
their l^nds, and fled from before them as from a fire. Indeed
Maximus had, at that time, oppressed them so tyrannically,
and dispersed them by his cruel craft, that they had not
up to that time, — and have not, to the present day, been able
to attain to their former condition, or in any wise to prosper.
80
Bede has thus described the cruel disasters of those days, and
the building of a second wall across the island : — From that
time, Britain, entirely stripped of armed soldiery, and of the
flower of its active youth, which had been led away by the
rashness of tyrants, never more to return home, was wholly
exposed to rapine, as being totally ignorant of the art of war.
Whereupon it soon lay, for many years, stunned and groaning
by reason of two very savage nations from over the sea, the
Scots from the north-west, and the Picts from the north-east.
We speak of these nations as being from over the sea, not
on account of their being seated out of Britain, but because
they were remote from the Britons' part thereof ; two gulfs of
the sea lying between them, which run in far and broad into
the land of Britain, one from the eastern sea, the other from
the western. The eastern has in the midst of it the town of
Guidy ; the western has above it, that is, to the right of it,
the town of Alcluit, which in their language signifies the Eock
of Cluit (Clyde), for it is beside the river of that name. On
account of the troublesomeness of these nations, the Britons
sent messengers to Eome with letters, imploring assistance with
tearful prayers, and promising perpetual subjection, provided
the impending enemy were driven away from them. An armed
legion was at once told off for this service ; and, on arriving in
the island, engaged the enemy, swept down a great multitude
of them, and drove the rest out of the territory of the allies ;
and, having thus delivered them from the most cruel oppression,
the Romans advised them to construct a wall, in the meantime,
across the island, between the two seas, for a bulwark to keep
off the enemy ; and then they returned home with great triumph.
But as the wall the Britons constructed across the island, as
they had been directed, was not of stone, — as they had no artist
capable of such a work, — but of sods, it was of no use. How-
ever, they drew it between the two firths or inlets of the sea,
which we have spoken of; to the end that, where the pro-
tection of the water was wanting, the vallum might serve as a
bulwark to defend their borders from the irruption of the enemy.
Of which work there erected, — that is, of the valhim, — there
are most evident remains to be seen to this day. It begins at
about two miles distance from the monastery of Abircornyng,
that is, Abercom, on the east, and stretching westwards, ends
near the city of Alcluit (Dumbarton). After the death of
Arcadius, Honorius reigned fourteen years with his brother's
son Theodosius, a boy of eight years of age, after having already
reigned thirteen years with his brother Arcadius. He began
to reign in a.d. 411.
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK III. 81
CHAPTEE IV.
Victory of the Eoman Legion and the Britons over the Scots and
Picts, in a War in which fell King Fergus and a great
number of his People and of the Picts.
These events, indeed, are thus related by Paulus : — At this
period, the Britons, unable to endure the molestations of the
Scots and Picts, sent to Eome to entreat assistance against their
enemies. A legion of soldiers was, accordingly, immediately
sent to them, and swept down a great multitude of the Scots
and Picts, driving the rest out of the borders of Britannia. As
soon, therefore, as these had been thrust out of Britannia, the
Britons, who, by the help of the Eomans, had the upper hand
in the war, constructed the aforesaid wall from ocean to ocean,
as they had been ordered to do ; and finished it off, at enormous
expense, by strengthening it with towers, at intervals, such
that the sound of a trumpet could reach from one to the other.
It begins, on the east, upon the southern shore of the Scottish sea,
near the town of Carriden ; then stretches on across the island,
for twenty- two miles, with the city of Glasgow to the south of
it, and stops on the bank of the river Clyde, near Kirkpatrick.
After this frightful and ruinous struggle, already noticed, in
which the Eomans and Britons were victorious, and Fergus, the
renowned king of the Scots, and a great multitude of his people,
and of the Picts, were destroyed, those of the Scots who sur-
vived would not on any account submit to the Eomans and
Britons ; but, with the exception of a few of the common
peasants, they left their native land desert, and fled. For they
durst not linger beyond the southern firth any longer — although
certain seers of that time, notwithstanding so great a disaster
had befallen both nations in the war, sang that the Scots would,
without doubt, gain possession of the whole island. Fergus
left there sons under age, Eugenius, Dongardus, and Constantius,
whom he had begotten of the daughter of Gryme, the Briton,
descended from the stock of the leader Fulgentius. The emperor
Maximus had warily driven this Gryme from his dominions, as
being the never-failing abettor of Conan and the Scots. When,
however, Eugenius was raised to the sovereignty of the kingdom
upon the death of his father, as he was young, and of tender
years, the chiefs appointed his grandfather Gryme governor to
him and his brothers, and protector of the kingdom, inasmuch
as he excelled in the art of war, and had also himself derived
his origin from the race of their own ancient kings. Since,
VOL. 11. F
82 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
therefore, they knew him to be well fitted for the government,
in time of peace as well as in time of war, they chose him out
to be their leader, until his grandsons should have attained to^
years of puberty, and become able to govern. v^l
CHAPTEK V.
Accession of King Eugenius, son of Farchard — He, together unth
his grandfather, Gryme, breaks down Grymisdyhe — A second
legion drives the Scots and Picts hack across the Tyne.
King Eugenius, being at length raised to the throne of the
kingdom, began to reign, with his grandfather, the consul Gryme,
in A.D. 419, — that is, in the ninth year of the emperor Honorius,
and reigned thirty-three years. Meanwhile the Eoman legion
had gone back, after the building of the wall ; so he first care-
fully set in order the matters pertaining to the peace of the
country, and then turned his thoughts to war. For, unable to
brook that the Eomans and Britons should unjustly keep back
the lands to the north of the Humber, some of which had, by
riglits, before the war, belonged to him by hereditary succession
(those formerly of Fulgentius, to wit), and to other nobles of the
Scots and Picts, he gathered reinforcements from all directions,
and went, in great strength, to the said wall ; and, having first
duly ordered his engines, he broke it down to the very ground,
while its guards either escaped by flight, or were slain. Of this
dyke, or wall, there are evident signs and genuine traces to be
seen to this day. It got its name from Gryme, and is called
Grymisdyke by the inhabitants. In short, having broken down
the wall, they gained possession of the lands they had formerly
held, and brought the natives under their sway, as of old.
Bede has the following : — But soon their former enemies, when
they saw that the Roman soldiers were gone, came by sea,
and broke into their borders, slaying all things, and tranjpling,
ovemmning, and mowing down, like ripe corn, everything in
their path. Accordingly the Britons again sent messengers to
Rome, imploring aid with tearful voice, lest their wretched
country should be utterly blotted out, — lest the name of a
Roman province should, through the forwardness of stranger
nations, be dimmed in the lustre wherewith it had so long slione
among them, and become contemptible. A legion is again sent,
and arriving unexpectedly in the autumn, made great slaughter
of the enemy, obliging all those who could escape to flee beyond
the seas ; whereas before, these were wont to carry off their
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK III. 83
yearly booty across the seas, without any soldiery to withstand
them. This legion also was sent by Honorius ; and those
nations, forasmuch as they had in their various incursions been
overawed by it, durst not hazard a pitched battle ; but retreated,
though not far, beyond the northern banks of the rivers Esk
and Tyne, to seek shelter, where they could lie hid until that
legion should go back.
CHAPTEE VI.
The Wall which the Emperor Severus had formerly commanded
to he huilt across the island, hetween Gateshead and Carlisle,
repaired — Return of the Legion — Election of the first King
of the Franks.
Then the Eomans, says Bede, declared to the Britons that
they could no longer be troubled with such toilsome expedi-
tions for their protection. They advised them rather to take
up arms themselves, and undertake the task of coping with their
foes, who could prove too strong for them for no other reason
than their being themselves relaxed in slothfulness. Thinking,
too, that it would also be of some advantage to the allies
whom they were forced to abandon, they set up a strong stone
wall, in a straight course from sea to sea, between the towns
which had been built there for fear of the enemy, and where
Severus had formerly made a vallum. This well-known wall,
which is still plainly to be seen, they constructed at the public
and private expense, the Britons also lending them a hand. It
is eight feet in breadth, and twelve in height ; and they built it
in a straight line from east to west, and put a row of towers at
intervals, as is to this day evident to beholders. As soon as
tliis wall was speedily built, they gave that slothful people
brave advice, and furnished them patterns for a supply of arms ;
and so they bid the allies farewell, as though never more to return.
Now, in the ninth year of Honorius, according to Sigihert, on the
death of Samno and Marcomirus, leaders of the Franks, that
people resolved, in a general meeting, that they also would have
a king, like other nations. So they appointed Pharamund king,
the son of their leader Marcomirus ; and he reigned eleven years.
But the emperor Honorius, after thirteen years had gone by,
during which he had ruled with his brother Arcadius, and
again other fourteen years with his nephew Theodosius, de-
parted this life.
84 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
CHAPTEE VII.
The Scots destroy the Wall, and bring slaughter upon
the Britons.
i
We read in Paulus : — But when the Eomans went away, the
enemy came over again by sea, and trampled and consumed
everything they came across. Meanwhile, says Bede, the
Eomans returned home ; and the Scots and Picts, on their side,
learning their refusal to return, immediately became more con-
fident than their wont, seized upon the whole of the extreme
northern part of the island, as far as the wall, and settled there.
A slothful body of troops, therefore, was stationed on the top of
the fortification, where day and night they pined away with
trembling hearts, benumbed with fear. The enemy, on the
other hand, attacked them unceasingly with hooked weapons,
with which the cowardly defenders were miserably dragged
from the walls, and dashed to the ground. Why dwell on this ?
They forsook the cities and the wall, fled, and were dispersed ;
while the enemy pursued, and massacres more cruel than any
before followed thick. For as lambs are scattered abroad by
wild beasts, even so were the wretched citizens by their enemies.
Accordingly, being cast out from their homes and possessions,
they mitigated the threatening danger of famine by robbing and
plundering one another ; augmenting external calamities by
domestic broils, until the whole country was left entirely desti-
tute of the sustenance of food, save such relief as was afforded
by the chase. Meanwhile this famine distressed the Britons
more and more, and left to posterity a lasting memory of its
ravages ; compelling many of them to yield as vanquished
men to these troublesome robbers. Now this above-men-
tioned wall starts, on the east, from the southern bank of the
river Tyne, at Goat's Head, which is pronounced Gateshead in
the English tongue, where formerly Severus commanded a wall
and vallum to be made, opposite Newcastle ; and stretching on-
wards for sixty miles, ends, on the west, at the river Esk, other-
wise called Scotiswath (Solway), near Carlisle. After the death
of Honorius, this Theodosius the younger, his nephew through
his brother Arcadius, succeeded to the empire in a.d. 425, and
reigned by himself three years. In the third year, he created
Valentinian, the son of his aunt Placidia and Constantius,
emperor, to reign with him ; and they reigned together twenty-
three years.
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK III. 85
CHAPTEE VIII.
Arrival in Scotland of Saint Falladius, the first hisJiop and
teacher of the Scots, although these had long before embraced
the Faith.
In the second year of Tlieodosius, likewise, Celestinus I. being
a Eoman by nation, and begotten of one named Prisons, his
father, sat eight years, one month, and eight days, as forty-first
Pope of the Eoman Church. This Pope appointed that the
Psalm "Judge me, 0 Lord, etc.'' should be said before the
Introit of the Mass ; and that the one hundred and fifty Psalms
of David should be chanted by all antiphonally before the sacri-
fice. This was not previously done — only the Epistle of Paul
and the Holy Gospel were said. By this ordinance, the Introit
of the Mass, the Gradalia, and the Hallelujah, were taken from
the Psalms ; and the Offertory before the sacrifice, and the
prayers while communicating, began to be sung with modula-
tion at Mass, in the Eoman Church. In the year 429, according
to Sigibert, — or, according to others, 430, — Saint Palladius was
ordained by Pope Celestinus, and sent, as their first bishop, to
the Scots who believed in Christ. To which also Bede bears
witness. Socrates, however, has these prefatory words : — Saint
Palladius was the disciple of Evagrius, who was the disciple of
the two Macharii — of whom, as of the other holy fathers of
Egypt, his book has a full account. He says, too : — It behoves
us both to learn what we know not, and faithfully to teach
that we do know, etc. We read in the Polychronicon : — In A.D.
430, Pope Celestinus sent Saint Palladius into Scotia, as the
first bishop therein. It is, therefore, fitting that the Scots
should diligently keep his festival and Church commemora-
tions ; for, by his word and example, he with anxious care
taught their nation, — that of the Scots, to wit, — the orthodox
faith, although they had for a long time previously believed in
Christ. Before his arrival, the Scots had, as teachers of the
faith and administrators of the Sacraments, priests only, or
monks, following the rite of the primitive Church. So he arrived
in Scotland with a great company of clergy, in the eleventh year
of the reign of king Eugenius ; and the king freely gave him a
place of abode where he wanted one.
S6 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
CHAPTER IX.
Account of Saint Palladius continued — Saint Servanus — Saint
Kentigern — Saint Tcrnan — Saint Ninian.
Moreover Palladius had as his fellow- worker in preaching
and administering the Sacraments a most holy man, Servanus ;
who was ordained bishop, and created, by Palladius, his coad-
jutor— one worthy of him in all respects — in order to teach
the people the orthodox faith, and with anxious care perfect the
work of the Gospel ; for Palladius was not equal to discharging
alone the pastoral duties over so great a nation. In the History
of Saint Kentigern we read : — This Servanus was the disciple of
the reverend Bishop Palladius, almost in the very earliest days
of the Scottish church. Palladius himself was, in the above-
mentioned year of our Lord's incarnation, sent by the holy Pope
Celestinus to be the first bishop of the Scots, who had long been
believers. On his arrival in Scotia, he found Saint Servanus
there, and called him to work in the vineyard of the Lord of
Sabaoth; and when, afterwards, the latter was sufficiently imbued
with the teaching of the Church, Palladius appointed him his
suffragan over all the nation of the Scots. So runs the story in
that work. The holy bishop Terranan likewise was a disciple
of the blessed Palladius, who was liis godfather, and his foster-
ing teacher and furtherer in all the rudiments of letters and of
the faitli. Kentigern, again, was a disciple of Saint Servanus,
by whom he was washed in the font of holy baptism, and
thoroughly indoctrinated in all the dogmas and learning of
the Christian religion. He afterwards, while yet a youth, was
endowed with so much perfection and grace vouchsafed from
above, that God deigned to work great and astounding miracles
through him. Sig^ert tells us : — Moreover, in the fifth year
after Palladius arrived in Scotia, this same Pope Celestinus
sent Saint Patrick to the Irish Scots, a man of British descent,
the son of Chonches, sister of Saint Martin, bishop of Tours. He
was named Suchat at his baptism, Magonius by Saint Germanus,
and Patricius by Saint Celestinus, by whom also he was ordained
bishop ; and, during sixty years, in which he excelled in learn-
ing, miracles, and holiness, he converted to Christ the whole
island of Ireland. They say that the bishop Saint Ninian died in
the time of this emperor Theodosius tlie younger ; for we know
of a truth, from passages in various histories, that he flourished
uuder the administration of that emperor's father and uncle,
Arcadius and Honorius ; because it was in the fifth year of
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK III. 87
their reign that the blessed Martin, bishop of Tours, died ; in
healthful conversation with whom, w'hile yet living in the flesh,
Saint ISTinian was privileged to be solaced. He also preached
to the tribes in the southern parts of the country, beyond the
Scottish firth, which had not yet been found worthy, like the
northern Scots, to receive Christ's law. He was a man of
wondrous virtue and holiness before God and man, and during
his life, nay, after his death, even until now, a marvellous
worker of numberless miracles. Hence Gregory says : — No
wonder the elect can work many marvels while abiding in the
flesh, when their very dead bones oftentimes live in miracles !
CHAPTER X.
The Wall hroJcen down hy the Scots and Ficts, whence its name—
The Britons of Albania subjected to the sway of the Scots.
Now, inuring the want occasioned by the aforesaid famine,
the Scotl ,sh and Pictish chiefs were joined by some of the Irish,
and, rowing across the rivers Tyne and Esk, in ships of divers
kinds, to both ends of the wall, they overran, destroyed, and
consumed all the country round about. After some little time,
having brought under their sway some of the natives there,
put some to flight, and others to the sword, they received the
whole country, from sea to sea, under the shelter of their sway ;
and it has hitherto been found impossible to drive them out
thence. 0 vengeance of Heaven, exclaims Geoffroy, for past
wickedness ! 0 madness in the tyrant Maximus, to have
brought about the absence of so many warlike soldiers ! If they
had been at hand in this disastrous overthrow, there could not
have come upon them any people they would not have driven to
flight. Meanwhile, indeed, as we saw in the above passage from
£ede, the enemy plied them unceasingly with hooked weapons,
wherewith the wretched populace were dragged off the walls,
and cruelly dashed to the ground. Why dwell on this ? The
cities and the lofty wall were forsaken, and flight, dispersion,
much more than usually hopeless, pursuit by the enemy, and
cruel slaughter, came thick upon the citizens, in quick succes-
sion. Thus the conquerors won the country on both sides of
the wall, and began to inhabit it. Then they speedily summoned
the peasantry, with whose hoes and mattocks, pickaxes, forks,
and spades, they all, without distinction, set to work to dig
broad clefts and frequent breaches through the wall, whereby
68 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
they might everywhere readily pass backwards and forwards.
From these breaches, therefore, did this structure take its present
name, which in the English tongue is Thirlitwall — in Latin
it would be murits perforatus (drilled wall). In the twelfth
year, also, of the reign of King Eugenius, the devil appeared to
the Jews in the Isle of Crete, in the likeness of Moses, and
promised to lead them dry shod through the sea to the promised
land. Great numbers were thus killed and drowned, and the
remainder were converted to Christ.
CHAPTER XL
The Britons yet again write to tlie Romans, Litorius and Aetius
to wit, for Succours, which they do not obtain.
While, therefore, the British people were attacked on either
side by these and like disasters, Gryme, the chief of the forces
and first consul to King Eugenius, died a natural death, at an
advanced age, after he had fulfilled the duties of protector for
nineteen years, during which he had not only ruled the kingdom
nobly, but even more nobly restored it to its olden state. Then,
after his death, the king reigned fourteen years alone. He, like-
wise, combining with the Picts, lost no time in stirring up a cruel
war against the Romanized Britons ; and he attacked them with
the whole strength of the combined forces. The Britons, on the
other hand, unable to withstand him, speedily sent to the Roman
patricians, who were vicegerents of the commonwealth under the
emperora Theodosius and Valentinian — namely Aetius, and
Litorius, whose authority was second only to that of Aetius — be-
seeching them not to refuse to vouchsafe them such help against
their fierce enemies, the Scots and Picts, as other subjects of the
Romans would obtain. To Aetius, says Bede, the remainder of
the poor Britons sent a letter, which began thus : — " To the
Consul Aetius, the groans of the Britons." And in the course
of the letter they thus unfolded their woes : — " The barbarians
drive us back to the sea ; the sea drives us back to the bar-
barians. Between them, two kinds of death are in store for
us : we are either murdered or drowned." Yet neither could
they, for all that, get any assistance from him, forasmuch as he
was at that time engaged in very serious wars with Bledla and
Attila, kings of the Huns. As, therefore, they got no aid from
them, they sorrowfully returned home, and announced their re-
buff to their fellow-countrymen. Faulus tells us : — The Britons,
likewise, being again hard pressed by the ravages of the Scots
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK III. 89
and Picts, sent Aetius a letter full of tears and distress, implor-
ing aid from him as soon as possible. AVhen, however, Aetius
would not listen to them, seeing that he was engaged against
enemies nearer home, some of the Britons made an energetic
resistance, and drove away the foe ; while others were forced by
the enemy to submit. Finally, the Scots and Picts subdued the
uttermost part of this island, and made it their habitation ;
wherefrom it has hitherto been found impossible to expel them.
Meanwhile, the emperor Theodosius, after reigning sixteen years,
besides the one-and-twenty years he had already reigned with
his uncle Honorius, of which time he had spent twenty-five
years associated with his son-in-law Valentinian, died at Milan,
wasted by sickness, and was buried there. At this time Saint
John the Baptist revealed his head, near what had formerly
been the dwelling of King Herod, to two eastern monks who
came to Jerusalem.
CHAPTEE XII.
The Britons and their King Vortigern, in despair, invite the
heathen nation of the Saxons to help them against the Scots
a7id Picts.
Some Chronicles have the following : — The rest of the Britons,
however, being in constant fear of the onslaught of the Scots,
and no longer trusting to the protection of the Eomans, by the
advice of their king invited over the nation of the Saxons, under
two leaders, Hors and Hengist, to help in their defence, in a.d.
447, or, rather, 449, the thirty-third year of King Eugenius. After
Maximus had drained the island of Britannia of soldiers to guard
it, says Sigihert, the Scots and the Picts, and the other nations
with them, poured into the island, and began to waste the unwar-
like population and the whole land, by slaughter and pillage.
Then a further mischief was added to this ; for King Vortigern
invited over the nation of the heathen Saxons, to provide for his
own safety, and attack the enemy. Some Chronicles again say :
— In the year stated above, when the wickedness and weakness
of mind of Vortigern, the king of the Britons, became known to
all the nations round about, there rose up against him the Scots
on the north-west, and the Picts on the north, who assailed the
kingdom of Britannia with the most galling outrages and molesta-
tions. For, consuming everything with fire and sword, pillage
and rapine, they crushed that sinful nation, who abetted the
pride and extravagance of their king ; so that the masses, as
90 JOHX OF fordun's chronicle
corrupt as their king, were overthrown in a common vengeance ;
while those of that miserable people whom the inroads of the
enemy had not reached, were clean consumed by the severe
famine. And thus the multitude, as if rolled and crushed
between two millstones, were assailed by pestilence, and
attacked by the sword, so that the living were not even
enough to bury the dead. So the king, with his people left
desolate and worn-out by the inroads of war, knew not what to
do to oppose the irruptions of the enemy, and sank forlorn.
They entered into consultation, says Bede, as to what should be
done, and where they should look for protection, to avoid or
repel the incursions, so fierce and so frequent, of the northern
nations ; and they all, with their king Vortigern, agreed to call
over the Saxon nation to their aid, from the parts beyond the
sea — which, as the issue of the matter more clearly proved, was
surely contrived by the will of God, that evil might come upon
the wicked. For, in the year above noted, the nation of the
Angles or Saxons came over at first in three long ships, on the
invitation of Vortigern, king of the Britons, and took up their
abode in a place in Kent, as though prepared to fight for the
country. These came over from the three strongest nations of
Germany, that is, the Saxons, Angles, and Jutes. Moreover,
from the Angles, that is, from the tribes sprung from that
country which is called Angulus, all the other nations of the
Angles derived their name.
CHAPTEK XIII.
First arrival of the Saxons — Various reverses inflicted and
suffered on both sides.
Accordingly, as the Romans stood aJoof from the defence
of the Britons, the Saxons were deliberately called in by the
general voice. These, being earnestly desirous of renewing
afresh, in conjunction with the Britons, the war against the
Scots, after their arrival proceeded at once to Albania ; and,
having made a hostile attack upon it, they carried off a great
deal of plunder. The Scots, also, on the other hand, together
with the Picts and that part of the Britons which was
subject unto them — for in those days they were permanently
settled throughout Albania — gathered their columns together,
and plundered the country across the Humber, in their wonted
manner. Thereupon the Saxon barbarians, says Gcoffroy, on
the ratification of the treaty, abode with Vortigern at his court.
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK III. 91
But the Scots and Picts formed an exceedingly large army; and,
issuing forth from Albania, began to lay waste the northerly
parts of the island. When, therefore, Vortigern heard of this,
he assembled his own troops and the Saxons, and, marching
against them across the Humber, forthwith routed the enemy,
who were accustomed to victory. So Yortigern gave Hengist
broad acres in the region of Lindissey. Now, although, for
the space of nearly two years, frequent reverses were inflicted
on either side, still no pitched battle was fought. But the
Saxons craftily suggested to Vortigern that if he could con-
trive to get some more stipendiaries from their country, they
would easily enable him to overcome his aforesaid enemies.
This was accordingly done. For, as Bede relates, swarms of
those before-mentioned nations poured eagerly into the island ;
and the numbers of the strangers began to increase so much
that they became a terror to the natives themselves who
had invited them. Geoffroy resumes : — When the Britons saw
this, fearing their treachery, they told the king to drive them
out of the borders of his kingdom; but Vortigern evaded
acquiescence in their advice, as he loved the Saxons above all
other nations, on account of Hengist's daughter Eowen, whom
he had taken to wife some time before. Thereupon the Britons
deserted Vortigern, and suddenly set up as king, to drive out
the barbarians, Vortimer, the king's son, whom he had begotten
before. Now Vortimer, the son of Vortigern, says William,
perceiving that he and liis Britons were being undone by the
craft of the Saxons, turned his thoughts to driving them out,
seven years after their arrival.
CHAPTEK XIV.
Accession of Dongardus, hrother to Eiigenius — Alliance of Vorti-
gerris son. King Vortimer , then King of the Britons, with
the Scots, against the Saxons — TTieir Struggle for Britain.
So Eugenius, when the days of his unhappy reign were ful-
filled, died of a severe iUness — or, as is related in a certain his-
tory, fell in battle with the Britons and English, south of the
Humber ; and his brother Dongardus was raised to the throne
of the kingdom in his stead, and reigned five years. He began
to reign in a.d. 452, in the first year of the emperor Martian,
who succeeded Theodosius ; which Martian, likewise, reigned
six years and six months. Now, in the second year of JDon-
gardus, Vortimer, of whom we have spoken above, being, on a
92 JOHN OF FORDUN S CHRONICLE
sudden, proclaimed king during his father's lifetime, felt that it
would be unsafe rashly and precipitately to come into collision
with the Saxons, before making friends with the Scots, for fear
those two nations should combine their strength, and make an
onslaught together upon the Britons ; so he despatched messen-
gers to King Dongardus, to induce him, in security of mind, to
renew, against the heathen Saxons, the wonted treaty they had
formerly concluded against the Eomans, and to observe it faith-
fully in all respects. The king, accordingly, joyfully acceded to
all their demands on every point ; and they reported to their own
king, in due order, all that was done and agreed upon. Vortimer,
however, seized a fit opportunity, and, with his men, suddenly
fell upon the Saxons, slaying their leader Hors, Hengist's
brother, with many others, in the first battle. On the death of
the chief Hors, the Saxons set up as king his brother Hengist,
who is reported to have fought against the Britons three times
in the same year; but, unable to withstand the prowess of
Vortimer, he took refuge in the Isle of Thanet, where he was
harassed by daily sea-fights. At length the Saxons barely
managed to embark on board their boats, and return to Ger-
many, leaving their wives and little ones behind. On Vortimer
being afterwards taken away by fatal destiny — who so loathed
his father's indolence that he would have governed the kingdom
mightily, had God permitted it — Vortigern was again promoted
to the government of the kingdom, and the Saxons came back
to Britain. The emperor Martian died in the sixth year of his
reign, and after an equal number of months had gone by ; and
to him succeeded Leo the Great, who reigned sixteen years.
But Dongardus died in the fifth year of Martian.
CHAPTEK XV.
Eeturn of the Saxons after Vortimer's Death, with a greater
multitude of the Heathen — Death of the British Chieftains
by Treachery,
In A.D. 461, therefore, Hengist, having heard of the death of
Vortimer, who was cut off by poison administered by his step-
mother, Kowen, came over to Britain, accompanied by three
thousand armed men. When, however, the arrival of so great a
multitude was announced to Vortigern, who had been again
created king, and to the chiefs of the kingdom, they were ex-
tremely indignant, and determined to do battle with them. This
was secretly hinted, through messengers, to her father Hengist by
r
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK III. 93
his daughter, whom Vortigern had previously unlawfully mar-
ried ; and Hengist bethought himself of betraying the British
nation under a show of peace. So he sent ambassadors to the
king, saying that it was not to offer any violence to him or his
kingdom that he had brought so great a multitude with him ;
but that he might put himself and his people at his disposal,
so that the king might retain in the country those he wanted,
while the rest would sail back to Germany. When, therefore,
this was announced to the king, and it was likewise proposed
that a day and place should be fixed upon beforehand for
adjusting these matters by common consent, the king com-
manded his subjects and the Saxons to meet on the first of
May, at the village of Ambrium (Ambresburgh), to adjust these
matters accordingly. Meanwhile Hengist instructed his com-
rades to have every one a long knife in his boot ; and while the
Britons were holding converse with them in all security, each one
was to be ready, at a given signal " Nemet zoure Sexes," to draw
his knife and stab the Briton next to him. And it came to pass
thus : Hengist held back Vortigern by the cloak, while the rest
stabbed the Britons present, who little suspected such a thing,
to the number of about four hundred and sixty persons, barons
and consuls. Then, soon, the Saxons wasted and overran all
the country, and suddenly attacked the inhabitants, as wolves
pounce upon sheep when abandoned by their shepherd ; pulling
down the churches, and everything belonging to them, to the
very ground ; murdering the priests beside the altars ; and
burning up the sacred Scriptures with fire. Men of religious
orders and married men leaving behind them their substance,
their wives and children, and, what is more their freedom,
betook themselves to foreign lands beyond the sea. Some,
likewise, of the miserable remainder, who managed to escape
from this slaughter, betook themselves to caves and wooded
spots, some to the north, others to the south— that is, to Scotia,
Wales, and Cornwall. Others, again, spent with hunger, came
forth and submitted to the enemy, to get some relief in food ;
though destined to undergo perpetual slavery, even if they
were not murdered on the spot.
CHAPTEK XVI.
Accession of King Constantius, and the division of Britannia, in
course of time, among the Saxons, into eight Kingdoms.
In a.d. 457, Dongardus was succeeded by his brother Con-
stantius, who reigned twenty-two years. On Vortigern, king
k
94 JOHN OF fordun's chronicle
of the Britons, being struck by lightning, or, as Geoffroy main-j
tains, burnt to death in his own tower by Aurelius Ambrosius,
this Aurelius was raised to the throne, by the Britons. For, as
William tells us, after King Vortimer's death, the British
strength dwindled away ; and they would then have altogether
perished, had not Ambrosius, the sole survivor of the Eomans,
been monarch of the kingdom after Vortigern. But the Britons,
says Bede, had at that time, for their leader, Aurelius Ambro-
sius, a man of great moderation, who alone, probably, of the
Eoraan nation, had survived the storm described above, in
which his parents, who bore a royal and distinguished name,
had been slaughtered. Under his guidance, the Britons began
to gain strength ; and, from that time, now the inhabitants, now
the enemy, prevailed ; until the year of the siege of Mount
Badamor, when they made no small slaughter of those enemies of
theirs, about the year 44 after their arrival in Britannia. When,
therefore, Britannia was brought under the yoke of the Saxons,
eight kings of the Saxons began to reign over the country,
which they shared among them. These sought, above all, to
root out Christ and the worship of Christians ; extending their
kingdoms, and assigning each, according to his ability, boun-
daries to their realms, whereof the following are the names.
The first kingdom was certainly Kent ; the first kings whereof
were Hors and Hengist.
The second, Sussex ; whereof the first king, Ellen, began to
reign in a.d. 477, while Aurelius ruled over the Britons.
The third, Wessex, took its rise, in the time of XJther, from
King Cerdic.
The fourth, Essex, took its rise, in the time of King Arthur,
from Erkenwyn.
The fifth, Anglia ; the first king whereof was Ulfa.
The sixth, the kingdom of the Mercians, began with King
Creodda.
The seventh, the kingdom of Deira, began with Alle.
The eighth is the kingdom of Bernicia, which took its rise
from Adda. These last two kingdoms grew out of the disrup-
tion of the kingdom of Northumbria, which was afterwards
restored as one kingdom. Let the reader, for the present, be
satisfied with thus much concerning the first arrival of the
Saxons.
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK III. 95
CHAPTEE XVII.
Alliance of Aurelius Amhrosius, King of the Britons, with King
Constantius, against the Saxons — Merlin the Seer.
AuKELius Ambrosius, then, the king of the Britons, sent
greeting to King Constantius, and earnestly besought him, by
means of messengers, to take up arms without delay against
the heathen Saxons, the restless foes of the true God and
the Christian religion, and do his part in coming to the assist-
ance of his allies the Britons, in consideration of the former
alliance between them. The king, accordingly, acknowledged
the treaty lately concluded with Vortimer, and moreover re-
newed and ratified it, with the greatest solemnities, to last in
perpetuity — if, at least, Aurelius would do the same. So, as all
things had sped prosperously according to their wishes, the
messengers returned home again, together with some ambas-
sadors of the king's. At the same time, Aurelius also sent
messengers, charged with the same business, to Drostanus, king
of the Picts, who, however, was already bespoken by the mes-
sengers of Hengist, to whom he had promised a friendly alliance
against the Britons, and a safe repair in case of need ; nor did
he care any longer to offer Aurelius even the assurance of
peace. Accordingly, when Hengist had established his king-
dom within the borders of Kent, trusting to the promise of the
Picts, he sent forth his brother Octa, and his son Eubusa, men
of tried prowess and boldness, to seize the northern parts of
Britannia ; and to withstand the Scots, and check their attacks.
On the arrival of these soldiers, therefore, they were received by
the Picts with looks of gladness; and, being strengthened in num-
bers by them, they made war for a time against both the Scots
and Britons. The Britons thenceforth combined with the Scots,
and they always fought together against the Picts and Saxons.
Now, in the days of Aurelius and his predecessor Vortigern, a
certain seer from Cambria, named Merlin, chanted many so-
called prophecies, dark to the understanding, the meaning
of which could never or seldom be discerned by any one until
they were fulfilled ; but which, on being fulfilled, or after they
had come to pass, many very often believed they recognised.
These predictions of his, which will be found in the Sixth Book
of Geoffrey's Chronicle, towards the end, have suggested the
following : —
" Weak Vortigern sits pranked with royal show ;
Great Merlin stands and bodes the coming woe."
96 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
The prophecy begins thus : — As Vortigern was sitting upon the
bank of a drained pool, etc. He openly declares, however,
amonc: other thinf^s, that the Britons were to be driven out of
the country by the Saxons ; and that the Saxons were first to
be overcome by the Danes, and then overthrown by the Neus-
trians, that is, the Normans, — which things, indeed, are, in our
own days, known to have been truly fulfilled in all respects.
He likewise foretold that the Britons, accompanied by the
Armorican and Albanian nations, would wrest back their king-
dom of long ago, from the Normans, who now reign in Anglia,
and would thenceforth hold sway therein. After all, the fulfil-
ment of divination of this kind, which has not yet, it is be-
lieved, come to pass, or which has still to come to pass, is it
not surely under the control of Him to whom the past and the
future are alike continually present ?
CHAPTEE XVIII.
Accession of King Congal — Renewal of the Treaty between the
Scots and Britons — Internal strife of the Britons, whereby
they lose the Kingdom, and the Saxons everyiohere 'prevail.
But after the death of Constantius, who lay for a long time
lingering in sickness, Congal, his nephew through his brother
Dongardus, assumed the kingdom in A.D. 479, the sixth year
of the emperor Zeno, who had succeeded Leo, and taken his
daughter to wife. This king also reigned twenty-two years,
like his uncle who had preceded him. With Congal also, as
soon as he was crowned king, was the friendly alliance renewed
and ratified through the messengers of King Aurelius. For the
Saxon wars against the Britons began to grow more serious, as
fresh swarms kept unflaggingly coming upon them on all sides,
in such great numbers, that the latter, do what they could, were
unequal to the task of driving them out of the country — nay,
from day to day they increased more and more in numbers and
wickedness, and waxed strong. Out of all the lands of the
heathen, but mostly from Germany, armed vessels flocked to-
gether, as crows to the carrion ; whereby their numbers were largely
increased, while those of the Britons were daily lessened. The
strength also of the latter was so much taken up with continual
and calamitous intestine quarrels, and so much split up into
several parties, that had not the prudence and firmness of
Aurelius come to their rescue, they would then doubtless have
lost the kingdom. But during the whole of his lifetime the
I
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK III. 97
Britons maintained friendship with the Scottish tribes, and
these with the Britons in return. For, thenceforth, no subtlety
of their adversaries could part them, never after could the
fierceness of aliens break up their peaceful covenant, nor the
foreign quarrels or wrongs of their respective nations thence-
forward sever their friendship — nay, rather, the speedy renewal
of the treaty between them welded them in closer unity of love.
Thus the Saxons and Picts on the one side, and Scots and
Britons on the other, fought against one another continually ;
until the Scots had got the upper hand, and laid the Picts even
in the dust; and the Saxons had wrested Britain from the
Britons, through the apathy of that people. Wherefore William
tells us : — At length the Britons combined with the Scots, and
fought many a battle against the Saxons and Picts. Mean-
while, says Bede, the Saxons and Picts, whom one and the same
necessity drew together into the field, took up arms with their
united forces against the Britons and Scots.
CHAPTEK XIX.
Clovis, the first King of the Franks who was baptized — Origin
of the Franks.
CHAPTER XX.
Same continued — Period wlien they first had a King — Succession
of their Kings down to this Clovis — Saint Gyherianus Scotus.
CHAPTEE XXI.
Accession of Gonranus — Renewal of the Treaty with Uther —
Saint Brigida,
Moreover, we read that, in the time of Congal, there was no
open war, though the Saxons and Picts made various inroads
and attacks upon the country. At his decease, however, in A.D.
501 — the ninth year of the emperor Anastasius — he was suc-
ceeded by his brother Gonranus, a man of advanced age, also a son
of Dongardus. Gonranus reigned thirty-four years. At the out-
set of his reign, war broke out between him and the Britons. For
vol. II. Q
93 JOHN OF fordun's chronicle
as soon as that noble chief of the Britons, Aurelius, was taken away
from their midst, having been treacherously poisoned by the
Saxons, the Britons were altogether at a loss any longer to main-
tain peace with their friends and allies, or concord among them-
selves. And that excellent historian of the Britons, Gildas, has
spoken his praises above all their other kings— nay, he has left to
posterity his deeds faithfully recorded in well-chosen language.
For he was mighty on foot, and mightier still on horseback ;
bountiful and bold ; diligent in the service of God ; moderate in
all things ; and well versed in commanding armies. At length,
upon his death, he was succeeded by his brother Uther, a man
excessively given to stirring up civil war among his subjects.
For, at the instigation of certain persons, he endeavoured to wrest
from the Scots the district of Westmeria (Westmoreland) and
other adjoining districts, the peaceful possession of which they
had so many years enjoyed. But being assailed on all sides by the
inroads of his heathen enemies, he consented to renew the old
treaty with the king ; and, by the intervention of ambassadors
from both parties, they were again restored to harmony. In the
eighth year of King Gonranus, the aforesaid pagans — Cerdix and
Kenrik — in one day slew 5000 Britons, with their king Nathan-
leod. In his fourteenth year, also. Stuff and Wythgar, heathen
Saxons, sailed over to Britain with a few ships, and giving
battle to the Britons at Cerdixore, were all routed. In his
eighteenth year died Saint Brigida, a holy maid, beloved of God,
and was buried at Dunum (Down). In the same year, Cerdix
and Kenrik fought against the Britons at Cerdixforde, and
were victorious ; and thus they obtained the supreme power in
Wessex.
CHAPTER XXII.
Gildas the Historian — Some Metrical Prophecies of his.
About this time died Gildas, a sound and elegant historian,
and was buried at an old church in the Isle of Avallon. The
Britons owe it to him, as divers histories bear witness, that they
were of any renown among the other nations. Some maintain
that he was Arthur's chaplain ; others that he was not, but that
he flourished in the beginning of his days, and earlier. Delight-
ing in the holiness of the place, which he loved not a little, he
tarried long in this same Isle of Avallon, and, leading there a
solitary life pleasing to God, he attained to so much grace, that
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK III. 99
he was found worthy to be invested with the power of working
miracles, and, oftentimes, with the spirit of prophecy. Indeed,
he uttered many prophecies, some in prose and some in verse,
which turned out true. A few of these predictions of his in
verse, which, according to the expounders of our day, are not
believed to have as yet come to pass, we have thought fit to
insert below, in the present chapter. First, we give the following
passage, on the continuance of the treaty concluded between the
Scots and the Britons — first broached by Carausius, then faith-
fully observed by Conan, renewed by Aurelius Ambrosius, and
continued, likewise, until now by many chiefs, though not
by all. Gildas says, —
" The sons of Brutus, banded with the Scot^
Fair Anglia's beauty shall with slaughter blot.
Her streams shall flow red-stained with hostile gore ;
Her faithless sons shall fall to rise no more.
The thirsty ground shall drink the Saxon's life,
Shed by the Briton's, and the Albanian's, knife.
The friendly Scots shall see the Britons reign.
The land shall bear its ancient name again.
An eagle from a ruined tower foretold : —
These nations shall the ancestral kingdom hold ;
Their foes cast out, they shall with blissful sway,
Together reign until the Judgment Day."
CHAPTEE XXIII.
These Prophecies continued — Saint Brandan — Saint Machutes.
Amongst other things, Gildas also sang the following, con
cerning certain misfortunes which should befall the Scots : —
" Scotia shall weep a noble chieftain's fate,
Who o'er the sea-girt land shall hold his state.
While twice three years, and moons thrice three, roll by,
Under no prince the widow'd land shall lie.
Scotia shall mourn her famous kings of old —
Her kings so just, rich, bountiful, and bold.
For an unkingly king — so Merlin sings —
Shall wield the sceptre of victorious kings.
Then shall Albania wail for ruin nigh.
Her people, self-betray 'd, shall slaughter'd lie.
lOQ JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
Alas ! Albania, conquered by her guile,
A king of Anglic birth shall serve a while.
But after, when a miser king is dead,
She shall revive — so the ancient Sibyl said.
White Alban's treachery shall bruise the land ;
His countrymen shall perish by his hand.
The northern king, wdth his wild sailor horde.
Shall scourge the Scots with famine, fire, and sword.
The stranger nation, by their friends betray'd,
At length, shall grovelling in the dust be laid ;
Their Noric chief, on the lost battle-field,
Shall to the avenging sword his life-blood yield.
The realm shall be enrich'd by one from Gaul,
Who by his brother's sword, alas ! shall fall.
Pale woe shall then give way to thriving weal.
And o'er the land a peaceful calm shall steal.
Gildas, unveiler of the olden time,
These mighty things enshrines in lowly rhyme."
Justin, the elder, a most Christian emperor, succeeded the
faithless Anastasius in A.D. 518, and governed ten years, dying
in the twenty-eighth year of King Gonranus. In that same
year — namely, a.d. 528 — he was succeeded by Justinian, his
nephew through his sister, who reigned thirty-eight years.
This emperor made a digest of the books of the Eoman laws,
in one volume, called the Justinianum. In the thirtieth year
of King Gonranus, Cerdix, and Kenrick, his son, took the Isle
of Wight, and gave it to Stuf and Wychtgare, the nephews of
Cerdix. At this time, also, Dionysius composed, in the city of
Kome, the Paschal cycles of nineteen years, beginning from a.d.
532. Saint Brendan flourished in Scotland at that time — a
man of great abstemiousness, and conspicuous for his virtues.
He was the father of nearly 3000 monks. Moreover, he went a
seven years' voyage in quest of the Fortunate Isles, and saw
many tilings worthy of wonder. Saint Machutes, also called
Macloveus, who was baptized and regularly educated by him,
and accompanied him on his voyage, lived in Britain, renowned
for his miracles and holiness.
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK III. 101
CHAPTEE XXIV.
Death of King Gonranus — Arthur ascends the British TJirone,
GoNRANUS, after he had completed his thirty-fourth year on
the throne, was ensnared in an ambuscade at Innerlochy, by
his brother's son, Eugenius or Eochodius Hebdre, and put to
death. His body was taken to the church of Saint Oran, at
Hy (lona), to be buried, where repose the remains of his father
and grandfather. After his death, however, his wife, the queen,
fled secretly to Ireland, with her sons Eogenanus and Aydanus,
and remained there while Eugenius and his brother reigned,
even up to her death ; though her sons, when they had attained
unto the full age of puberty, and unto strength to fit them for
military service, on the king's spirit being softened by the
prayers of mediating friends, returned to their native land, and
thenceforth abode in peace. Of these we shall speak at greater
length in their proper place. Now, on the death of Uther, king
of the Britons, by poison, through the perfidy of the Saxons
(like his brother Aurelius of happy memory), his son Arthur, by
the contrivance of certain men, succeeded to the kingdom ;
which, nevertheless, was not lawfully his due, but rather his
sister Anna's, or her children's. For she was begotten in lawful
wedlock, and married to Loth, a Scottish consul, and lord of Lau-
donia (Lothian), who came of the family of the leader Eulgentius ;
and of her he begat two sons — the noble Galwanus and Modred
— whom, on the other hand, some relate, though without founda-
tion, to have had another origin. It is certain, at all events,
that Arthur reigned in the days of the reign of Gonranus, and
for seven years after his death ; for Arthur died A.D. 542, as is
shown in sundry writings ; but I have not come upon the year
when he took upon him the kingly dignity. But why Arthur
was adopted as king, and the lawful heirs were passed over, may
be seen from Geoffroy ; for, as he says, on the death of Uther
Pendragon, the nobility from the several provinces were gathered
together in the city of Silchester, and suggested to Dubricius,
Archbishop of Caerleon, that he should consecrate Uther's son,
Arthur, to be their king. For they were pressed by necessity,
because the Saxons, on hearing of the aforesaid king's death,
had invited over their countrymen from Germany, and, under
the command of Colgerin, were endeavouring to exterminate
the Britons.
102 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
CHAPTER XXV.
Arthur.
DuBRicius, therefore, grieving for the calamities of his country,
did, with some of the bishops, invest Arthur with the diadem of
the kingship. Arthur was then a youth of fifteen years, of
singular courage and bounteousness, to whom his innate good-
ness lent such a charm that he was beloved by almost all men.
When he had thus been consecrated with the insignia of
royalty, he, observing his wonted custom, gave way to his
liberality; and so large a number of knights flocked to him, that
even what he distributed among them ran short. But the man
in whom bounteousness and valour are inborn, though he may
be in want for a time, yet poverty shall not harm him for ever.
Thus speaks Geoffroy. But let us return to the subject — where
it is said that they were impelled by necessity — which has no
law, both with gods and men ; for necessity makes that lawful
which otherwise were not lawful. But much depends on what
and what manner of necessity that was. We can, however,
gather quite well, from the progress of Geoffroy s narrative, that
at that time Gualwanus, who is also called Waulwanus, and his
brother Modred were boys under the age of puberty. For we
start with the understanding that Arthur, as we have men-
tioned above, was fifteeh years of age when he was adopted as
king; then sundry hostile outbreaks were, in the meantime,
brought about by him against the Saxons ; and Geoffroy, after
declaring the battles which were so fought from the time
of his accession to the throne, goes on to speak thus : — ^After
these events, when, etc. — and a little further on: — Walwa-
nus, the son of the aforesaid Loyth, was then a youth of
twelve years, and was handed over to the service of Pope Sul-
picius by his uncle, from whom he received arms. Such are
his words. And, therefore, on so strong a necessity suddenly
arising, they were justified in electing a youth verging on man-
hood, rather than a child in the cradle ; and it was haply,
for this reason, that Modred stirred up against Arthur that war
wherehi both met their fate. Geoffroy, however, writes that
Modred and Galwanus were the sons of Anna, sister of Aurelius,
Arthur's uncle. He says : Loth, who, in the time of Aurelius
Ambrosius, had married his sister, of whom he begat Galwanus
and Modred. But, further on, he calls Arthur the uncle of
Galwanus, saying: Walwanus, the son of the aforesaid Loth, was
then a youth of twelve years, and was handed over to the service
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK III. 103
of Pope Sulpicius by his uncle, from whom he received arms.
Such are Geoffrey's words. But it is clearly certain that neither
Aurelius nor Uther survived up to that time ; therefore, we may
gather that Arthur was this uncle of his. That is Geoffroy's
account. I, however, refer this point to the sagacity of the
reader to deal with ; for I do not see my way easily to bring
these passages into harmony with each other. But I believe it
to be nearer the truth that Modred, as I have read elsewhere,
was Arthur's sister's son ; and that is the drift of this chapter.
CHAPTEE XXVI.
Accession of the three Kings, Eugenius, Convallus, and Kynatel
or Connyd — Arrival of Saint Columha.
'' EuGENius, or Eochodius Hebdre, as soon as his uncle Gon-
ranus was slain, assumed the kingship in A.D. 535, and reigned
twenty-three years. In the eighth year of his reign, the fifteenth
of the Emperor Justinian, was fought in Britain a battle be-
tween the British king, Arthur, and his nephew Modred, wherein
both of them fell wounded to the death, with a great multitude
of Britons as well as Scots. But Eugenius passed the whole time
of his administration in ceaseless struggles with the Saxons and
Picts, while fortune yielded the victory sometimes to him,
sometimes to them ; and, doing his best to keep the peace with
the Britons, and the bond of their pristine alliance, he often-
times, himself present in person, tendered them his help against
the heathens. At his death in A.D. 558, the thirty-first year of
the emperor Justinian, he was succeeded by his brother Con-
vallus, who reigned ten years. In the eighth year of his reign
over the Scots, and the ninth of that of Brude, the son of
Mealochon, over the Picts, there came out of Ireland, into Scot-
land, the holy priest and abbot Columba — a man of a life to be
no less admired than venerated, the founder of monasteries, and
the father and instructor of many monks. He shared his name
with the prophet Jonah : for Jonah in the Hebrew tongue is
Columha in the Latin, and Peristera in the Greek. The names
of twelve men who sailed over to Scotland with Columba, from
Ireland, are these : —
The two sons of Brendinus, Baythenu?, also called Coninus,
Saint Columba's successor, and Cobthacus, his brother.
Aernanius, the uncle of Saint Columba.
Dormicius, his minister.
104 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
The two sons of Rodain, Ens and Fechno.
Scandalaus, son of Bresail, son of Endeus.
Eoghodius.
Thocammeus.
Mocifirus Cetea.
Cayrnaanus, also a son of Brandinus, son of Melgy.
Grillanus.
On a certain day, at the very hour when there was being fought
in Ireland a battle, which is called Ondemone in Scottish, this
man of God, having audience of the said king Convallus, son
of Congal, in Scotland, gave a minute account both of the
battle which was being fought, and of the kings to whom God
vouchsafed the victory over their enemies. In the second year
after Saint Columba's arrival, however, King Convallus died,
and was at once, that same year, succeeded in the kingdom by
his brother Kynatel or Connyd, who died a year and three
months after.
CHAPTER XXVII.
An Angel "brings Saint Cohtmha down the Glass Booh of the
Consecration of Kings — Accession of King Aydanus.
At this time, says Adamnan, while Saint Columba tarried in
a certain island named Hymba, in ecstasy of mind, one night he
saw the Angel of God bearing in his hand the Glass Book of
the ordination of kings, which he held out for Saint Columba to
read. As, however, he refused, on the third night, to ordain
Aydanus, son of Gonranus, king, as he was in the book bidden
to do, seeing that he loved his brother Jogenanus better, on a
sudden the Angel stretched forth his hand, and struck the holy
man with a scourge ; and a livid mark remained on his side, all
the days of his life. He likewise addressed these words to him,
saying, — " Know thou for certain that I am sent to thee from
God with this book, in order that thou shouldest ordain Aydanus
king, according to what thou hast read therein ; but, if thou
shouldest be unwilling to further this behest, I shall strike thee
a second time." So when the Angel of the Lord, with the same
Glass Book in his hand, had appeared three consecutive nights
to Saint Columba, and enjoined the divine behest with respect
to the ordination of the said king, that saint sailed over to the
island of lona ; and on the arrival of Aydanus there, in those
days, as he was bidden, Saint Columba laid liis hand upon his
head, and blessed him, and ordained him king ; prophesying.
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK III. 105
among the words of the ordination ceremony, what should befall
his sons, grandsons, and great grandsons. Aydanus, therefore,
having been thus ordained king, to the joy of his nation,
through the warning of an angel, ruled the kingdom in great
prosperity. He began to reign in A.D. 570 — the fifth year of
Justin the younger, who succeeded Justinian on the imperial
throne in A.D. 566, and governed twelve years; and the king
reigned thirty-five years. He devoted himself beyond measure
to warlike enterprises, even against the warnings of the blessed
Columba; so that he not only utterly vanquished all the nations
round about ; to wit, the Noricans, Picts, and Saxons, as often
as they burst into his kingdom, but also overcame these Picts
on their own ground. It is written, however, that his army
was twice defeated : on one occasion, under Brendinus, the
chief of his host ; and on the other, under himself. The manner
of one of these discomfitures — the former — follows in the next
chapter. It came to pass thus : —
CHAPTEE XXVIII.
Aydanus sends assistance to Malgo, King of the Britons — Victory
of tlie Heathens — Parentage of Saint FurseuSj Saint Foylanus,
and Saint Vultanus.
It came to pass that Malgo, king of the Britons, hearing the
prowess of Aydanus extolled, sent messengers to him beseeching
him not to be unmindful of their late covenant and friendship,
nor refuse to help him against a heathenish and wicked nation.
He, on his side, readily inclining his ear to so just a request, and
giving effect to it, sent off his son Griffinus, a distinguished
soldier, and Brendinus, prince of Eubonia, his nephew by his
sister, with a mighty host, in the fifteenth year of his reign.
Nor would he, in this case, have intrusted to those men the
care of so great a matter, notwithstanding that they had many
a time before been wont to discharge the duty of leader of
armies wisely ; for he took steps to direct this expedition him-
self, and would have done so, had not the nobles, with sounder
judgment, most earnestly recalled him back from his purpose. As
soon, therefore, as these set out with their army, they were joined
by the northern Britons ; and with forces thus combined, they
hastened in all security, as if afraid of nothing, to meet Malgo.
But lo ! suddenly, on the third day after they had crossed the
stony moor, they fell, though not unawares, right among the
106 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
squadrons of the heathens, led by Cenlinus, king of the West
Saxons, at a place called Fethanlege ; and, after a severe
struggle there, for the space of a full day, Cutha, the son of
Cenlinus, was slain, with the whole of the first line, which he
commanded. The remaining ranks of the heathen host did not,
aught afraid on that account, retreat from the field. Nay, they
exerted themselves to press on more bravely until, with cruel
slaughter, they fearfully routed both our men and the Britons,
who seemed at first to be winning the battle. In these days,
says Vincentiics, the prince Brendinus had a brother in Scotia,
named Adelfius ; of whose daughter, called Gelgehes, Philtanus,
king of Ireland, begat Saint Furseus, and his brothers, Foylanus
and Ultanus, exceeding great saints before God. In the ninth
year of King Aydanus died Justin, and was, in a.d. 578, suc-
ceeded in the empire by Tiberius, who was six years emperor.
On the death of Tiberius, he was succeeded, in a.d. 584, by his
daughter's husband, Mauricius, who reigned twenty-one years.
CHAPTER XXIX.
This King Aydanios sets out to the assistance of Cadwallo, King
of the Britons, against the Saxons — Issue of the Battle — Saint
Columba's Prophecy about this battle — Saint Kentigern and
Saint Convallus.
King Aydanus, in the twenty-third year of his reign, on being
asked by the Britons and their King Cadwallo for assistance
against the aforesaid King Cenlinus, advanced with his army
as far as Chester, where he was joined by the Britons, massed in
line by squadrons, and prepared to give battle to Cenlinus. Tlie
latter, hearing this, prepared for action, and marched to meet them;
and a severe battle was fought at Wodenysborch, where, on the
side of Cenlinus, the leaders Cealinus, Quichelm, and Cryda, and
great numbers of the soldiery of his army, perished utterly ;
while he himself was wounded and fled, and was thereupon
deprived of his kingdom. At the very time of the battle, the
holy man Columba, tarrying in the island of lona, as he relates
in his works, suddenly called his minister, and said to him,
" Ring the bell." By the sound thereof the brethren were
hurried to church, and came running quickly, the saint himself
going on before and leading them. And, when they had knelt
down in the church, he said unto them, " Now, let us earnestly
pmy for King Aydanus, and this people ; for, this very hour, they
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK III. 107
are going into battle." After a short interval, he walked out of
the church, and looking up to heaven, he said, " Now the bar-
barians are being put to flight ; and to Aydanus, unhappy
though he otherwise be, yet doth God grant the victory." The
holy man, also, prophetically and truly, told them of the num-
ber of three hundred and three men who were slain of the army
of Aydanus. I^ow, contemporaneously with Saint Columba,
there flourished the most blessed Keutigern, bishop of Glasgow,
a man of wondrous sanctity, and a worker of many miracles ;
whose revered bones there rest entombed, illustrious for many
miracles to the praise of God. The utmost boundary of his
bishopric southwards was, at that time, as it ought by rights to
be now, at the royal cross below Stanemor. And one of his
chief disciples was Saint Convallus, renowned for miracles and
virtues, whose bones likewise rest buried at Inchenane, near
Glasgow.
CHAPTEE XXX.
This Aydanus is driven from the field hy Ethelfrid, King of
the Northumbrians — Augustine preaches the Faith to the
English.
At another time, also — that is, in the thirty-third year of his
reign — the army of King Aydanus was vanquished while he was
himself present. For in the eleventh year after he had dis-
comfited Cenlinus, king of the Saxons, it was at length agreed
upon between Aydanus and the Britons to make a twofold
attack upon the Northumbrian people, ruled at that time by
Ethelfrid, a powerful and wise king, who committed constant
outrages upon the Britons and Scots. Aydanus was to come in
from the north, and the Britons from the south, until they met
at a point agreed upon by a solemn pledge. The king, accord-
ingly, when the stated time arrived, hoping that the Britons
would, on their side, do as they had stipulated, marched into
the territory of Northumbria, although he was of advanced age;
and while his army was daily engaged in burning and despoil-
ing, one day King Ethelfrid, with a dense body of troops, came
upon the Scots (who were dispersed through the towns and
fields, plundering in this way), and overcame them, not without
great slaughter of his own men. Aydanus, king of the Scots,
says Bede, being concerned at the advance of Ethelfrid, came
against him with an immense and brave army ; but nearly the
whole of his army was slain, at a place called Degsastan. In
108 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
this fight Theobald, brother to Ethelfrid, was killed, with
the whole force he commanded ; but Aydanus was, never-
theless, vanquished, and escaped with a few followers. In the
fifth year before this battle, the Pope Saint Gregory sent Saint
Augustine with his comrades into the country of the Angles, to
be their first teacher and preach the faith to them ; and the
latter, accordingly, that same year, converted Athelbert, king
of Kent, to the faith. Now, in the time of Aydanus, the Franks
and Spaniards disagreed as to the celebration of Easter ; for the
Franks kept Easter on the 1 8th of April ; and the Spaniards
on the 21st of March. In his time, also, Saint Gregory was
ordained bishop of Tours, and was renowned amongst all men.
It was he who wrote the history of the Franks. But, to resume —
after the said battle King Ethelfrid wofully wasted the nation
of the Britons ; and, after having exterminated the natives, he
made most of their lands tributary, or settled the nation of the
Angles thereon.
CHAPTEE XXXL
Saint Columha's prophecy about the sons of Aydanus — His Death
— Saint Drostan and his Parentage.
Once upon a time, says Adamnan, when Saint Columba was
asking King Aydanus about the successor to the kingdom, the
latter answered that he knew not which of his sons would j
reign — whether Arturius, or Eochodius Find, or Dongartus.
"Whereupon the saint prophesied as follows : — " None of these
three shall reign, for they shall fall in battle, and be slain by
their enemies. But if thou hast any others younger, let them
now come to me ; and that one of them whom the Lord hath
chosen to be king shall at once spring into my bosom." When
they were summoned, Eochodius Buyd came up to the saint, as
he had prophesied, and nestled in his bosom. So the saint
kissed him and blessed him, and said unto his father, — " This
is the one that shall survive, and reign as king immediately
after thee ; and after him, also, shall his sons reign." Moreover,
all was, in due time, fulfilled as he said. For Arturius and
Eochodius Find were slain, not long afterwards, in the battle of
the Maythi, and Dongartus was cut off in battle with the
Saxons, like his elder brother Griffinus long before; but
Eochodius Buyd, which in our tongue would be Eugenius,
succeeded his father in the kingdom the year after. Conan-
rodus also, the son of the king of Demetia (South Wales), took
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK III. 109
to wife Fynewennis, daughter of this Griffinus, son of King
Aydanus, son of Gonranus ; and of her he begat a son greatly
beloved by God, Saint Drostan, who donned the monk's
habit, and offered himself an acceptable sacrifice unto God.
Saint Columba died in a.d. 600, after he had passed in Scotland
fully thirty -four years of his excellent life, as appears from the
holy man's words. " This present day," said he to the brethren,
" thirty years of my pilgrimage in Scotia are completed.
But though the Lord granted to me, on my begging for it with
my whole might, that I should pass away to Him from the world
on this day, yet hearing rather the prayers of many churches
for me. He quickly changed His word ; and it was yielded by
the Lord to their prayers, although against my will, that four
years from this day should be added to me to abide in the
flesh." But King Aydanus, ever sorrowing after the battle of
Degsastan, was so much worn with grief that he died at Kin-
tyre, in the second year after his defeat, so old that he almost
reached the term of eighty years, and he was buried at Kil-
cheran, where none of his predecessors had been buried before.
Thereupon Kenethus Kere, son of Conal, immediately took upon
him the royal crown ; and went to his account a year, or, as is
elsewhere stated, three months after.
CHAPTEK XXXIL
Accession of Eugenius, son of Aydanus — Saint Gillenius and
Saint Columbamos.
King Aydan was succeeded in the sovereignty of the king-
dom by his son, Eugenius Buyd, or Eochodius, according to
some — Ay do according to others — in a.d. 606 ; who reigned
sixteen years. The year before, that is, in a.d. 605, Mauricius
was murdered, together with his wife and sons, by one of his
soldiers, Phocas, who usurped the imperial throne, and held it
eight years. Bonifacius, who was the sixty-fifth pope of the
Komish Church, and succeeded Sabinianus, obtained at the
hands of this Phocas that the Eomish Church should be the
head of all the churches ; whereas, at that time, the Church of
Constantinople styled herself the first of all the churches. Now
Eugenius was from the very first, after he had leant his head
in the bosom of Saint Columba, his beloved foster-son, most
tenderly trained, and, for a long time afterwards, his disciple,
most carefully instructed in letters. As soon as he became
king, however, amidst the manifold cares of state, the saint's
1 1 0 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
teaching was consigned to oblivion ; for, rarely applying his
thoughts to peace, but continually to war, he harassed by his
inroads the country of the Saxons, and sometimes that of the
Picts. He was harsh in his government, and exceedingly
pitiless and fierce towards all those who offended the majesty
of his power ; thinking, in his pride, to overcome the high-
minded or wanton rather by cruelty than by courtesy. Towards
his conquered enemies, and loyal subjects, however, he was
beyond measure merciful and mild, and readily extended his
favour and kindness to those who asked forgiveness for their
offences ; so that in this he might be said truly to take after
the noble-natured lion, whose device he bore on his arms ; for —
" The lion's rage will spare the grovelling prey."
In the eighth year of Eugenius, the emperor Phocas, in the
midst of his furious raging against his followers, was put to
death by order of Heraclius, patrician of Africa, who, after his
death, seized the commonwealth, which he found dismembered
and wasted. He began to reign in a.d. 613, and reigned thirty
years. At that time Saint Gillenus, a Scot, by his sound
teaching, gained over to Christ, and drew to him by his signal
miracles, the province of the Atrebatii. One day, when this
saint was taking some refreshment with Saint Pharaoh, the
glass cup for drinking wine fell out of the cupbearer's hand by
chance, and was broken. Whereupon the blessed Gillenus,
seeing the servant's face turn pale, privily beckoned to him to
give him the broken piece of the cup ; and when he had said
a prayer over it, the glass was at once restored whole. In the
days of Eugenius, Saint Columbanus, a Scot, was distinguished
for his many virtues, and built the convents of Luxeu and
Bobio in Gaul. He was afterwards driven out of France by
King Theodoric, at the instigation of his grandmother Brune-
child; and, leaving his disciple Gallus in Germany, he sub-
sequently built a convent in Italy.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
Cadwallo, King of the Britons^ takes to flighty and comes to Scot-
land fm" assistance — Arrival of Saint Oswald, and his
Brothers baptized there — Burial of the RigM Hand and
Sword of King Etigenius in the stony moor.
In the tenth year of Eugenius, Crugillus and Quichelmus,
kings of the West Saxons, fought a battle at Beautonum against
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK III. Ill
Cadwallo, king of the Britons, and forced him to take to flight,
with the loss of two thousand and forty-six killed. Cadwallo
afterwards came secretly to Scotland with a few followers, to
get help from the king ; whereof he obtained a w^elcome pro-
mise. From Scotland, he repaired to Ireland ; and thence he
went off to Armorican Britain, where he speedily obtained a
good-sized band of warriors from the king, whose name was
Salamon ; and on his return home, he harried the Saxons with
numberless calamitous massacres. In the eleventh year of
Eugenius, Eedwald, king of the East Angles, slew Ethelfrid,
king of Northumbria, in battle; whose successor, Edwin,
banished from his father's kingdom the seven sons of Ethelfrid,
to wit, Andefrid, Oswald, Oslaf, Oswiu, Offa, Oswud, and
Oslac, and one daughter, Ebba. AH these, accordingly, having,
with many nobles, escaped by flight, through the exertions
of friends, arrived in Scotland, driven by sore need ; and
though their father had overcome his own in battle, yet the
king kindly harboured these heathens in his kingdom for a
long time after, in such honour as was meet. Moreover, a few
years afterwards, they were drawn to the Christian faith by his
exhortations, and by the teaching and preaching of the holy
fathers, whose zeal and glorious lives at that time shed their
lustre over Scotland ; and they were born again, through the
water of sacred baptism, in the name of the Holy Trinity. In
the twelfth year of this king's reign, the fifth of the emperor
Heraclius, Palestine was overthrown in battle by the Persians ;
and the holy city of Jerusalem, after 90,000 Christians had
been slain therein, was taken, and Our Lord's Holy Cross itself
carried off. Consequently, five years after this, on Easter
Monday the 4th of April, the emperor, being stirred up, set
out against King Cosdroes ; and, having quickly put him to
death, he brought the Holy Cross back to Jerusalem, break-
ing out into praises thereof, and singing this antiphon, " O
cross more bright," etc. King Eugenius, however, who nearly
all the days of his reign eschewed peace, having at length
reached the goal of life, wished to be, even after his death — as
he had been in life — a continual terror to the enemy. So, in
order that the people of the kingdom might not, in future, be in
need of a defender, though he himself were dead, he appointed
by will, which his loyal chiefs were sworn to carry out, that
on his death, they should at once cut off" his right arm at
the shoulder, and bury it, decked with the war device of the
lion, and with sword in hand, as a strong bulwark for them
ever after. A certain chronicle, however, has ascribed the
burying of the king's hand in this way to King Eugenius, the
112 JOHN OF FOKDUN'S CHRONICLE
son of Congal, and not to this one. It is left to the reader's
judgment whether it should be ascribed this one, or rather to
the other.
CHAPTEE XXXIV.
Accession of King Ferchardus, and his hrother Donaldiis, blessed,
while yet a hoy, by Saint Columba — Beturn of Saint Oswald
to his Fatherland,
In A.D. 622, the tenth year of the chief Heraclius, Eugenius
was succeeded in the kingdom by the elder of his sons, Fer-
chardus, who reigned ten years, and in whose time nothing worth
remembering happened. About the beginning of his reign,
Mahomet, the magician and false prophet, led astray the Arabs,
who are also called Saracens, and many peoples. When this Fer-
chardus had been buried in the island of Columba (Hycolumb-
kill or lona), his brother, Donenaldus Brek, took upon him the
kingship, in A.D. 632, the twentieth year of the said Heraclius,
and reigned fourteen years. Adamnan relates that this same
Donenaldus, while yet a boy, was brought by merchants to
Saint Columba in the island of Dorcete; and when Saint
Columba had looked upon him, he strictly inquired of them,
saying, " Whose son is this whom ye have brought?" They
answered, " This is Donenaldus, son of Eugenius ; and therefor
is he brought unto thee, that he may return enriched with tliy
blessing." Whereupon the saint blessed him, saying, " He shall
outHve all his brethren, and shall become a very famous king.
Nor shall he ever be betrayed into the hands of his enemies ;
but, in old age, he shall die a peaceful death in his bed, at
home, in presence of a crowd of friends and retainers." And
all this was verily fulfilled, according to the foreshowing of
the holy man. In the second year of this king, Edwin, king
of the Northumbrians, who had driven the above-mentioned
sons of Ethelfrid out of the kingdom, was slain by Cadwallo,
king of the Britons, and Penda, king of the Mercians. Where-
upon his brothers Andefrid and Oswald, and the other
nobles, who had then sojourned seventeen years in exile in
Scotland, being certified of his death from trustworthy infor-
mation, came into the king's presence, and begged him to
grant them their liberty, and graciously deign to vouchsafe
them some help whereby to win back their father's kingdom.
The king, accordingly, freely gave them full leave to go away
or come back, — and even promised them help against Penda
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK III. 113
or any of the Saxons; but he altogether refused it against
Cadwallo and the Britons, who had long been bound to the
Scots by the friendship of a faithful alliance. Moreover,
though less moved thereto by liking for the Saxon race than by
zeal for the Christian religion, he sent with them a strong body
of warriors, to the end that they might safely cross the marches
of his kingdom. Being, therefore, supported by so large a host,
they entered their father's kingdom, and were gladly wel-
comed by the inhabitants. Their eldest brother, Andefrid,
was, likewise, at once crowned king of Bernicia. At that time
also, Osric, who was baptized by Bishop Paulinus, took upon
him the kingdom of Deira. For the kingdom of Northumbria
was then divided into the two countries of Bernicia and Deira.
These kings, however, Andefrid and Osric, when they had re-
covered their kingdoms, abjured the Catholic faith, and went
back to the service of idols.
CHAPTEK XXXV.
Saint Osvjald — Saint Aydan chosen to convert the Saxons.
All the time that Edwin reigned, says BeAe, the sons of
the aforesaid King Ethelfrid, with many of the youth of the
nobility, lived in banishment among the Scots, and were there
taught the doctrine of the Scots, and regenerated by the grace
of baptism. Upon the death of the king, their enemy, they
were allowed to return to their native land. Andefrid, the
first of them, assumed the sovereignty over the Bernicians,
while Osric, as above related, was set over the kingdom of
Deira. Both these kings, as soon as they had obtained
the badge of an earthly kingdom, forswore the sacraments
of the heavenly kingdom, and again gave themselves over to
be defiled and ruined by the abominations of their former
idolatry. Nor was it long before Cadwallo, king of the Britons,
slew both these kings — with impious hand, indeed, but through
the just vengeance of God. Then when Saint Oswald had
held the provinces of the Northumbrians for a whole year
after the murder of his brother, he advanced with a small army,
but fortified with faith in Christ, and slew King Cadwallo
himself, with his immense forces. The field of battle is near
that wall, in the north, which is called Thirlwall — wherewith
the Eomans formerly fenced the whole of Britain from sea to
sea, to ward off the attacks of the Scots. This same King
Oswald, when he assumed the sovereignty, desiring that the
VOL. II. H
114 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
whole nation over which he had just been set should be imbued
with the grace of the Christian faith, sent to the elders of the
Scots — among whom he himself, and those soldiers who were
with him, when in banishment, had received the sacraments of
baptism — and asked them to send him a bishop, through whose
teaching, the nation of the Angles which he ruled might learn
the benefits of faith in the Lord, and embrace its sacraments.
Nor was it long before he got what he wanted. For there was
first sent, to preach to them, a certain man of harsh disposition,
who, after he had preached for some time to the nation of the
Angles, and met with no success, returned to his native land, and,
in an assembly of the elders, reported that he had not been able to
do any good in teaching the nation to which he had been sent, and
that they were untameable and stubborn-minded men. There-
upon they began to have great debate in the council as to what
should be done ; for they were anxious to forward the well-being
of that nation in what it sought, but grieved that the preacher
they had sent had not been received. Then said Saint Aydan
— for he also was of the council — to the priest in question, " It
seems to me, brother, that thou wast harder than was right
upon thy unlearned hearers, and didst not, according to the
apostolic discipline, first offer them the milk of more gentle
doctrine ; till, being, by degrees, nourished by the Word of God,
they should be able to receive the more perfect, and practise
the more sublime, precepts of God." Having heard these
words, all who sat with him turned their eyes and counten-
ances upon him, and began diligently to discuss what he had
said ; and they resolved that he was worthy of the office of
bishop, and should be sent to instruct the unbelievers and
unlearned.
CHAPTEE XXXVI.
Preaching of Saint Aydan — Death of the holy King Oswald.
Bede goes on to say : — Saint Oswald, then, received the holy
bishop Aydan, a man of the greatest meekness, godliness,
and moderation, and having the zeal of God ; and granted him
a place for his episcopal see in the island of Lindisfarne, where
he himself wished to have it. The king also humbly and
willingly in all things gave ear to his admonitions, and applieil
himself most diligently to build up and spread the Church
of Christ in his kingdom : indeed, when the bishop, who had
not a perfect knowledge of the Anglic tongue, preached the
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK III. 115
gospel there, it was often beautiful to see the king himself inter-
preting the Word of God to his generals and thanes ; for he
had naturally, in the long period of his banishment, perfectly
learnt the language of the Scots. From that time they began
to come for many a day out of Scotland into Britain, and to
preach most devoutly the word of faith to those provinces of the
Angles over which Oswald reigned ; and those among them
who had received priest's orders administered to the believers
the grace of baptism. Churches were built here and there ; the
people joyfully flocked together to hear the Word of God ; pos-
sessions and lands were given, of the king's bounty, to establish
monasteries ; the little ones of the Angles, as well as their elders,
were, by their Scottish L2asters, imbued with learning, and the
observance of regular discipline. The holy bishop left to the
clergy, among other lessons for a good life, a most wholesome
example of fasting and continence ; and it was, with all men,
the highest commendation of his teaching, that he taught not
otherwise than he himself, and his followers, lived. His life
was so different from the slothfulness of our times, that all who
walked with him, whether tonsured or laymen, were bound to
meditate — that is, to spend their time in reading the Scriptures,
or reciting the Psalms. In the eleventh year of King Donaldus,
this same Saint Oswald was killed by Penda, king of the
Mercians, and was succeeded by his brother Oswiu, who had
also been instructed in the Catholic faith, and baptized by the
Scots. The self-same year died the emperor Heraclius. His
son Constantine reigned in his stead, and was, in the fourth
month of his reign, poisoned by his stepmother, Martina, and
the patriarch Pirrus ; whereupon Martina and her son, Hera-
clonas, seized the imperial throne. But, the next year, Hera-
clonas and his mother, Martina, were banished — he with his
nose cut off, and she with her tongue cut out ; and Constans,
also called Constantine, son of the aforesaid Constantine,
mounted the imperial throne in A.D. 644, and reigned twenty-
six years.
CHAPTEE XXXVIL
Accession of King Ferchardus — Saint Finanus, Saint FurseuSy
Saint Foilanus, and Saint Ultanus.
Finally, after a reign of fourteen years, Donaldus died, and
his nephew Ferchardus Fode, son of Ferchardus, was raised to
the government of the kingdom, and crowned. He began to
lie JOHN OF FORDUN's CHRONICLE
reign in A.D. 646, the third year of Constans, or Constantine,
and held the kingship for eighteen years, during the whole of
which time he reigned in peace. In the sixth year of his reign,
Aydan, the holy bishop and teacher of the Angles, passed
away to the Lord, after having gloriously administered the
bishopric of Northumbria for seventeen years. He was suc-
ceeded by Saint Finan, also a Scot, who was bishop ten
years. By the latter, just after his arrival there, the king of
the midland Angles, Peada, son of Penda, was baptized, and
all the earls and thanes who had accompanied him, together
with all their households. About the beginning of the reign
of this king. Saint Furseus, of whose parentage we have spoken
above, full of shining virtues, went forth out of Scotland on a
pilgrimage for Christ's sake, and got as far as Gaul ; where,
l3eing received with honour by King Clodoveus, son of Dago-
bert, he founded the convent of Lagny. Not long after, his
brothers, Saint Foilanus and Saint Ultanus, having likewise
vowed to go on a pilgrimage, followed him, and lived illustrious
lives in Graul. Of these, Foilanus afterwards founded the
monastery of Fosse, through the bounty of the virgin Gertrudis ;
and he lies there, crowned with martyrdom. In the time of
this king, likewise, Dido, bishop of Poitiers, was sent into
banishment to the king in Scotland, who received him with
honour, and entertained him for a time ; but he afterwards sent
him back to the aforesaid King Clodoveus, who received him
again into favour.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
Saint Colman — He ^preaches for three years — His return to
Scotland.
The holy bishop Finan died in the sixteenth year of King
Ferchardus, and was succeeded by Saint Colman, likewise
sent and ordained by the Scots. Colman, however, exercised
his office there but three years ; for, unable to bear the envy of
those Angles who were lettered, he left his bishopric, and
hurried back to his native land. Now Colman, says Bede,
after he had presided over the Northumbrian nation as bishop
for three years, took with him part of the bones of the holy
father Aydan, and returned to Scotland. How thrifty, how
continent he himself and his predecessors were, the place which
they governed bare witness. There were there, at that time,
many of the nobility as well as of the middle class of the
Angles. These, in the time of the bishops Colman and Finan,
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK III. 117
had forsaken their native land and retired thither, for the
sake either of divine studies, or of a more continent life. And
some of them soon devoted themselves faithfully to the monas-
tic life, while others chose rather to go about from cell to cell,
attending the lectures of the masters. The Scots most willingly
received them all, and took care to supply them with daily
food, free of cost, and also with books to read, and gratuitous
teaching. Meanwhile, Colman, who had come from Scotland,
quitted Britain, and returned again to Scotland, taking along
with him the Scots he had gathered together, and about thirty
men of the English nation, who were imbued with the teach-
ing of the monastic life. With these he came to an island
called Hybofynd, not far remote from Ireland ; and, building a
monastery there, he placed therein the monks of both nations,
whom he had brought over. These, however, could not agree
among themselves. So he established another monastery, in a
place called Mageo, and leaving the Scottish monks in the
former, he appointed that the English should remain by them-
selves in the other.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
Number of Kings of the Angles whom the Scots hajptized — Bishops
hy whom they were hajptized.
Through these most holy men, therefore, the bishops Aydan,
Einan, and Colman, furthered by the Scottish kings and
the elders of the clergy — at least either through them, or
through others whom they had consecrated and given to the
Angles as bishops and priests, as they had also given them
some as teachers — were the two kingdoms of the Northum-
brians, those of the Mercians and Middle Angles, and one half
of the kingdom of the East Saxons, almost to the banks of the
river Thames, converted to Christ ; and their kings and inhabi-
ants baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity, and faithfully
taught the works of faith, and moulded thereto.
The first king of the Angles baptized by the Scots was
Eanfrid — although he returned to his idols as a dog to his
vomit.
Then his brother, the holy King Oswald ; at whose request,
as stated above, the catholic faith was preached to the Northum-
brians by the blessed Aydan.
Also, King Oswy, Oswald's brother, and successor in the
kingdom.
118 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
Oswyn, king of Deira ; who was betrayed by his own men,
and slain by this same Oswy.
Peada, Penda's son, king of the Middle Angles ; to whom
Dwyma, the Scot, was given as bishop, to be over the Middle
Angles and the Mercian people — for the scarcity of priests
made it necessary that one bishop should be set over the two
peoples of two different countries.
Sigbertus, king of the East Saxons, who had lately driven
out Mellitus, and abjured the faith. To this king, Cedda was
sent as bishop to teach the heathen. Cedda likewise baptized
King Swythelmus, the successor of this Sigbertus. But the
first of the Scottish bishops who preached the faith to the
Angles was Saint Aydan ; who, at his decease, was suc-
ceeded by Saint Finan ; and he, by Saint Colman ; who,
on his return to Scotland, was succeeded by Tuda, a bishop
duly ordained by the Scots. The first bishop, again, of the
Middle Angles and Mercians was Dwyma the Scot ; then, after
his death, he was succeeded by Ceolach, also a Scot ; who
afterwards, on his return to Scotland, was succeeded by Trum-
heri, and he by Jarmuan — both, indeed, of Anglic birth, but
educated and ordained by the Scots.
CHAPTEE XL.
Accession of King Maldwynics — Bishop Tuda succeeds Colman.
Now after the death of Ferchardus, Maldewinus, son of King
Donaldus, attained the throne of the kingdom, in a.d. 664, the
twenty-first year of the emperor Constantine. In that year,
Saint Colman returned to Scotland, and was succeeded by
Tuda. But, throughout the whole time that the Scots preaclied
in England, unshaken peace and communion prevailed, without
the din of strife. At length, when the Anglic clergy of native
extraction had increased and multiplied, chiefly through the
teaching of the Scots, they all ungratefully began to turn against
their holy teachers, and to seek frequent and sundry oppor-
tunities of forcing them to return to Scotland, or bear the in-
tolerable burden which was laid upon them. Hence, thereafter,
for the twenty years that Maldwynus reigned, there seldom,
if ever, happened to be peace between the kingdoms ; but, on
either side, outbreak followed upon outbreak, with almost cease-
less devastation. Nevertheless, no battle worthy of mention is
found in the chronicles of either nation, to have been fought
during this time. But in the fifth year of this king, the whole of
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK III. 119
Europe was laid low by the horrible calamity of a most grievous
death-sickness among men. Adamnan, making mention of
this calamity, says : — It is by no means meet to pass over in
silence the death-sickness which, in our time, twice wasted the
greater part of the earth. For — not to speak of the other more
extensive countries of Europe, Italy to wit, and the city of Eome
itself, the Cisalpine provinces of Gaul, and the Spaniards, who
are shut off by the barrier of the Pyrennean mountains, the
islands of the ocean, Ireland and Britain, to wit, were twice
utterly devastated by this cruel pestilence ; with the exception
of two nations, namely, the Scots and the Picts, divided from
one another by the mountains of the backbone of Britain (Drum-
alban) between them. And though neither of these nations
are free from great sins whereby the Eternal Judge is oftentimes
provoked to wrath, nevertheless He has hitherto patiently borne
with them in His mercy, and spared them both. In the seventh
year of this king, the emperor Constans, also called Constan-
tino, was murdered in his bath by his servants ; and Mezentius,
the Armenian, was created emperor by the soldiery. But not
long after, Constantino, the son of this Constans who was mur-
dered, and great-grandson of Heraclius, assumed the purple,
and put to a most disgraceful death Mezentius and the mur-
derers of his father. He began to reign in A.D. 670, and was
emperor seventeen years. In his fourteenth year died King
Maldwynus, and was buried in state in the church of Saint
Columba, in the western isles.
CHAPTER XLI.
Flight of Cadwaladr, last King of the Britons, from Britain —
Causes why God cast them out of the Kingdom.
At this time died the last king of the Britons in Britain,
Cadwaladr, the son of Cadwallo above referred to. Geoffrmfs
'account of this Cadwallo, in his Gesta Britonum, is not, as is
taught in the chronicles of Bede and the other English writers,
that he was slain by Oswald, but that he was himself, on the
contrary, Oswald's chief persecutor, even unto death ; and that
he lived long after the latter's decease, ending his life by a
natural death in his bed, after a reign of forty-eight years.
But, as we find in these and many other histories of the Britons
and Angles, the writings of their authors very often disagree
as much as do the people's themselves, whose tastes are known
to be so contrary, that neither, save under compulsion, would
120 JOHN OF FORDUN's CHRONICLE
desire the same things as the other. It is expedient, at this
point, to notice how the nation of the Britons was rent asunder ;
that their ceaseless civil strife, their indulgence in base vices,
their neglect of divine worship, their wanton choice of new kings,
despising the rightful ones — by all which courses they lost the
kingdom — may be an example to us and to other nations for
ever. Cadwaladr, therefore, assumed the kingly ofi&ce in his
father's stead ; and twelve years after, as the inroads of the
Saxons became daily more serious, and being sore pressed by
that most grievous calamity of the aforesaid death-sickness, he
fled out of Britain, weeping, and lamenting in these, or some
such words : — " Thou hast given us, 0 Lord, as sheep appointed
for meat," etc. " Woe unto us sinners ! woe unto us ! because
of the monstrous wickedness wherewith we have not shrunk
from offending God, while we had room for repentance. There-
fore the vengeance of His power lies heavy upon us, and hastens
to drive us from our native soil — us whom neither the Eomans
of old, nor the Scots, nor the Picts could drive out ; nor yet the
Saxons, with their wily treachery, who were always wont to
betray, and to keep steadfast faith with no one. But in vain do
we struggle to recover our fatherland from them, if it should not
be God's will that we should longer reign therein. For the
righteous Judge Himself, seeing that we would in no wise cease
from our wickedness, let loose His indignation upon us, to re-
prove us, unworthy men ; who, for our unworthiness, alas ! are
cast out in crowds from our native country, even as useless
tree-branches, tied in bundles, are cast out of the vineyards ;
that we may be a warning and an example to all nations, lest
they should, in time to come, provoke God by such crimes.
Whither, oh miserable nation ! whither, pray, are gone tlie
strivings and broils of your civil wars ? wherewith ye failed
not yourselves to bring to nought your most pleasant countiy
of Britain. On the other hand, the Saxons, with their troth
belied, now hold such undivided sway therein that they will not
let you wage war there, even against the stranger, — far less
among yourselves. What then, ye slothful nation ! — yea, a
nation too truly slothful — what shall ye do ? Ye have now no
means of waging civil war, nor can ye engage in war against
the stranger. For, ever thirsting after civil strife, ye have so
far weakened yourselves with internal disturbances, that ye
cannot now shield from your enemies your fatherland, your
wives and children, or — what is more than these — your freedom.
Alas ! too late have ye understood the saying of the Gospel,
' Every kingdom which is divided against itself,' etc. ; but ex-
perience has just taught you that this sentence is too true.
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK III. 121
For now, therefor do ye see your kingdom desolate, and in
the hands of most ungodly heathens, because the frenzy of
civil discord, and the fumes of spite have blunted your minds ;
and because your pride would not let you yield due obedience
to one, and that the rightful king, ye see house falling on house,
and the whelps of the barbarian lioness snatching from you
your towns, cities, and other possessions ; wherefrom so miser-
ably are ye driven out that ye shall hardly, if ever, recover your
former honourable estate,"
CHAPTEE XLII.
These causes continued — Future return of the Britons prophesied
hy an Angel — Some of Merlin's Prophecies on this event.
Cadwaladr, therefore, fleeing out of Britain, came to the
region of Bretagne ; and there, when, after tarrying some
time, he was proposing to return to Britain, an angel instructed
him, with voice of thunder, not to carry out what he had
conceived in his mind. " For God," said he, " will not have
thy nation reign any longer in Britain for the present, before
the fated time has come. Then, however, the Britons, through
the merits of their faith, shall obtain the kingdom ; yet let
them not hope that time shall be, until they have possessed
themselves of thy remains, and brought them over from Rome
into Britain." Having, therefore, heard the angel speak these
words, he went to Eome, and died there. Merlinus Amhrosius
prophesies as follows, on the Britons recovering the kingdom : —
" Cadwaladr shall call upon Conan, and take Albania into fellow-
ship. Then shall there be slaughter of the stranger-born ; then
shall the rivers run with blood ; then shall burst forth the
mountains of Armorica, and shall be crowned with the diadem
of Brutus," etc. To proceed — his son Inor and his nephew Yny
got their ships together ; and repairing, now to Wales, now to
Scotland, they troubled for many years the kingdom of Britain
with their savage attacks. From this time — namely, about a.d.
660 — Britain lost her ancient name, and from the nations of the
Angles took its modern name of Anglia (England). Bede, in
explaining this name, has written as follows : — Furthermore,
from the Angles, that is, the people who came from that part of
Germany which is called Angulus, the rest of the Anglic
nations are named. The Britons, then, being scattered abroad,
betook themselves, some, to the kingdom of Armorica, some, to
Gaul, some to Scotland, never more to return home ; but
122 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
others, again, to Wales ; choosing rather to run the course of
their wretched lives in the uttermost ends of their own country,
in freedom, than to be subject to the dominion of their foes, in
slavery. For, to every one, the hardest lot in slavery, is to
serve as a slave in one's native country, where one was wont to
lord it in freedom.
CHAPTEK XLIIL
Accession of the Kings JEugenius IV. arid Eugenius V. —
Saint Cuthbert — Saint Adamnan.
On the death of King Maldwynus, he was succeeded by his
nephew Eugenius iv., son of Dongardus, son of Donald Brek.
Eugenius reigned three years, beginning in a.d. 684, the fif-
teenth year of the Emperor Constantine. Now in the second
year of this king, Saint Cuthbert was ordained bishop, being
the third in order after Saint Colman, the Scot of whom we
spoke above. The same year Egfrid, king of the North-
umbrians, was slain by the Scots. King Egfrid, says Bede,
rashly leading his army to waste the province of the Scota,
much against the advice of his friends, and particularly of
Saint Cuthbert, of blessed memory, who had lately been
ordained bishop — was drawn, by the feigned flight of the
enemy, into the defiles of inaccessible mountains, and slain, with
the greater part of the forces he had brought with him. From
that time the hopes and courage of the kingdom of the Angles
" began to waver and to retrograde ;" for the Picts, the Scots
who were in Britain, as well as some part of the Britons, re-
covered the lands that belonged to them which the Angles had
been holding. This Eugenius, after his death, was succeeded
by Eugenius v., in a.d. 687, the first year of Justinian ii., who
succeeded his father Constantine, and held the imperial throne
ten years. King Eugenius likewise reigned ten years. He was
the son of Ferchardus Fode. And, all his days, he had peace
with the Angles ; but, with the Picts, war, broken by an occa-
sional truce. For, in his time King Alfrid, the illegitimate
brother of the aforesaid Egfrid, reigned in Northun^bria, albeit
not over the same extent of country as his brother had held
dominion over; and, forasmuch as he had, for a considerable
number of years, devoted himself to literary studies in Scotland
and Ireland, he was well known to King Eugenius, as they had
seen a great deal of each other. So tliey steadfastly maintained
peace, one towards another, along the borders of their realms.
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK III. 123
In his days, likewise, flourished Saint Adamnan, the Scot,
mighty in virtues and miracles. And during his reign, a rain
of blood poured down from on high, for seven days, upon the
whole island, both Scotland and Britain, and all the milk and
butter was turned into blood.
CHAPTER XLIV.
Accession of King Amrikelleth — His Death — Saint Chillian, the
Scot, and his Disciples.
Peace being thus established with the Picts and Angles,
Eugenius, at his decease, left the throne to his successor Amri-
kelleth, the son of Findan, the son of Eugenius iv. But Amri-
kelleth, who was crowned the same year, a.d. 697, broke through
the terms of peace, and made ready for war against the Picts.
And, before that very year was over, while beating the cover of
the thick woods, on first marching into their lands, many of his
host were shot with arrows ; and the king himself was hit by an
arrow, and wounded. So returning speedily he died on the
tenth day after the wound was inflicted, and vacated the kingly
seat in favour of his brother Eugenius. That same year, at
Wirzburg, a castle at the entrance to Francia, the holy bishop
of that place, Chillian, a Scot, and his disciples Clolaman and
Colman, were privily martyred by Geylana, wife of the chief
Gothbert, for she was afraid of being separated from her hus-
band, as Chillian had rebuked him for having her to wife,
who had formerly been his brother's wife. Moreover, whereas
their death was long hidden from all men, Geylana and the
murderers were possessed by an evil spirit, and it was divulged
by their confession. The self-same year, too, when the em-
peror Justinian, as has been said, had reigned ten years, the
patrician Leo rebelled against him ; and depriving him of his
kingdom and his nose, sent him into banishment. But, at the
end of a year after he had assumed the imperial dignity, Leo
was driven from the throne, thrust into prison, and had his own
nose cut off by Tiberius ; and the latter was seven years em-
peror. Justinian afterwards, by the help of Crebellis, king of the
Bulgari, got back the imperial throne, and slaughtered Tiberius
and Leo. Such was the vengeance he took upon his adver-
saries, that, for every drop of rheum he wiped off, which flowed
from his mutilated nose, he ordered some one of the conspirators
to be slaughtered. After, however, he had reigned seven years
the second time, Philip slew him, as well as his son Tiberius,
124 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
and reigned a year and a half. Against him rose up Anastasius,
and deprived him of his eyes, and drove him from the imperial
throne ; and he again, two years after, was deposed from the
imperial throne, and ordained priest, by Theodosins, who reigned
one year. The latter, also, was deposed from the imperial throne
by Leo iii., who afterwards became a clerk, and passed the rest
of his life in peace. And thus, for twenty-one years, the
Eoman empire was a laughing-stock to all men, even to the
unbelievers.
CHAPTEE XLV.
Accession of the Kings Eugenius VI. and Murdacus — State of
things in Britain at that time.
Eugenius vi., son of Findan, as above mentioned, succeeded
his brother Amrikeleth, and reigned seventeen years, beginning
in A.D. 698, the second year of Leo the patrician. He was a
humble king, and of great moderation, who preferred spending
his days in peace rather than in war — and would rather disturb
wild beasts and birds than men. Thus he drew to him, by a
certain sagacity in his disposition, the favour and love of all
the neighbouring nations ; and, having adorned his reign, while
it lasted, with steadfast laws, he ended happily a tranquil life.
After his death at Loarno, his body was taken to the islands,
and buried in the tomb of his fathers. He was succeeded by
Murdacus, his nephew through his brother Amrynkyleth, who
niled the kingdom in peace, like his uncle before him, though by
no means finding the same, or equal, favour with his neighbours.
He began to reign in a.d. 715, and reigned fifteen years. The
Venerable Bede, towards the end of his Chronicle, in describing
the state of the nations in the whole of the island of Albion, at
the time of this king's reign, has made the following remarks : —
The nation of the Picts, says he, have, at this time, a treaty of
peace with the Angles, and rejoice in being partakers with the
universal Church in catholic truth and unity. The Scots that
inhabit Britain, content with their own frontiers, no longer
hatch plots against the nation of the Angles. The Britons,
also, though they for the most part fight against the Anglic
nation, through private hate, and through ill-nature, yet, being
straightway withstood by the power both of God and man,
can in no way succeed in their design. For though they are,
doubtless, in part, their own masters, they are, to some extent
also, in bondage to the Angles, and what the end of the matter
will be, shall be seen in after ages. In the last year of
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK III. 125
Murdacus, two comets appeared about the sun, striking great
terror among the beholders ; one of them preceded the rising
sun in the morning, and the other followed him, in the evening,
as he set ; and these presages of awful calamity heralded the
spring — one of day, the other of night — to signify that evils
were impending over mortals. They turned a face of fire
against the north-west, as if bent on setting it on fire. They
appeared in the month of January, and lasted nearly a fortnight.
CHAPTEE XLVI.
Accession of the three Kings, Ethfyn, Eugenius or NectaniiiSj and
Fergus — Death of the latter hy the hand of the Queen.
In a.d. 730, the thirteenth year of Leo iii., who deposed
Theodosius from the imperial throne, Murdacus was succeeded
by the son of Eugenius vi., Ethfyn, who reigned thirty-one
years. He was a man worthy of the honour of being raised to
the throne; and, for the greater part of his reign, he enjoyed the
peace he yearned for, though, in his latter days, the Picts made
war upon him. In the second, or, as others maintain, the fifth,
year of this reign, died the Venerable Bede. In the twelfth
year, Saint Eucherius, Bishop of Orleans, while in the attitude
of prayer, was rapt into the next world; and, among other
things he saw, he perceived King Pipin's father, Charles, tor-
mented in hell, because he took away from churches their sub-
stance, and distributed it, and for this alone was he damned.
In the thirteenth year, Leo was succeeded by his son Constan-
tine, who was thirty-five years emperor. In the twenty-first
year, the French appointed Pipin, the Mayor of the Palace,
king, by the authority of Pope Zachary, while King Hilderic
received the tonsure in a monastery. Afterwards, King Pipin,
his sons, Charles and Carloman, and his daughter, Sigilla, w^ere
blessed by the Pope Saint Stephen, at Paris, during the solemn
sacrament of the mass, by direction of Saint Paul, Saint
Peter, and the blessed Denis. After Ethfyn, the kingly
crown, in A.D. 761, the twentieth year of the emperor Con-
stantine, devolved on the son of Murdacus, Eugenius vii. —
called, however, Nectanius, in a certain chronicle — and he
reigned two years. He was succeeded, in a.d. 763 (the
twenty-second year of the aforesaid emperor), by Ethfyn's son,
Fergus, who reigned three years. It is asserted that this king
was put to death through poison, by his wife, the queen, who
was over-jealous of him for lying with women. She herself
126 JOHN OF FORDUN's CHRONICLE
afterwards openly confessed it, though no one suspected her of
such a deed ; and when she looked upon the dead king's corpse,
tearing her hair, with mournful cries, she broke forth into these
or some such words : — " Oh ! most wretched of women, more
cruel than any wild beast, traitress most base, what hast thou
done ? Hast thou not, goaded on by lustful fury, wickedly slain
the king, thy lord and husband ? Hast thou not, like a viper,
with the most savage kind of treachery, slain the most loving
of men, and the most beautiful, beyond the love of woman —
who alone, of all living, was the delight of thy heart's inmost
love ? But this wicked crime shall not go unpunished : I my-
self shall take vengeance on myself. Hasten, then, thou cursed
hand ! Dare to make ready for my lips that cup which thou
didst but now tender to my lord, my sweetest love — ay, that
cup, or a more bitter one — and fail not." Then, after she had
quaffed the deadly liquid, straightway she went on : — " Nor
should this draught be punishment enough for such an evil-doer
as I am, or meet reward for one who has been guilty of
such a crime ! Nay, I should be dragged along, hanging bound
to the tails of horses, and my accursed body should be burnt in
a fire of thorns, and my ashes scattered to the winds." With
these words she grasped in her hand the dagger she had made
ready with intent aforethought, and suddenly stabbed herself to
the heart before the eyes of the bystanders.
CHAPTER XLVII.
Accession of Selwalchkis — King Charles the Great,
The successor of Fergus, Selwalchius, son of Eugenius, son
of Ferchardus, began to reign in a.d. 766 (the twenty-fifth year
of the emperor Constantine), and reigned twenty-one years. In
the days of his reign he had peace with the Picts and Angles,
although these indulged in domestic squabbles among them-
selves. Those Angles, indeed, namely, the Northumbrians,
whose country lay nearest to Scotland, were engaged without
ceasing in murdering and proscribing their kings, as will more
clearly be seen below; while Selwalchius himself, a languid
and inactive king, far preferred rest to war — not looking to the
increase of the State, but allowing all things to go to wrack and
ruin through his wretched slothfulness. Yet it is believed that
if the Scottish and Pictisli people had, at that critical time,
kept faith and peace towards one another, as they were wont —
nay, even if the Scottish nation alone had been led by a war-
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK III. 127
like chief (in the timely event, of course, of a just cause of
war) and had made an armed attack upon the Northumbrians,
it could, without doubt, have wrested from them all the tracts
of Albania which had formerly belonged to them. Nothing
memorable was, however, at that time done against their adver-
saries, besides a few forays made, at rare intervals, under low-
born military leaders. In the fourth year of this reign, Charles —
who, by reason of the success and greatness of his exploits, was
called the Great — together with his brother Carloman, succeeded
his father Pipin, who had begotten them of Berta, the daughter
of the Csesar Heraclius. On Carloman's death, two years after,
Charles got possession of the whole of his father Pipin's king-
dom, and increased it, moreover, to twice the size of the teri'itory
his father had held. In the twelfth year — that is, A.D. 7 7 7 — Leo,
Constantine's son, obtained his father's empire, and was five years
emperor. After his death he was succeeded by Irene, a great-
hearted woman, who, with her son Constantine, ruled the em-
pire nearly ten years, beginning in A.D. 782. As for King
Selwalchius, he died a tranquil death at Innerlocho, and lies
with his fathers in the island.
CHAPTEK XLVIII.
Accession of King Achay, who first entered into an Alliance with
the Franks: Cause thereof — The distinguished Soldier Gil-
merius the Scot.
Selwalchius was succeeded, in a.d. 787 (the sixth year of the
Empress Irene and her son Constantine), by Achaius, the son of
Ethfyn, who reigned thirty-two years. His brother, we are told,
was that distinguished soldier, Gilmerius the Scot, who long
fought vigorously in the service of King Charles, against the
enemies of Christ's cross ; whence, by his splendid deeds of arms,
he won an everlasting name, glorious with military lustre. The
friendly alliance between the Scottish and French kings, and
their countries — which, God be praised, endures unmarred even
to our own days — was originated by King Charles the Great and
this Achay ; and it was first brought about as follows. Shortly
before the reign of Achay, in the time, to wit, of his predecessor,
the Anglic kings being puffed up with pride at having overcome
the Britons, were not satisfied with disquieting only the neigh-
bouring nations in the same island, the Scots, Picts, and Britons,
but they also did their utmost to harass even the French
nations beyond the sea, on the seaboard, by frequent plundering
128 JOHN OF FOKDUN's CHRONICLE
expeditions by sea, and to disturb the whole of the Belgic and
British seas. In those days, this invincible King Charles was
assiduously occupied in war with the heathen, and aimed at
securing peace for all Christians, by unwearied toil, and the
shedding of his own blood. Since, therefore, the Angles, though
repeatedly begged to do so, would not desist from such piratical
plundering, and the shedding of the blood of Christians, he
busied himself in hunting up his friends on all sides, and those,
especially, whom he knew to be most eager for their hurt, to the
end that he might curb their fierceness. Accordingly, he sent
forth his emissaries in all directions ; and some he despatched
to King Achay, who, on his side, sent back with them his own
agents in this matter, which was in all respects approved by
him, to the end that the covenant and compact of the friendly
treaty they had entered into should be secured by equitable con-
ditions, and, having been reduced to indented writings, should
be mutually signed by both kings. Furthermore, he wrote
again and again to his friends, maintaining that it was not un-
lawful to declare war against any king, Christian though he
were, who violently falls upon the rear of a chief at war with
the unbelieving heathen. War, however, did not follow upon
these fearful threats which were noised abroad ; for, on the
English submissively promising peace for the future, Charles,
with great kindness and goodwill, consented unto them. Of
this treaty of peace between them, namely, Charles and the
Angles, Alcwyn wrote to his companion, saying: — Some say
that we are to be sent by the Anglic kings to King Charles,
to treat of peace. William, likewise, describing some of the
acts of Bishop Egbert, says : — ^As a competent witness to which
matter, I cite Alcwyn, who was sent by the Anglic kings to
King Charles the Great, to treat of peace; he says: — "Eor,
lately, there has sprung up a slight difference between France
and Scotland, whereof the devil feeds the flame ; and inter-
navigation has been forbidden and stopped,"
CHAPTER XLIX.
Ambassadors of the Scots sent to Charles, to confirm this Alliance,
William, again, mentioning this difference in another passage,
writes: — Offa, king of the Mercians, by repeated embassies,
made a friend of Charles the Great, king of the French ; though he
could find little in the disposition of Charles to second his views.
They had disagreed before, insomuch that violent disagreements
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK III. 129
having arisen on both sides, even the traffic of merchants
was forbidden. To the end, therefore, that this difference might
be adjusted, Alcwyn, who was in Paris, with some others, wrote
back as follows to King Offa, about the aforesaid Scottish am-
bassadors, who were just leaving Charles, to go back to Scot-
land : — " Let your esteemed grace be apprised that our lord
King Charles has spoken with me lovingly of you, saying that
you have a most trusty friend in him ; and he sends your grace
worthy gifts, and to the several episcopal sees of your kingdom.
In like manner he had directed presents to be sent to Ethelred
(also called Ethelbert), king of Northumbria, and for the sees of
his bishops ; but, alas ! just as the gifts were put into the hands
of the messengers, there came, by the ambassadors who had
come from Scotland, and returned through your country, sad
tidings of the faithlessness of the people, and death of the
king himself. So Charles took back his bountiful gifts ; and
is so exceeding wroth with that nation, calling it faithless and
perverse, and the murderer of its sovereign lords, and deeming
it worse than the heathen, that, had I not interceded for it, he
would have already done it every hurt he could contrive, and
deprived it of every advantage within his power." And since
its treacherous murder of this King Ethelred is mentioned in
this place, do not, reader, consider me a calumniator of this my
nation, if I bring in here the wicked assassinations, the un-
heard-of betrayals and proscriptions of the rest of its kings, who
preceded this one — as its truthful historians testify in their
writings ; for I do so, not to slander any nation whatsoever,
but for a warning and an example to nations to come, to
shrink from the wickedness of such horrible crimes.
CHAPTEK L.
Heinoits Treachery of the Northumbrians towards their Kings,
so that none durst rule them.
Now, iu the third year of Achay, this same king of North-
umbria, Ethelred, or Ethelbert, or Ethelwald (for he had three
names), fell by the foul treachery of his subjects. The names
of the other kings of the aforesaid country, who, in like
manner, perished through treachery, will be seen below in their
order. Oswyn, the son of Osric, and king of Deira (which is
one-half of Northumbria), thinking it prudent, says William, to
abstain from war, owing to the smallness of his army, secretly
withdrew to a country seat, where, being betrayed by his own
VOL. II. I
130 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
people, he was straightway killed by Oswy. Osred, likewise,
the son of Alfred, and king of the whole of Northumbria, died,
slaughtered through a plot of his kinsmen, subjects of his —
namely, Cenred and Osric ; who reigned after him — the former,
for two years, and the latter, for twelve, and left only this to be
recorded of them, that they expiated the blood of their
slaughtered lord, the king, and polluted the air by their foul
end. After them Celwlf climbed to the supreme place in the
tottering kingdom, and was succeeded by Egbert. Both these
kings, unwiUing to await the fate of former kings, entered
religious orders, and were shorn. Osulf succeeded his father,
Egbert, and was slain by his subjects a year after, harmless as
he was, thus making room for Mollo. This Mollo discharged
the duties of king, vigorously enough, for eleven years, and then
fell before the treachery of Alcred. Alcred, likewise, when he
had filled, for ten years, the throne he had usurped, was com-
pelled by the inhabitants to retire. Ethelbert, the son of Mollo,
having been set up as king by general consent of the people,
was, at the end of five years, driven out by them. Olwold was
next hailed king; and, eleven years afterwards, he rued the
perfidy of the inhabitants, being murdered, though guiltless.
His nephew, Osred, the son of Alcred, succeeded him, and was
expelled after barely a year; thus vacating the kingdom for
Ethelred, who was also called Ethelbert, of whom mention was
made before. This man, the son of Mollo, was also called by a
third name, Ethel wald. He obtained the kingdom after twelve
years of exile, and held it four years ; at the end of which time,
not having been able to escape the fate of the foregoing kings,
he was pitifully murdered in the year stated above. At this,
many of the bishops and the nobility were greatly shocked, and
fled from their native land. After this Ethelred, none durst
ascend the throne ; for every one feared that the mischance of
the preceding kings would fall to his lot. Thus, being without
a ruler for thirty-three years, that province was the laughing-
stock and prey of its neighbours. Such are William's words.
CHAPTER LI.
Itise of the Paris Schools. By whom Established.
About the same time, during Achay's reign, the Paris schools
were first founded by two clerks from Scotland, most learned
men — namely, John and Clement — furthered by Charles the
Great. Vincentiiis writes in the Speculum : — God, the Almighty
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK III. 131
disposer of things, and ordain er of kingdoms and seasons, when
He had, in the Eomans, broken off the iron or earthen feet of
that wondrous statue, set up, through the illustrious Charles, the
golden head of a no less wondrous statue, in the French. For
when that king began to reign alone in the west, the study of
letters was everywhere sunk in oblivion, and the worship of the
true Godhead was therefore lukewarm. But it came to pass that
there arrived on the coast of Gaul, with some merchants, two
Scottish monks, men of matchless learning, both in secular and
in sacred writings. These men, though they exhibited nothing
for sale, were daily wont to shout to the crowds who came together
to buy : — " Whosoever covets wisdom, let him come to us and get
it, for we have it for sale." They kept on shouting these words
so long, that they were at length brought to the ears of King
Charles — always a lover of wisdom — by such as marvelled at
those men, or thought them mad ; whereupon he straightway
summoned them to his presence, and asked them whether they
really had wisdom, so that he might purchase some. " We not
only have wisdom," said they, " but are ready to give it to those
who seek it in the name of the Lord." On his asking them,
then, what they wanted for it, they answered : — " Only a suitable
spot, clever minds, and that without which we cannot go through
this pilgrimage, — food, and wherewithal we may be clothed."
When he had heard this, he was filled with exceeding great joy
and he at first kept them both with him for a short time. After-
wards, however, when compelled to go on warlike expeditions,
he caused one of them, named Clement, to abide in Gaul — at
Paris — and recommended to him a good many boys, of the better,
middle, and lower, classes ; directing that victuals should be
supplied them, as they had need, and dwellings allotted them
for meditation. The other, John, he despatched to Italy ; and
made over to him the monastery of Saint Augustine, near the
town of Ticinum (Pavia) ; so that those who wished to learn
might flock thither. John, after he had tarried there some
time, returned to Paris, at the king's command ; and, having
reached a great age, he there ended a glorious life. But Alcwyn,
of the English nation, having heard that Charles welcomed the
wise gladly, took ship and came to him with his fellows, well
trained in all manner of writings ; and the king kept him with
him until his life's end. — This passage Vincentius took out of
the Chronicles of the metropolis of Aries, and added it to his
writings in the Speculum Historiale. In the tenth year of
Irene, her son Constantine deprived her of the empire, and was
seven years emperor ; at the end >of which time she deprived
him of sight and of the empire, in a.d. 798, and was, for four
years, sole empress.
132 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
CHAPTER LII.
Charles and his son Louis emperors — Succession of Kings of
France, from Clovis up to this Charles.
CHAPTER LIII.
Accession of the Kings Convallus and Dun^allus, who revived
the long-slumbering War against the Picts.
After King Achay had ended his life, his kinsman Convallus
was raised to the government of the kingdom, in A.D. 819 — the
sixth year of the Emperor Louis ; and reigned five years. That
same year died Kynwlf, king of the Mercians, and was suc-
ceeded by his son Kynelm, who was, while still in his boy-
hood, harmless as he was, slain by his sister Quendrida, and
earned the name and honour of martyrdom, the grace of God
besteading him. The following year, there began to be mooted
a great question as to the right to the Pictish throne ; for it was
asserted that the Scots were entitled to it ; and it was venti-
lated in the mouths of all, whether chiefs or churls. They did
not, however, proceed to active measures. Full five years after,
on the death of Convallus, Dungallus, the son of Selwalchius,
straightway began to reign, in A.D. 824 — the eleventh year of the
emperor Louis ; and reigned seven years. By him was renewed
the war against the Picts, which had slumbered for nearly fifty
years ; forasmuch as he said that their throne was his, by virtue
of an old covenant. Now, the primitive law of succession of
their kings and chiefs, according to Bede and other chronicles,
is this : — When the Picts first came into this island, they had
no wives of their own nation. So they asked the Scots for their
daughters ; and they consented to give them on this one condi-
tion, that, when any doubt should arise as to the succession to
kingdom or dominion, the Picts should choose their kings
from the female, rather than the male, line ; which custom
is well known to be constantly observed among the Picts.
And this, perhaps, may have been the cause of this claim or
dispute. For true it is that it is gathered, from their chronicles
and histories, that, in the days of peace, from the very begin-
ning, true friendship was fostered between them to such a pitch,
that their kings and chiefs almost always got themselves con-
sorts and wives of the sons and daughters of the Scottish kings
and chiefs on the other side — and the reverse. But He, from
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK III. 133
whom nothing is hidden, knows the ultimate cause of this
dispute ; and by whose fault was begun this most cruel war,
which had no end, until it pleased Him who rules all kingdoms,
and scatters them at will, that the Picts should be wholly over-
come, and the Scots should finally obtain the palm of victory,
together with their kingdom. Then, in the seventh year, died
Dungallus, though it is stated elsewhere that he was killed in
battle ; he was buried in the church of the blessed Columba,
and lies in the islands, beside his father.
134 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
BOOK IV.
CHAPTER I.
Btde of Succession of foregoing and subsequent Kings of the Scots,
down to the time of Malcolm, the son of Kenneth.
We have shown, above, the true dates of the accessions of
the Scottish kings who reigned after Eergus, the son of Erth,
in the northern part of Albion, together with the Picts. And
now it is fitting to go on to the monarchs who acquired sole
dominion over the whole of that part, after the Pictish tribes
were overthrown ; and to show forth some of their exploits, as
well as the dates of their reigns — even as we are taught in the
volumes of the ancients. But we must first speak of the rule
of their succession. For the question is often asked, why the
sons did not commonly succeed their fathers in the government
of the kingdom, as the custom of modern times requires, rather
than the brothers, as is implied in the succession of the fore-
going kings. This, then, was done in those days, for the same
law of succession obtained with the Scots, the Picts, and the
kings of a great many countries, as well as with certain of the
chiefs of the empire — to wit, on each king's death, his brother,
or his brother's son, if he had the advantage over the king's
son in age or fitness to rule, even though more remote in
degree of kinship, came, before him to the throne. For it
was not nearness in blood, but fitness as having attained to
full puberty, that raised this or that man to the king's throne
to reign. Now this arrangement, as to who should reign, first
prevailed on account of the scanty numbers of a nation in
its early days ; which, inasmuch as it is, from its weakness,
exposed to war from all quarters in getting, or keeping, a settled
home in freedom, shrinks from handing over to youths the
government, not only of their kingdom, but also of their per-
sons ; and so was established this law we have been treating of.
This old custom of the succession of kings lasted, without a
break, until the time of Malcolm, son of Kenneth ; when, for
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK IV. 135
fear of the dismemberment of the kingdom, which might, per-
haps, result therefrom, that king, by a general ordinance,
decreed, as a law for ever, that, thenceforth, each king, after his
death, should be succeeded in the government of the kingdom
by whoever was, at the time being, the next descendant — that
is, a son, or a daughter, a nephew, or a niece, the nearest then
living. Failing these, however, the next heir, begotten of the
royal, or a collateral, stock, should possess the right of inherit-
ance.
CHAPTER 11.
Accession of King Alpin — His Defeat hy the Fids — His
Death — Example of Hastiness.
After the death of DungalluS; Alpin, the son of Achay,
was at once crowned, and assumed the government of the king-
dom, in A.D. 831. He reigned three years. With unflagging
exertions, he continued the war against the Picts, which was
begun by his predecessors, ravaging them constantly with his
armies, or by repeated inroads. Accordingly, in the third year
of his reign, during the Easter festival, the Scots came to con-
flict with the Picts, and many of their nobles fell. Whereupon
it came to pass that Alpin, being victorious, was puffed up
with pride ; and, rashly engaging them in a second battle, the
same year, on the 20th of July, he was defeated, taken, and,
all ransom being refused, beheaded. He was beyond measure
prone to war, and in all his actions too hasty»and impetuous.
Now nothing, almost, so little befits one who carries on a
war as impatience, as is shown in the Historice Romanorum.
For Uutropius has described the two consuls — Varro, and
-^milius, being sent to fight against Hannibal, and being
warned by the Senate to overcome the hastiness of that im-
petuous leader, Hannibal, by simply staving off a battle ; for the
consul Fabius had conquered him once before, by putting off
fighting. Nevertheless, against the opinion of his colleague
jEmilius, Varro fought with him at Cannae, a village in Apulia ;
and through the impatience of Varro, both consuls were van-
quished, and 300,000 Eoman warriors perished in that fight.
After the said battle, Hannibal offered the Romans that they
should ransom the prisoners; but the Senate answered that
they had no need of citizens who could be captured with arms
in their hands. So he put them to death with various tortures,
and sent off to Carthage three bushels of rings, which he had
136 JOHN OF fordun's chronicle
pulled off the hands of the knights, senators, and soldiers.
Nor can there be any doubt that this day would have been the
last of the Koman state, had Hannibal, after his victory, at
once pressed on to occupy the city.
CHAPTEE III.
Accession of King Kenneth, son of Alpin — His strange Trick
against the Ficts,
Kenneth, the son of Alpin, succeeded to his father's throne
in A.D. 834 ; and to that of the Picts, when they had been over-
come, in A.D. 839 — the twenty -fifth year of the emperor Louis ;
that is, the year 1169 of the reign of the Scots in the island of
Albion, and 2349 years after they went forth out of Eg\^t, under
their first king — the son of Neolus, king of the Athenians —
Gaythelos, and his wife Scota. Kenneth reigned nearly sixteen
years as sole monarch of these kingdoms. He was a brave and
wise man, of keen insight, and remarkable for the daring with
which he carried on his war. This king, by a strange trick,
brought the Scots into the Pictish kingdom ; the reason whereof
was this. In the first year of his reign, while the chiefs were
gathered together in council, he made it known that he wished
to revenge himself for the cruel murder of his father, and of
his kinsmen who had lately been slain in the war, many of
whom had been killed by the Picts after they had surrendered.
He, therefore, earnestly exhorted them to hurry on this business,
and, having laid aside all other matters, to get ready, against
a given day, for the expedition. They, however, appalled, with
exceeding great fear, by the newly-fought struggle, wherein
King Alpin and many thousands had fallen, and, moreover,
trembling, and altogether fainting in spirit, at the din of this war,
answered like cowards or old women, and said, with one voice,
unto the king : — " We neither would nor should leave undone,
Sir King, anything for the defence of thy kingdom, or any other
task thou might appoint us to do — save one. We do not wish
to trespass over the landmarks of the Picts ; for, in short, we
dare not invade them. Fear so great has, until now, filled us,
since the time of the war, that though an angel were seat from
God to proclaim this to us, we should probably be afraid to
comply. For long ago, in the days of our forefathers — ay, even
lately, in our own — the bravery of the Scots would exceed the
daring of the lion, or of the unicorn, — tlie nature of the former
of which is to be terror-struck at the onslaught of none ; that of
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK IV. 137
the latter, never, alive, to come under the power of man — he
may, indeed, be slaughtered, but never subdued alive ; and if it
should, at any time, happen that the hunters have contrived to
take him alive, he dies then and there. But the times are
changed with us ; for we are more timid than women, or, if we
may say so, than leverets." The king, therefore, seeing that he
could make no way by exhorting them in either smooth or harsh
terms, resolved to try a trick. For he bethought himself that
they had not positively refused to march forth, but had hesi-
tatingly said that, though an angel were to bid them march
against the kingdom of the Picts, they would, perhaps, not obey
even him. So he soon devised a scheme in his mind, and
secretly revealed the answer of the chiefs to a certain artificer,
a great friend of his, instructing him how to work the whole
thing through. That artificer, on the other hand, who was a
man of ready wit, willingly fell in with the king's wishes,
promising, moreover, that all should be faithfully fulfilled
to the best of his ability. So he slyly took some scaly fish-
skins — which, in the darkness of night, shine with a good
deal of brilliancy — and cunningly decorated therewith a cloak,
so that it flashed as with the flaming wings of an angel;
and then he wrapped it round him, bis whole body being
shrouded thereby. Having thus donned this garment, he
slipped privily into the bedchambers of the chiefs, and admir-
ably cheated the senses, nay, the understanding, of such as were
awake ; and charging them on the part of the Living God, he
bade them obey, in all things, their king's instructions, and par-
ticularly that they should in nowise be afraid to destroy the
Pictish kingdom. The leaders, being led astray by this clever
stratagem, went promptly to their lord the king, and promised
him full obedience in all things. "For we have," said they,
** most surely seen an angel, O king, face to face, who warned
us to follow thee whithersoever thou may push on." Their
statement was borne out by their chamberlains, who, of their
own accord, swore to it with a great oath ; and the king like-
wise swore to it unto them, informing them that he had heard
and seen the same angel.
CHAPTEE IV.
His Victories against the Picts — He wins their Kingdom.
When, therefore, this turned out according to his wishes, and
was brought, in all respects, to the end he had at heart, after
138 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
general and willing consultation, war was declared against
the Picts ; and he gathered his forces together, and made his
way into their country. So furiously, then, did he rage against
not only the men, but even the women and little ones, that he
spared neither sex nor holy orders, but destroyed, with fire and
sword, every living thing which he did not carry off with him.
Afterwards, in the sixth year of his reign, when the Danish
pirates had occupied the coast, and, while plundering the sea-
board, had, with no small slaughter, crushed the Picts who were
defending their lands, Kenneth, likewise, himself also turned
his arms against the remaining frontiers of the Picts, and, cross-
ing the mountain range on their borders, to wit, the backbone of
Albania, which is called Drumalban in Scottish, he slew many
of the Picts, and put the rest to flight ; thus acquiring the sole
sovereignty over both countries. But the Picts, being some-
what reinforced by the help of the Angles, kept harassing
Kenneth for four years. Weakening them subsequently, how-
ever, by unforeseen inroads and various massacres, at length,
in the twelfth year of his reign, he engaged them seven times
in one day, and swept down countless multitudes of the Pictish
people. .So he established and strengthened his authority thence-
forth over the whole country from the river Tyne, beside
Northumbria, to the Orkney Isles — as formerly Saint Adamnan,
the Abbot of Hy (lona), had announced in his prophecy.
Thus, not only were the kings and leaders of that nation
destroyed, but we read that their stock and race, also, along
with their language or dialect, were lost ; so that whatever of
these is found in the writings of the ancients is believed, by
most, to be fictitious or apocryphal. It does not, however,
seem wonderful to those who read history often, that Almighty
God — the Kuler of all kings and kingdoms, and their wondrous
Preserver after their merits, but their terrible Destroyer after
their shortcomings — has oftentimes allowed strong nations and
kingdoms, and will allow them in time to come, to perish when
their sins demand it. Whence the prophet David bears witness,
saying : — Lo ! the sinners have obtained riches abundantly in
this world ; how are they brought to desolation ? They have
suddenly failed, they have perished, by reason of their unright-
eousness. Their forms are brought to nothing, as a dream when
one awaketh.
CHAPTER V.
Subversion of divers Kingdoms for tJieir Si7is.
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK IV. 139
CHAPTEE VI.
Same Continued.
CHAPTEE VII.
Same continued — Former power of Rome, and her present
Helplessness because of her Sins.
CHAPTEE VIII.
King Kenneth' s fi7ial Victory over the Picts — His Death.
King Kenneth, then, after having, as has been just stated,
gained seven victorious battles in one day, overran all the pro-
vinces of the Pictish kingdom, and took the un warlike population
under the protection of his peace. Many, nevertheless, disdain-
ing to submit their necks to slavery, and with the hope of resis-
tance, followed a new king they had created. Kenneth, however,
shortly afterwards, sent forth some columns of foot soldiers
against them, and slew some of them, with their king ; while
others he compelled to surrender, and took them prisoners. But
the remainder long roamed, in robber bands, through the vast
solitudes, and would neither altogether surrender nor accept
but peace ; at length, hard pressed, and having nowhere to hide
their heads, they sought relief by fleeing to the Angles and Nor-
wegians. And thus God granted that it should come to pass
that Kenneth should be the first of all the kings to take the whole
of the north-western end of Albion under his sole sovereignty,
thus happily welding the two kingdoms into one. He also
framed laws, called the Macalpine Laws, and appointed that
they should be observed ; whereof some remain to this day,
and are in vogue amongst the people. When the kingdom had
thus been imbued with law and peace, after the many and
countless stormy troubles of so long a time, Kenneth passed
away to the Lord, at Forteviot, at the end of full sixteen
years and eight months of his reign as sole monarch ; and he
was, with becoming honours, amid the deepest wailing of the
Scots, buried in the island of lona, where, formerly, were laid
in the ground King Fergus, the son of Erth, and his two
brothers. Loam and Tenegus — may their souls have peace for
ever ! Now, this Kenneth was the son of King Alpin,
140 JOHN OF FORDUN's CHRONICLE
Son of Achay,
Son of Ethfin,
Son of Eugenius,
Son of Eindan,
Son of Eugenius,
Son of Dongardus, ^
Son of Donaldus Brek,
Son of Eugenius Buyd,
Son of Aidanus,
Son of Gowranus,
Son of Dongardus,
Son of Fergus,
Son of Erth.
This Fergus recovered the sovereignty, which had been with-
held for forty-three years, by the craft of the tyrant Maximus,
and the might of the Picts, and restored it to its olden freedom,
as was shown above.
CHAPTEE IX.
Preliminary remarks to the Catalogue of Pictish Kings.
As we have above noticed the overthrow of the Picts, it will
not seem out of place to give here the catalogue of their kings,
and some other facts we have found in the volumes of the
ancients. A clear account of their origin, the reason why they
came into these parts, and whence, will be found in Chapters
XXIX., XXX., and xxxi. of Book i. It will there be seen that they
inhabited part of this kingdom before our Lord's Incarnation —
before the Scots, or, at least, at the same time ; though there are
chronicles which assert that the Scots possessed this country
long before the Picts, for an interval of three hundred years.
Geqffroy, in Book v. Chapter vi. of his Chronicle, states that the
Picts had their origin after our Lord's resurrection, in the days
of Vespasian ; and that the Scots then first grew out of them.
But most chroniclers know well enough whether that is so, or
not. He would have been nearer the truth had he written that,
at that time, the Moravians, uniting with the Picts and Scots,
came against the Eomans into this country imder their leader
Koderic — who was certainly a Moravian, and not a Pict ; and by
the offspring which they begot of their daughters, their multi-
tude was greatly increased. But it could easily be proved, by
the duration of their reigns, that they began long before this.
For the truth is that they reigned 1100 years, or more, in
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK IV. 141
Albion; and there is no doubt that they perished by the
sword of the before-mentioned King Kenneth. So there can be
no doubt that they took their origin, not after the Incarnation, but
before. But if any one, by chance, should be pleased to object
that it is incredible that King Ghede, or his successor Tharan,
reigned so long a time that one hundred years are reckoned for
the one, and one hundred and fifty for the other, the reader may
answer that, though only fifty years were ascribed to either of the
kings, it would still be found that the Picts began a hundred
years, or more, before the time of the Incarnation. As some,
therefore, murmur at so great a number of years being allotted
to their reigns, we think fit to leave the computation of the
years of both these kings to be corrected by the reader who
would search thoroughly into the truth thereof. The duration
and order of the reigns of the other kings, however, my pen
shall run over, as best it can.
CHAPTEE X.
Catalogue of Pictish Kings — Arrival of the blessed Ahhot
Columla.
The first king among the Picts was Cruythne, son of Kynne,
the judge ; and he reigned fifty years.
After him, the second was Ghede.
The third, Tharan ; to these two, as was said above, two hun-
dred and fifty years are set down.
King Tharan was succceeded by Dinorthetisy, who reigned
twenty years.
Then Duchil reigned forty years.
Duordeghel, twenty.
Decokheth, sixty (forty).
Combust, twenty.
Caranarhereth, forty.
Garnarchbolger, nine.
Wypopneth, thirty.
Blarehassereth, seventeen.
Prachna the White, thirty.
Thalarger Amfrud, sixteen.
Canatalmel, six.
Dongard Nethles, one.
Peredach, son of Pynyel, two.
Garnard the Eich, sixty (forty).
Hurgust, son of Porgso, twenty- seven. In the time of this
142 JOHN OF FORDUN*S CHRONICLE
king's reign, as described in Book ii. Chapter xlyiil, some of
Saint Andrew's relics were brought to Scotland, by the blessed
Eegulus.
Thalarger, son of Keother, succeeded Hurgust, and reigned
twenty-five years.
Durst, otherwise called Nectane, son of Irb, forty-five years.
This king, it is asserted, lived a hundred years, and went
through a hundred battles. During his reign. Saint Paladius,
the first bishop of the Scots, was sent by the blessed Pope
Coelestinus to teach the Scots, who, however, had been long
before believers in Christ.
Thalarger, son of Anile, succeeded him, and reigned two
years.
Nectane Chaltamoth, ten years.
Durst Gornoth, thirty.
Galaam, fifteen.
Durst, son of Gigurum, five.
Durst, son of Othtred, eight.
Durst, son of Gigurum, a second time, four.
Garnard, son of Gigurum, six.
Kelturan, his brother, also six.
Tholorger, son of Mordeleth, eleven.
Durst, son of Moneth, one.
Thalagath, four.
Brud, son of Merlothon, nineteen. During his reign. Saint
Columba came to Scotland, and converted him to the faith.
Saint Columba, says Bede, came to Britain during the reign,
over the Picts, of Brude, a most mighty king, the son of
Meilothon ; in the ninth year of his reign, which was the five
hundred and sixty-fifth from our Lord's Incarnation.
CHAPTEK XL
Catalogue continued — Conversion of Brude, King of the Picts,
by the blessed Columba — ITie Prince of the Orkneys then a
Captive.
We read in the history of Saint Columba : — In the first toil-
some journey of the blessed Columba to visit King Brude, it so
happened, by chance, that the king, being jealous of his kingly
pomp, did not, in his pride, open the gates of his fortress at
the first arrival of the holy man. When the man of God per-
ceived this, he came up to the panels of the gates, with his com-
pany ; and, having first made the sign of our Lord's cross upon
r
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK IV. 143
them, he put his hand against the door, and knocked. There-
upon, the bolts were at once forcibly thrust back of themselves,
and the doors flew open with all speed. As soon as they were
open, the saint and his companions entered, one after the other.
When the king learnt this, he and his council were sore afraid ;
so he went forth out of his palace, and advanced to meet the
holy man with all reverence, addressing him most courteously
with words of peace ; and, from that day forwards, that ruler
reverenced the holy and venerable man exceedingly, all the rest
of the days of his life, and honoured him highly, as was meet.
Now, in these days, while this saint sojourned beyond Drum-
alban, a certain monk who wished to get a home in the wilder-
ness, after he had launched forth from the shore, full sail
through the boundless ocean, was recommended by him to this
Brude, king of the Picts, in the presence of the prince of the
Orkneys, in these words : — " Some of ours have lately been sailing
about the pathless deep, wanting to find a desert. After their
long roaming, should they chance to reach the Orkney islands,
commend them diligently to this prince, whose hostages are in
thy hand ; lest any untoward thing be done against them within
his borders." This was thus spoken by the saint, because he
knew in the spirit that, a few months after, that monk, whose
name was Cormack, would come to the Orkneys — which, after-
wards, so turned out ; and by reason of the aforesaid recommen-
dation of the holy man, that monk was delivered from impending
death in the Orkneys.
CHAPTEK XII.
Catalogue continued — The King with whom the Pictish Kingdom
came to an end.
Gaenard, son of Dompnach, succeeded this King Brude, and
reigned twenty years. He founded Abernethy.
Nectane, son of Irb, reigned eleven years.
Kenel, son of Luchtren, fourteen.
Nectane, son of Fode, eight.
Brude, son of Fachna, five.
Thalarger, son of Farchar, eleven.
Talargan, son of Amfrud, four.
Garnard, son of Dompnal, five.
Durst, his brother, six.
Brud, son of Bile, eleven.
Gharan, son of Amfedech, four.
144 JOHN OF FOEDUN'S CHRONICLE
Brud, son of Decili, twenty-one.
Nectane, his brother, eighteen. This king, according to Bede,
received a letter from England on the observance of the Easter
cycle.
Garnard, son of Feredach, succeeded Nectane, and reigned
fourteen years.
Oengussa, son of Fergusa, reigned sixteen years.
Nectane, son of Dereli, nine months.
Oengussa, son of Brude, six months.
Alpin, son of Feredeth, likewise six months.
Alpin then reigned, a second time, for twenty-six years.
Brude, son of Tenegus, reigned two years.
Alpin, son of Tenegus, also two.
Durst, son of Thalargan, one.
Thalarger, son of Drusken, four.
Thalarger, son of Tenegus, five.
Constantine, son of Fergusa, forty. He built Dunkelden
(Dunkeld).
Hungus, son of Fergus, ten years. During the reign of
King Hungus, there reigned in Wessex King Athelwlf, the head
of whose eldest son, Athelstan, fixed on a stake, Hungus brought
down with him into his kingdom, after he had gained the
victory in battle, as will appear more fully in the next follow-
ing chapter.
Durstolorger succeeded Hungus, and reigned four years.
Eoghane, son of Hungus, reigned three years.
Feredeth, son of Badoc, likewise three.
Brude, son of Feredeth, one month.
Kenneth, son of Feredeth, one year.
Brude, son of Fothel, two.
Drusken, son of Feredeth, three. With this King Drusken,
also, the sovereign power of the Picts came to an end, and the
kingdom altogether passed over from them to the Scottisli
king Kenneth, and his successors ; and there was formed, thence-
forth, one kingdom — that of the Scots.
CHAPTER XIII.
Hungus, King of the Picts, and Athelwlf, King of the Angles,
were contemporaries — Athelstan, the son of the latter.
Now we must show who that Athelstan was, whom King
Hungus overthrew in battle. For there were formerly, in Eng-
land three kings Athelstan, the first of whom was the last king
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK IV. 145
of Kent, whose kingdom was taken over from him, and added
to that of the West Saxons ; the second was the one in ques-
tion, the son of iEthelwlf, upon whom his father bestowed all
the countries of the English-born nation during his own life-
time, except the kingdom of Wessex, which he retained in his
own hands ; the third Athelstan, again, was the son of Edward
son of Alfred, brother of this Athelstan of ours. King Egbert
says William, having first subjugated the Eritons of Coin-
wall, made the northern Britons also tributary to him. The
kingdom of Kent, with Suthireya (Surrey), the kingdom of
the Mercians and East Angles, the East Saxons, and the South
Saxons, likewise became subject to him. Thus, by admitting
the rest of the English provinces into allegiance to him, or
as tributaries, he enlarged the kingdom of the West Saxons.
The Northumbrians, however, who saw themselves left alone
— both on account of their domestic quarrels, and by reason
of their false oaths — and that the finger of scorn was pointed
at them by all, gave hostages and yielded to his power. This
Egbert, upon his death, was succeeded by his son ^thelwlf,
who had begotten five sons during his father's lifetime,
^thelwlf was mild by nature, and would rather live in quiet,
than have dominion over many provinces. Content with only
his ancestral kingdom of the West Saxons, as soon as he began
to reign he handed over to his eldest son, Athelstan, the other
dependencies which his father had subjugated. How and at
what time, this Athelstan came by his end is uncertain. Such
is William's account. But though that Athelstan's end is not
shown in William, amongst us it is kept fresh in signal re-
membrance, both in sundry writings and also in the mouths
of the people to this day. For, when King Hungus, with a
large army, was wasting with inhuman slaughter the neigh-
bouring nations of the Angles — the Northumbrians, to wit —
in those tracts which Athelstan had had granted him by his
father while the latter reigned, Athelstan passed out of his
own country, and arrived, wearied after several days' march,
in a certain pleasant plain to halt in, not far from the river
Tyne. So he commanded them to pitch the tents until the
army, tired by the length of their journey, should be refreshed
by a good meaL Moreover, as that plain was exceeding rich
in corn and grass and brushwood, and watered by springs
and streams, he decided to tarry there a few days, as fearing
nothinii".
VOL. II.
146 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
CHAPTER XIV.
Victory of Hungus, King of the Picts, over Athelstan ; whose
head lie directed to hefioced on a stake.
When King Athelstan had heard this, massing together the
strength of the whole English nation, both of the north and of
the south, and disposing his battle-array in single companies, he
came upon Hungus unexpectedly with his columns, and so beset
on every side the place the latter was encamped in, that no outlet
lay open to him for escape. Hungus was therefore alarmed,
and the chiefs were dismayed in spirit, and feared exceedingly ;
for they had no hope of being saved betimes by the aid of man.
So they fell back upon God's help, which, in truth, is not
withheld from those that ask it ; and all, both great and small,
on their knees, address their vows to God and his saints, and
especially to Saint Andrew, the apostle. The king, moreover,
promised by a solemn vow that he would give, to the honour
of God and the Blessed Virgin Mary, a tenth part of his king-
dom to the blessed Andrew, provided he brought him and his
army safely back home, and snatched him scathless from the
power of that countless and proud nation. The following night
the blessed Andrew appeared to the king, saying : — " God, to
whom the prayer of the humble always is pleasing, and the
vows of the proud displeasing, has, through my intercession,
heard thy prayer. To-morrow He shall give thee a gladsome
victory, and overthrow thine enemies before thee ; neither shall
they prevail against thee in battle : for an angel, bearing the
banner of the Lord's cross, shall go before thee in the sight of
many. When, therefore, thou shalt have prosperously returned
into thy kingdom, be thou nowise unmindful of thy vow ; but
what thou hast thyself promised of thine own free-will, take
heed that thou delay not to fulfil it." So the king, awaking
from sleep, made known to his officers and people all that
he had heard in a vision — how God, through the prayers
of his apostle, had granted him a sure victory over his enemies.
They all, therefore, through the confidence inspired by this
vision, were gladdened beyond belief, and no longer fearful, as on
tlie two previous days ; but being made brave, and much bolder
than their wont, they dashed forward upon the foe, with shouts
and with trumpets sounding, although they themselves were
far fewer in numbers. Thereupon so great a panic invaded
the hearts of the enemy, that their ranks were broken and
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK IV. 147
they all turned to flee, except a few with the king, who held
their ground, and were overcome and slain at the first shock.
In memory of so miraculous a discomfiture, the king's head,
however, was cut off from the body, and taken away by Hungus,
who bade it be fixed on a stake at the top of a rock in the
middle of the Scottish sea — a conspicuous object, for several
years, to all who crossed there. Now, in the thirteenth year
of King Kenneth, sundry fleets of the heathen made frequent
piratical attacks on the harbours of England ; and, at length,
took the city of London, laid it in ruins, and sacked it.
CHAPTEE XV.
Accession of the Kings Donald, son of Alpin, and Consta7itine,
son of Kenneth — Death of Donald.
After the solemn celebration of the funeral of King Kenneth
the Great, he was succeeded, the same year he died — that is,
A.D. 854, the fourteenth year of the emperor Lothaire — by his
brother Donald, also a son of Alpin, who reigned four years.
He was a renowned warrior, brave, and eager for all w^arlike
deeds ; and he likewise achieved many a glorious victory and
triumph in vanquishing the Picts. He studied, however, to
foster peace and concord with the neighbouring countries and
kings, nor did any one presume to molest his territory in any-
wise, save some outcast Picts, who, in the days of their down-
fall, seeing the discomfiture of their nation, fled to England.
As soon as they had heard of the death of King Kenneth, these
being spurred on by the English, as well as swelled by their
columns, notwithstanding a treaty of peace that had lately been
entered into, began to invade the borders of the kingdom ; but,
the same year, through the judicious measures of the king and
some faithful Picts, they were destroyed, and not one was left.
In the third year of this reign, the Emperor Lothaire, having
parted his kingdom among his sons, renounced the world ;
while his son Louis ii. was promoted to the imperial throne,
and reigned twenty-one years. King Donald, however, w^ent
the way of all flesh at Scone, the seat of royalty ; and was
buried in lona, beside his brother. He w^as succeeded, in a.d.
858 — the third year of the emperor Louis — by his nephew
Constantine, son of his brother Kenneth the Great, who reigned
sixteen years. During his time, and the whole of that of his
predecessors — his father and uncle, to wit — a great fleet of the
heathen, Danes, Norwegians, and Frisians, emerged from the
148
east, and disturbed the whole of the British and Belgic seas^^
For, in the thirteenth year of the sovereignty of his father,
they attacked England by the river Thames, took the city of
London, and carried off some precious spoils and treasures.
And thus, bursting suddenly upon the two kingdoms of Scot-
land and England — now here, now there, as they were driven
by the winds — they continually, for many days, did a great
deal of mischief. In the second year of this reign, frost set in,
over nearly the whole of Europe, on the 30th of November,
and ended on the 5th of April. In the eighth year, the king
of the Bulgari was, with his nation, converted to Christianity,
and was so strengthened in the faith, that, not long after, he
advanced his eldest son to the throne, while he himself en-
tirely renounced the world, and became a monk. But when
his son inconsiderately wished to return to the worship of
heathendom, he resumed the knightly belt and royal life ; and,
having followed after his son, he took him, tore out his eyes,
and thrust him into prison. He then placed his younger son
on the throne ; and, taking again the sacred garb, abode therein
until his life's end.
CHAPTER XVI.
Constantinc slain hy Danes and Norwegians — Accession o/
King Heih the Wing-footed.
In the time of the reign of King Constantine, a second fleet
of the heathen, larger and more formidable, came from the
Danube, and joined the former one ; and, combining for no good
purpose, but all for warfare and wickedness, they covered the
seas — as it were groves planted therein. And thus it came to
pass, shortly afterwards, that, landing in both kingdoms, they
dwelt there without fear for days and months, as though it were
their own home. These, it was now thought, the barbarous
Picts, who had not yet l3een thoroughly tamed, had secretly
enticed to Scotland ; even as one might not unlikely have sus-
pected from the upshot of the matter. The king had many a time
offered them a safe reception among the harbours of his kingdom,
and leave to buy provisions to their hearts* content, if only they
would cease from their inroads, and faithfully observe the terms
of peace. As, however, they could not be appeased by this
means, nor by any other treaty of peace, the king — whether on
an appointed day, or by chance, unexpectedly, is not known —
gave them battle at a spot named the Black Den, and fell there,
with many of liis men. And no wonder- for he had rashly
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK IV. 149
brought with him, to battle, like ii. snake in his bosom, some of
the lately conquered Picts. These fled as soon as they closed
in battle, thus giving occasion to the others to do the same. So
the king was left on the field by a great part of his army, and be-
set by the enemy and slain. When the enemy, after their victory
there, had retreated to their ships, the rented inhabitants
returned ; and, after searching the field, they found the king's
body, and bore it with deep wailing to the island of lona,
where it was enshrined, with great honours, in liis father's
bosom. In England, moreover, two years before the king's
death, the heathen of the said fleets martyred Saint Edmund,
king of the East Angles. Constantino was succeeded, in A.D.
874 — the nineteenth year of Louis — by his brother Heth the
Wing-footed, who was also a son of Kenneth the Great, and who
reigned one year. This king was so distinguished for vigour
and nimbleness of limb, that all men called him Heth the
Wing-footed, that is, Heth with wings on his feet ; for he had
earned a name for swiftness above all others of his day. But
ought he to be set above the runners of Alexander the
Great — Anisius the Laconian, and Philonides — for nimble-
ness, those men who, according to Solinus, went through, in
one day, from Lapmim to Sicion, a distance of twelve hundred
stadia (about 138 miles) ? A certain Ladas, however, seems to
have outstripped them in speed, as the same Solinus relates ; for
he ran so swiftly on the white dust, that he left no trace of a
footprint on the sand. Enough for the king that he bore the
palm for swiftness in his time. Now, according to the rule of
the kingship, Gregory, son of Dungallus, should have come
before him ; wherefore, the chiefs of the kingdom being divided
amongst themselves, a battle was fought at Strathallan, wherein
the king was mortally wounded at the first shock, and died two
months after ; while a few of the chiefs on either side were slain
in the fight. King Heth was buried in the island of lona, beside
his father.
CHAPTEE XVII.
Accession of King Gregm^y, wlio hrings tender his YoJce the ivlwle
of Ireland and nearly the whole of England.
Now this Gregory, when he had, with the approval of
most of the chiefs, obtained the government of the kingdom,
was solemnly crowned at Scone, in A.D. 875 — the twentieth year
rif Louis — and reigned nearly eighteen years. When the cere-
150 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
mony of his coronation was over, he forthwith firmly established
peace throughout all the ends of his kingdom ; and granting
full forgiveness to all who, he knew, had withstood him in battle,
he brought them round to true friendship with him. Neither
was he, from the beginning of his reign, forgetful or neglectful
of divine worship — nay, he even, with the consent of the chiefs,
granted the Church of God, and churchmen, their freedom for
ever, confirmed by Pope John viii., who held the fifth synod at
Constantinople. For, until then, the church had been subject
to servitude, according to the custom of the Picts. Moreover, he
brought the whole of Ireland, and nearly the whole of England,
under his yoke. And though Ireland belonged to him by right
of succession, he did not get possession of it without war on
the part of some who withstood him. The sovereignty of his
possessions in England he won partly by his arms, and partly
by kindness. In his days — even as before, and long after-
wards, pirates of various nations, as was shown above — to
wit, Danes, Norwegians, Goths, Vandals, and Frisians —
sharing one and the same lawless bent, were scattered over
the harbours and lands of the English ; and, in their fury,
unceasingly laid waste, with most woful desolation, the dis-
tricts, especially, on the seaboard, until they had reduced them,
in great part, under their dominion, and gained possession of
them. Moreover, King Gregory himself, also, subdued the upper
and western districts, even as they had those on the sea-board ;
and he brought upon them desolation not far short of that those
men had spread around. The natives of some provinces, how-
ever, before he had reached their borders, gave themselves of
their own accord, with their lands and property, into his power,
after having sworn fealty and homage. For they deemed it a
more blissful lot, and more advantageous, willingly to be subject
to the Scots, who held the Catholic faith, though they were
their enemies, than unwillingly to unbelieving heathens. All
the provinces, says William, were burning with fierce ravages,
because each king cared more to withstand the enemy in his
own territory, than to extend help to his fellow-countrymen in
their struggles. In the first year of Gregory, two Norican, or
Danish, kinsmen — RoUo and Gello — forced their way into
Neustria, and seized Eouen, and the other towns in the neigh-
bourhood. In the third year, the emperor Louis died, and was
succeeded by his uncle, Charles the Bald, who held the empire
two years. After his death, Charles the younger was emperor
twelve years. Now Charles, since he was unable to drive Eollo
and his comrades from the fatherland, took counsel, and, after
having received a solemn promise from Hollo that he would
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK IV. 151
embrace Christianity, gave him his daughter Gilla to wife,
and the whole of ISTeustria — which Eollo called Normandy, after
the Normans.
CHAPTEK XVIIT.
Gregory — His Death — Martyrdom of the blessed King Edmund
— Nearly the tvhole of England at that time subject to the
Scots and Banes.
The English had then — in the time of Gregory, to wit — no
defender, or, at all events, a feeble one ; for they were bereft of
all their kings — of old, eight in number — except Alfred, king of
the West Saxons, who, alone surviving, attacked the enemy
with all possible courage, though with little success. Being,
however, much more often attacked by them, and having to
avoid the snares of enemies raging on every side, he soon fell
into so forlorn a state that, with fearful heart, he knew not
where to turn for a place where he could hide in safety in Eng-
land. The Northumbrians, again, had more than once before,
by their own fault, driven out their kings from their midst,
but were now driven, by force of circumstances, to take back
a king whom they had previously cast out — namely, Osbert ;
and, shortly afterwards, they were, together with him, cruelly
slain or burnt, under the walls of the city of York, by the
enemy, who thenceforth held their lands by right of conquest.
Burthred, likewise, king of the Mercians, being driven from his
kingdom by the enemy, repaired to Rome, nevermore to return ;
while Saint Edmund, king of the East Angles, having gloriously
suffered martyrdom at the hands of the heathen, as above de-
scribed, exchanged his earthly for a heavenly throne; and
thenceforth his foes possessed his kingdom. The rest of the
chiefs, too, who were left over, being in bondage either to the
Scots or the Danes, did service for their lives and property.
But the upper provinces, bordering on the kingdom of Scotland,
unwillingly submitted to King Gregory. And thus, in those
days, and for a long time after, the whole of England, whirled
round through the various chances of fortune, wretchedly suc-
cumbed to various lords —
The Dane had part ; the greatest part the Scot ;
And one small part fell to King Alfred's lot.
But Alfred, says William, was at last driven to such a pitch of
distress (scarcely three counties standing fast in their allegiance
153 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
to him — namely, Huntingdonshire, Wiltshire, and Somerset-
shire) that he sought refuge in a certain island called Adlingia
(Ely) which, from its marshy situation, was hardly accessible.
In the time of Gregory, the County of Flanders took its rise.
Before that, it used to be ruled by the French king's foresters ;
the first of whom was Lideric, the second Ingerlam, and the
third Audacer ; and these, though they were not counts, were
the rulers of Flanders under Pipin, Charles the Great, and
Louis. Afterwards, Charles the Bald, who was mentioned
above, gave Flanders to Baldwin, the son of Audacer, and his
daughter Judith, for an inheritance. But this glorious King
Gregory, after a vigorous reign of eighteen years, all but a few
months, closed the last of his days at Donedoure, and lies buried
in the island of lona. In the thirteenth year of Gregory, died
the emperor Charles, and was, in a.d. 887, succeeded by
Arnulph, who filled the imperial throne fifteen years.
CHAPTER XIX.
John Scotus, the philosopher — The UTivperor Arnulph, who was
eaten up hy lice.
In the time of this Gregory flourished John Scotus, a man,
according to Helinandus, of penetrating genius, and honeyed
eloquence. While the din of war was crashing around him, he
crossed over into France, to Charles the Bald, where, after a
thorough examination of sundiy books, he, at Charles's request,
translated the Hierarchia of Dionysius the Areopagite, word for
word, out of the Greek into Latin. He also composed a book
which he entitled Peri physicon merismou, that is to say, O71
the Division of Nature, very useful for solving the wearing-out
study of certain indispensable questions. In after years, allured
by King Alfred's munificence, he came to England ; and, shortly
afterwards, suffered martyrdom at the monastery of Malmes-
bury, being stabbed by the boys he taught — with their writing-
styles, it is said. His illustrious memory is handed down by
his tomb, on the left side of the altar, and by the verses of
his epitaph : —
" The holy sophist John here buried lies,
In life endowed with wondrous wealth of lore.
He earned, at last, by martyrdom, to rise
To Christ, and reign with saints for evermore."
The Emperor Arnulph — the date of whose reign was noted in
r
OF THE SCOTTISH NATIONr BOOK IV. 153
the foregoing chapter — smote down by a terrible blow the
Normans who were wasting Gaul, Lorraine, and Dardania (Dor-
dogne ?), about Li^ge and Mentz ; and then began to cease the
yoke of the Normans and Danes, who, for forty years, had laid
France waste. This Arnulph, afterwards, languishing in a long
sickness, was, in spite of all the physician's art, eaten up by
lice. In the sixteenth year of Gregory died Guthrum the
Dane, king of Northumbria and East Anglia, to whom Alfred
had stood godfather, naming him Athelstan. He was succeeded
by his son Kanald, and Sithric, one of his kinsmen.
CHAPTEE XX.
Accession of King Donald, son of Constantine — His Death.
When the mourning for the death and burial of Gregory was
ended, Donald, who was the son of the above Constantine, son
of Kenneth the Great, obtaining the sovereignty of the king-
dom, was crowned at Scone in the same year that Gregory died,
that is to say, in a.d. 892, the sixth year of the emperor
Arnulph. He reigned eleven years, with vigour indeed, but
with huge and restless trouble, now in the parts of northern
Scotland, now in those of England which had been lately con-
quered ; lest at any time, having grown to pleasure and careless
ease, he should ingloriously lose what his predecessor had won
by his watchful prudence, and with great trouble. Eor
'Tis no less praise to keep than to acquire.
But the heathen of the Danish nation offered Donald — as they
had, formerly, his predecessor Gregory — to enter into a treaty of
peace with him against the English, so that these, being assailed
on all sides by their combined strength, might the more easily
be overcome. Both kings, however, utterly declined this,
answering that it would never do for a Christian chief to afford
help to unbelieving heathens, or be bound by any sworn treaty
with them, against Catholics, even though his enemies. Finally,
after some years, a certain Danish king of Northumbria and
East Anglia — Gurmund — was, with his followers, baptized by
King Alfred, and bound himself to the same by an oath.
Nevertheless, he immediately afterwards, by his pressing en-
treaties, obtained of Gregory, who was then still alive, that the
treaty of fealty and friendship he had before desired, should
be concluded. After Gurmund's death, moreover, when his son
Eanald, and his kinsman, Sithric, his successors, kept on impor-
154 JOHN OF FOllDUN'S CHRONICLE
tuning King Donald for a similar treaty engagement, he granted
it quite willingly, although he undoubtedly knew they had,
like Gurmund, already plighted their troth to Alfred. About
the same time, also, while the king was making a stay in
the south, some mischievous robbers began to disturb the
country beyond the hills, by frequent secret murders and open
rapine. In order, therefore, to put down their outrages, he sent
out escorts of soldiers southwards in detachments ; and as soon
as he had set foot in their borders, he shortly fell sick and died,
almost suddenly, in the town of Forres — whether worn out by
toil, or poisoned by the treachery of those villains, is uncertain.
He was buried in the island of lona. May he rest in peace
for ever, awaiting the last day ! In the tenth year of Donald,
Alfred, king of the West Saxons, died, and was succeeded by
his son Edward. In the eleventh, that is to say, the last, year
of this reign, the emperor Arnulph died, and his son Louis
began to reign. Louis, however, did not attain to the imperial
crown. Ten years are allotted to him. With him the empire
came to an end, as regards the posterity of Charles, owing to
their own shortcomings.
CHAPTER XXL
Accession of King Constantine, son of Heth the Wing-footed — He
gives the Lordship of Cumbria to Donald's son, EugcniuSy his
expected next heir.
Constantine, son of Heth the Wing-footed, succeeded Donald
in A.D. 903 — the first year of Louis — and reigned forty years,
louring his reign, two English kings— the aforesaid Edward, to
wit, and his illegitimate son Athelstan — who reigned in succes-
sion, repeatedly warred against him : both because of the help
he had afforded the Danes, and because he protected, with all
his might, the natives of his Cumbrian territory, and other pos-
sessions in England, who faithfully cleaved to him even until
the battle of Brounyngfelde (Brunanburh). The kings of the
Danish nation, indeed, more fickle than the wind, were united
with him in the same sworn treaty, and show of friendship, as
with his predecessors; but, remaining faithful scarcely two
years, they were led away by the treacherous promises of
Edward, and made a peace with him against the Scots, to their
own hurt. Nor did the stipulations of this covenant hold long ;
indeed, four years after, there sprang up some estrangement be-
tween them— by what chance, is not certain ; but, it is believed,
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK IV. 155
by Edward's wickedness, who made a hostile invasion of their
territory, and wasted it with piteous slaughter for a whole
month. They, on the other hand, driven by force of circum-
stances, saw no hope of help anywhere but in again conciliating
the Scots, and renewing the former friendly treaty with them,
from fellowship with whom Edward's craft had lately made
them withdraw. In order, therefore, to soften the settled
hatred of Constantine towards them, they sent messengers,
humbly begging pardon and peace, and promising by an oath
never again, through fault of theirs, to break any treaty, if only
he would be pleased to renew this one. So the messengers
joyfully brouglit back word that all had been arranged accord-
ing to their wishes, the king's wrath having been turned into
pity. Now Constantine, in the sixteenth year of his reign,
gave Eugenius, the son of Donald, his expected next heir, the
lordship of the region of Cumbria to rule over, until he should,
on Constantine's death, obtain the diadem of the kingdom ; and,
on his being crowned king, his next heir was to succeed to that
lordship ; and thus the lordship was in future, by this rule of
succession, always to be transferred from the heir, immediately
on his being crowned king, to his next successor. In the twenty-
second year of this reign, Edward died, and was succeeded by his
illegitimate son Athelstan, begotten of the daughter of Opilio ;
his brother Edwin, who should, by rights, have reigned, having
been set aside, and afterwards delivered over unto a wretched
death ; for he was sent to sea alone, but for one man who ac-
companied him, in a vessel without an oarsman, and rotten
with age, and was drowned. But a certain chief, Alfred, being
exasperated at what he saw done, speedily bound himself with
King Constantine and the aforesaid Sithric, in a close and
faithful alliance against Athelstan. In the eleventh year of
Constantine, the emperor Louis died, and was succeeded by a
certain Conrad, a German, who was seven years emperor;
though he is not numbered with the emperors, as he lacked
the imperial blessing. Conrad was succeeded by Henry, in
A.J). 920, the eighteenth year of Constantine. He was emperor
eighteen years ; but he is not reckoned either among the em-
perors, as he also was not crowned by the Pope.
156 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
CHAPTEK XXIL
Cmistantine — Woeful and cruel Battle of Brounyngfdd.
When, however, Athelstan had heard rumours of the alliance
above touched upon, he was moved beyond measure ; for he knew
that the strength of his adversaries was increased, while his had
diminished. So, on mature reflection, he began to think that it
would be better to manage the matter in an underhand way, in
secret, than openly to try the doubtful event of a battle. So
secretly sending forth his tale-bearers, who craftily instilled de-
ceit into Sitliric's ear, he cheated him into forgetting his former
oath, and falsely marrying Athelstan's sister, though utterly
against the wishes of his own sons. Whence it came to pass
that he lived barely nine months after, having been, it is deemed,
wickedly put to death. William relates that Sithric's life being
cut short a year after, gave Athelstan occasion to join North-
umbria to his dominions. Athelstan soon after laid siege to
York ; and after urging the townsmen, now by j)rayers, now by
threats, to surrender, and iu neither way speeding according to
his wishes, he retired. But the Northumbrian and Cumbrian
nations, having already been long straitly cemented with the
Scots and Danes, as one nation, were anxious to be subject
imto them rather than to the English. So, on Sithric being
taken away from their midst, as above narrated, the North-
umbrians willingly took his sons, Analaf and Godofrid, to be
their chiefs ; and these, being straightway joined unto Constan-
tine, made war upon Athelstan with their whole strength. In
the thirty-sixth year of his reign, therefore, King Constantine,
Analaf, and Godofrid, having gathered together an exceedingly
large army, invaded the English territory to the south, wasting
everything in their path, until they arrived in the place wliere
Athelstan had pitched his tents, which is called Brounyngfelde.
Athelstan's last battle, says William^ was with Sithric's son
Analaf, and the Scottish king Constantine, who had crossed the
Borders in the hope of seizing his kingdom. Athelstan pur-
posely retreated, that he might conquer gloriously; and the
assailants had already passed far into England, when suddenly,
the columns and ranks of the two sides were mixed up together,
and there was fought a most cruel battle, far more savage than
any handed down in the writings of the ancients, or intnisted
to the memory of men now-a-days. For there were slain, on
the side of the victorious Athelstan, two chief leaders — Eldwyn
and Ethelwyn — and two other leaders, as well as two bishops
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK IV. 157
and many nobles. On the other side, the Prince of Deira,
Eligenius, and three other princes, nine leaders ; and a count-
less multitude of the rabble of either side.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Loss inflicted upon the Scots hy this battle — Death of
Constantine in the monastic garb.
That was an unlucky day for the Scots : for all the domains
they had conquered in the time of Gregory, or down to that
time — which, moreover, they had held fifty-four years or more —
were, in this day, lost to them by right of conquest. Constan-
tine, king of the Scots, says William, fell there, a man of high
spirit, and a vigorous old age ; five kings, etc. Various truth-
ful chronicles, however, advance the opposite of this statement
of Williams. For, after the fatal overthrow of this battle, he
wielded the sceptre for four years ; and then he resigned the
crown, and, serving God in the monastic garb at St. Andrews,
was made Abbot of the Culdees, and lived there five years ;
where he also died, and was buried. The monks of Hy (lona)
then straightway dug up his bones, and took them away and
buried them in the tomb of his fathers, in the chapel of the
blessed Oran, in a.d. 947. It does not, therefore, hold good
that he was slain in the battle of Brounyngfelde, as he outlived
the battle nine years. In the Legend of the miracles of Saint
John of Beverley, I have found the following passage, among
others, about the aforesaid king Athelstan : — King Athelstan,
on his way to fight against the Scots, visited the blessed John of
Beverley, upon whose altar he placed a dagger as his bail, pro-
mising that, if he came back victorious, he would redeem the
dagger at an adequate price. And this promise he also fulfilled :
for, during his struggle with the Scots, he asked God that
through the prayers of Saint John, He should show him some
evident sign, whereby those, in times present and to come,
might know that the Scots were rightfully subjugated by the
English. Whereupon the king struck with his sword a certain
boulder of stone beside the castle of Dunbar ; and the stroke
made, in the rock, a gash measuring an ell — as may be seen to
this day. Such is the story there. But we have heard old
hags tell some such fable — that it so happened that one of king
Arthur's soldiers — Kay — had to fight with an enormous tom
cat ; which, seeing the soldier prepared to fight with it obsti-
nately, climbed to the top of a great rock ; and, coming down,
158 JOHN OF FORD UN's CHRONICLE
after having made its claws wondrous sharp for the fight, it
gashed the rock with sundry clefts and winding paths, beyond
belief. Kay, however, they say, killed the torn cat. But
the cleft of Athelstan's rock is not had in remembrance or
known by the people, therefore, etc. In the very year of the
battle, likewise, died Henry ; and his son Otho was thirty-six
years emperor. In the third year of this emperor, a.d. 940,
Athelstan died, and was succeeded by his brother Edmund, who
held the kingdom nearly seven years.
CHAPTER XXIV.
Accession of King Malcolm, son of Donald — The English King
Edmund restm^es Cumbria to him.
In A.D. 943 — the sixth year of Otho — king Constantine, in-
spired by the grace of God's mercy, and understanding clearly
that all earthly things were subject unto vanity, vacated the
throne, as was seen above, and made room for Malcolm, son
of Donald, to reign ; who accordingly reigned nine years.
Furthermore, after the death of Athelstan, the inhabitants of all
those lands which he had reduced to his sway by the battle of
Brounyngfelde, were restored to their former lords, the Scots and
Danes. The Northumbrians, indeed, determined to call back
Analaf from Ireland, and set him up as king again. When,
therefore, this came to Edmund's ears, being afraid that, per-
chance, the people of Cumbria would cleave to the Scots, as the
Northumbrians had cleaved to Analaf, he prefen-ed winning a
friend in exchange for that country, to a cruel enemy's holding
it, perhaps for ever, in spite of him. So, desirous of having king
Malcolm's help against the Danes, and of conciliating his spirit
into close sympathy with his own, he made over to him, for his
oath of fealty, the whole of Cumbria, in possession for ever.
At this time, says William, the Northumbrians, meditating a
renewal of hostilities, broke the treaty they had struck with
Athelstan, recalled Analaf from Ireland, and appointed him
king over them. Edmund, on the other hand, deeming it
wrong not to follow up the results of his brother's victory, led
his troops against the turn-coat Northumbrians. Analaf, to
test the king's disposition, offered to surrender. 33ut his savage
mind did not long remain in this resolution : for he violated his
oath, and angered the Lord— whereof he paid the penalty by
being, the following year, driven into perpetual exile. The pro-
vince which is called Cumberland, Edmund intrusted to Malcolm,
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK IV. 159
king of the Scots, under fealty of an oath. Such are William's
words. So, afterwards, it was straightway agreed between them,
and resolved by the councils of both kings, that in future, for
the sake of maintaining the peace of both countries. King Mal-
colm's next heir, Indulf, and the heirs of the rest of the Scottish
kings, for the time being, should do homage for Cumbria, and
SAvear fealty to King Edmund and his successors on the English
throne. Furthermore, neither of them was to harbour in his
kingdom, in any way shelter, hold out help or favour to, or on
any account admit to homage or fealty, that savage and faith-
less nation of the north. And each king bound himself to the
other, by the bond of a sworn covenant, steadfastly to observe all
these things for the future. In the fourth year of Malcolm,
Eang Edmund was stabbed with a dagger, in the midst of his
soldiers, by a certain robber, whom he had one day reproved in
court, for his misdeeds ; and, dying, was succeeded by his brother
Edred.
CHAPTEE XXV.
Death of Malcolm — Accession of King Indulf — He is slain hy
the Danes.
King Malcolm had peace with Edred, Indulf having first
done homage to the latter for Cumbria. Moreover on the North-
umbrians conspiring against him, and setting themselves up
a new king, Edred, in the fifth year of this reign, supported
by succours from King Malcolm, laid them waste with cruel
slaughter. This, however, afterwards turned to the great loss of
Malcolm's kingdom. For the Norwegians and Danes, who had
formerly long been his friends and allies, were stirred up to
molest him and his kingdom exceedingly ; and for a long time
afterwards kept assailing the harbours, and the country around,
on the seaboard. Now he was wont every year, unless hindered
by more important matters, to traverse the provinces of his king-
dom, executing judgment on robbers, and repressing the law-
lessness of freebooters ; and, in proportion as in this he pleased
the good and the sensible, did he displease the evildoers and the
violators of the king's peace. At length, through a conspiracy
of certain persons, and, as recorded in the Annates Chronicoe,
by the treachery of the Moravienses, he was killed at Ulrim,
after having completed nine years and three months on the
throne — and was buried with his fathers in the island of lona.
Malcolm was succeeded by Indulf, son of Constantine, son of
160 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
Heth the Wing-footed — who reigned an equal number of years,
and began to reign in a.d. 952, the fifteenth year of Otho I.
To the Lordship of Cumbria, on the coronation of Indulf, suc-
ceeded Duff, son of King Malcolm, after having taken the usual
oath of fealty to King Edred. The third year after, that is to
say, the fourth of Indulf, King Edred died, and was succeeded
by Edmund's son, Edwy, an indolent and useless man, and
therefore nearly deserted by his followers, and most others. At
that time, a rumour was spread of the return of the Danes and
Noricans (Northmen), and temfied the islanders beyond mea-
sure— for the Scots were no less hated by them than the English.
Nor had the islanders long to wait : for, the next year, in the
spring season, what they feared came to pass. The enemy re-
turning with a fleet of fifty ships, repeatedly wasted, with cruel
jDJracy] now the southern, now the northern tracts of the country,
according as they were driven by the force of the winds ; and
while the king strove to come upon them in the north, popular
rumour noised it abroad that they were wasting the south.
At length, while they happened, one day, to be scattered by
companies, laying the country waste near a place called Collyn,
the king stationed an ambuscade under cover, not far from the
coast ; for he happened, by mere chance, to be there at that
time, with a few followers — but would that he had not been 1
So while the spoilers were roving about, scattered by com-
panies throughout the fields and towns, he rushed impetuously
upon them with shouts, slew a great number, and forced the
rest to have recourse to flight. Finally he, high-spirited as he
was, having unfortunately thrown away his weapons, so that
he might pursue the runaways more swiftly, was struck in the
head by a dart out of one of the ships, and died that same
night. His body was taken away to Columba's island (lona),
with such honour as was meet, and buried with his forefathers
in the customary tomb of the kings.
CHAPTER XXVI.
Accession of King Dttff— After his death, his body is hidden
under a bridge; and n^t a ray of sunlight shines on the king-
dom until it is found.
After the king's funeral had duly taken place, he was suc-
ceeded, in A.D. 961 — the twenty-fourth year of the above Otho
— by Duff, the son of King Malcolm, who reigned four years
and six months. He was a man of dove-like simplicity towards
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK IV. 161
those who loved quiet and peace ; but a cruel, terrible, and bloody-
avenger towards rebels, plunderers, and thieves. He passed the
years of his reign at peace with foreign nations, though the in-
habitants of the north of his kingdom were molested by plun-
derers of their own kin, whose wickedness he had before
repeatedly quelled by the rigour of the law. In the fifth year
of his reign, therefore, being desirous of reducing those districts
to order, he went thither with many followers, and tarried
awhile at the town of Forres, in Moray, punishing divers evil-
doers. Now, when he had as usual sent forth his columns and
companies to search the wilds of mountain and wood, keeping
but few men with him, he told off some of his more intimate
followers as his body-guards and watchmen by day and night ;
but these, as if they had nothing to fear, spent their time
in games, plays, and feasting, never thinking about the king.
This did not escape the notice of those wicked robbers, who,
seizing an hour at the dead of night, entered the king's bed-
chamber, which had not been carefully bolted, and secretly
snatched him away, while reposing in bed, with only one
servant of the bedchamber; and dragging him with them
through their secret haunts, they slew him. They then put
the body of the murdered king into a ditch under the shadow
of a certain bridge near Kinloss, and covered it lightly with
green turf, without leaving any trace at all of blood. But the
wonder was that, from that hour forwards, until it was found,
no ray of sunlight gleamed within the whole kingdom — nay, as
long as it lay hidden under the bridge, continual darkness
miraculously shrouded the whole land, to the amazement of all.
But as soon as the body was afterwards found, the sun shone
forth more brightly, it seemed, than ever, to reveal the crime
of the traitors. His body was then put into a coffin, embalmed
with aromatic spices, and taken to the island of lona, to be
there honourably buried.
CHAPTER XXVII.
Accession of King Culen — His Death — Fable given in the
English Chronicles.
Culen, son of King Tndulf, was set up as king, in a.d. 965,
— the twenty-eighth year of Otho — and, like his predecessor,
reigned four years and six months. He was useless and slack
in the government of the kingdom ; and nothing kingly or
worthy of remembrance was done in his days. For, spuming
VOL. II. L
162 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
the advice of men of sense, he cleaved in all things to the paths
of the young : being sore given to violating maids ; a lustful
adulterer with the wives of nobles and private persons ; in many
things, an imitator of Edwy, king of the English, who was just
dead, and who, according to William, on the very day he was
consecrated king, burst suddenly from the midst of a full
assembly of the nobles, who were deliberating on weighty and
urgent matters of state, and darted wantonly into his chamber,
to sink into the arms of a harlot. But Culen, forasmuch as
he gave up his whole mind continually to shameful vices of
this kind, and could not be reclaimed therefrom by the ex-
hortations of any of the chiefs or clergy, provoked the indig-
nation of all the inhabitants against him. Meanwhile, among
other most heinous deeds of his, he snatched away, against
her will, and violated, the lovely daughter of a certain chief,
named Eadhard, who would not, of his own accord, betray
her to him; on account of which he was shortly afterwards
slain by the father, to the great joy of many, and the grief of
very few. Nevertheless, they took away his body, and buried
it with the other kings in the island of lona. A certain wonder
which formerly happened to the Scots, I should have described
under the reign of Gregory ; but, having hitherto — I will confess
— left it out by an oversight, I will insert it here, word for word,
as it is described in a certain legend. Some little time after
A.D. 883, the Scots gathered together a countless host to fight
against the king of Northumbria, and among the rest of their
cruel misdeeds attacked and plundered the church of Lindis-
farne, and infringed the privileges of Saint Cuthbert ; where-
upon the earth suddenly opened and swallowed them up, so
that they vanished in a moment. For when it was morning,
the king and his men charged the enemy ; but — strange as it
may seem — of those men whom they had just seen hurling
javelins at them, straightway, in that same moment, never a
one did they find. For — as Cuthbert, the man of God, had
foretold to the king, in the spirit — the earth had swallowed
them all up alive before their eyes. But why should a historian
ply his pen in such apocryphal tales, in which every man of
sense refuses to pub faith ?
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK IV. 163
CHAPTEK XXVIII.
Accession of Kenneth, son of Malcolm — lowers Disputes — Un-
steadiness in the Eule of Succession of the Umperors, as well
as of Kings.
CuLEN was succeeded, in a.d. 970— the thirty-third year of
the Otho so often mentioned — by Kenneth, the son of Malcolm,
and brother of King Duff — a brave and prudent man, — the second
of that name since the monarchy was established. He reigned,
in peace and happiness, twenty- four years and nine months.
During the whole time of his reign, he and the English kings,
his contemporaries, Edgar and his two sons — the blessed martyr
Edward, to wit, and Ethelred — mutually esteeming one another,
faithfully preserved the fellowship of the most steadfast peace
and friendship. As soon as Kenneth was crowned, Edgar will-
ingly received Malcolm, the son of Duff, as prince of Cumbria,
under the usual oath of fealty — for, had he lived, he would have
been the next to succeed his father. This covenant of mutual
peace and friendship between the kings and the countries (first
happily entered into by Malcolm, king of the Scots, and Edmund,
king of the English) lasted, without any noisy wrangle, unbroken
and continuously for one hundred and twenty years, or more —
even until William the Bastard invaded England, and took it.
Eor Edgar was a king most fortunate, peaceful, open-handed,
and imparting his bounty to neighbouring kings and chiefs ;
and no wonder — seeing that he did not depart from the admoni-
tions of his most holy teacher as well as governor, Dunstan,
In the fifth year of King Kenneth died Otho I., and was suc-
ceeded on the imperial throne by his son Otho ii., who held it
ten years. In these days — and previously, as well as long after-
w^ards — a great many difficulties began to crop up in sundry
parts of the world, with reference to the unsteadiness in the
rule of succession of kings and chiefs. For, in the fifth year
of the reign of this Otho I. — as we read in the Speculum
Historiale — such a question of succession arose among the chiefs
of the empire : whether, that is to say, while their grandfathers
were still surviving, the grandsons should inherit after their
father's death, or whether, being disinherited, the inheritance
should revert to the father's brothers. Otho, indeed, and all
the chiefs decided that the finding out of the truth should be
intrusted to trial by combat. The victory went to those who
said that the sons of brothers should succeed their fathers.
In the fifteenth year of King Kenneth died Otho li. ; after
164 JOHN OF FORDUN*S CHRONICLE
whose death, there likewise arose a dissension among the
princes of the empire, about setting up an emperor in his stead.
Some contended that the imperial throne should go to his
son Otho ; others wished to pass it on to Duke Henry, brother
to Otho I. Now this Henry had factiously kidnapped the boy
Otho, and kept him in custody ; but the chiefs wrested him
out of his hands, and raised him to the throne ; and he reigned
nineteen years. In France, likewise, on the death of King
Louis, the French wished to pass on the kingdom to Duke
Charles, brother of King Lothaire, and uncle to Louis him-
self; but while he was referring the matter to the Council, the
kingdom was usurped by Hugh, sou of Hugh, Count of Paris,
and Hawyde, sister of Otho i.
CHAPTER XXIX.
Kenneth — Novel Change in the Ride of Succession of the Emperors,
and of the Kings of Scotland.
To the end, moreover, that the dangers involved in the suc-
session of the emperors might be avoided, the chiefs of the
empire laid down, by unanimous consent, that, after the death
of that Otho III., who was then reigning, and sitting as presi-
dent at that Council, no one, in whatever degree of blood-rela-
tionship or kinship he might be related to the emperor, should
thenceforth presume to mount the imperial throne, unless elected
by set officers of the empire. These officers are seven, namely,
three chancellors — the one at Mentz, Chancellor of Germany ;
the one at Treves, Chancellor of Gaul; the one at Cologne,
Chancellor of Italy ; the Marquess of Brandeburgh, Chamber-
lain; the Palatine, Steward; the Duke of Saxony, Sword-
bearer; the King of Bohemia, Cup-bearer. Whence this
rhyme :
" Mentz, Treves, Cologne, three Chancellors afford ;
Palatine, Steward ; Duke that bears the sword ;
The Marquess, Chamberlain ; Bohemia's king.
That bears the cup ; to these, for aye, shall cling
The right to constitute a sovereign lord."
-^^aving heard rumours of these changes in the rule of succes-
sion. King Kenneth wished that the law of succession of the an-
cient kings of his country — who had hitherto reigned in entangled
disorder — should be abolished ; and that, after each king, his off-
spring of legitimate birth should, in preference to the rest, be
decked with the kingly diadem. He himself had an illustrious
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK IV. 165
son, named Malcolm ; and he proposed to use every endeavour
to have the throne assigned to him. He therefore appointed,
with the consent of all his chiefs, with the exception of a few
supporters of the old rule of succession, that, thenceforth every
king, on his death, should be succeeded by his son or his daugh-
ter, his nephew or his niece ; or by his brother or sister, in the
collateral line ; or, in short, by whoever was the nearest survivor
in blood to the deceased king, surviving him — even though it
i were a babe a day old ; for it is said, " A king's age consists in
jhis subjects' faith;" and no law contrary to this has since pre-
j vailed. In the sixth year of Kenneth, Edgar, king of England,
died, and was succeeded by his son. Saint Edward, who reigned
three years and a half, and was crowned with martyrdom:
being stabbed with a dagger, through the treachery of his step-
mother Elfrida. After him, his brother Ethelred obtained the
kingdom, and — as William puts it — besieged, rather than ruled,
it, for thirty-seven years. The course of his life, he says, is
asserted to have been fierce in the beginning, wretched in the
middle, and shameful in the end. Dunstan, indeed, had fore-
told his worthlessness. Eor when he was plunging the little
child into the baptismal font, it defiled the sacrament with the
discharge of its belly ; at which Dunstan, being troubled, said,
" By God and his mother ! this will be a sorry fellow."
CHAPTEK XXX.
Baldred, Abbot of RivaulXy recites the Sermon of Edgar y King of
the English, against those who lead had lives in the Church
of God.
CHAPTER XXXI.
Sermon continued,
CHAPTER XXXII.
Strange Instrument of Treason, to deceive King Kenneth —
A wily Woman's Flattery, p^ ski bi'>"^jj !'>> ^-« f-^^-
But the chiefs who favoured the other rule of succession, '^ ^-^;^
hated King Kenneth and his son, asserting that they were now P* '^^
deprived of the accustomed ancient title to the succession. The
principal of these were Constantine the Bald, son of King Culen,
md Gryme, son of Kenneth, son of King Duff; and, plotting
166
unceasingly the death of the king and his son, they at length
found accomplices for the perpetration of such a crime. The
daughter of Cruchne, Earl of Angus, who was named Finele,
consented unto their deeds and design, her only son having
formerly been ordered to be put to death by the king at Dun-
synane, whether by the severity of the law, or for what he had
done, or in some other way, I know not. This wily woman, |
therefore, ardently longing for the king's death, caused to be made, I
in an out-of-the-way little cottage, a kind of trap, such as had
never before been seen. For the trap had, attached to it on all
sides, crossbows always kept bent by their several strings, and
fitted with very sharp arrows ; and in the middle thereof stood a
statue, fashioned like a boy, and cunningly attached to the cross-
bows ; so that if any one were to touch it, and move it ever so
little, the bowstrings of the crossbows would suddenly give way,
and the arrows would straightway be shot forth, and pierce him
through. Having thus completed the preparations for perpetrat-
ing the crime, the wretched woman, always presenting a cheerful
countenance to the king, at length beguiled him by flattery and
treacherous words. The king went forth one day, with a few
companions, into the woods, at no great distance from his own
abode, to hunt ; and while pursuing beasts hither and thither
with his dogs, as he hunted, he happened by chance to put up
hard by the town of Fettercairn, where the traitress lived. She
saw him ; and, falling on her knees, she besought him with great
importunity to come into her house — " otherwise," said she, " I
shall, without fail, think myself mistrusted by your Majesty's
Grace. But God knows — and thou, my king, shalt soon know
— that, although the tattling of the spiteful may repeat many a
lie about me, I have always been faithful to thee — and shall be,
as long as I live. For, what thou not long ago didst to my
most wretched son, I know right well, was justly done, and not
without cause ;" and tripping up to the king, she whispered in
his ear, saying : — " When thou be come with me, I will explain
to thee, my lord, who are the accomplices of that accursed son
of mine, and the manner of their treachery. For they hoped to
get me to join them in their conspiracy to deceive thee ; but 1
straightway refused to countenance their heinous treachery
Nevertheless, they forced me to lay my hand on the Gospel
and swear never to betray their secret; but, though I pro-
mised them this on my oath, still I should be most false anc
traitorous towards thee, my lord king — to whom, above al'
others, steadfast and loyal fealty is due — were I to conceal the
danger to thy person. For who knows not that no swori
covenant holds good against the safety of the king's majesty V
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK IV. 167
CHAPTEK XXXIII.
Kenneth's Death hy Treachery — His son Malcolm 'promoted to the.
Lordship of Cumbria.
Thus that crafty woman cunningly misled the king's mind,
and drew him, alas ! too ready of belief, into the house with
her, everything speeding her design. Why say more ? Why
dwell on so sad a tale ? After the king had alighted from
horseback, she took his hand, and quickly led him, alone, to
the house where the trap was concealed. After she had shut
the door behind them, as if with the view of revealing the
secrets of the traitors, as she had promised, she showed him the
statue, which was the lever of the whole trap. He naturally
asked what that statue had to do with him ; whereupon she
answered, smiling — "If the top of the head of this statue,
which thou seest, my lord king, be touched and moved, a
marvellous and pleasant jest comes of it." So, unconscious of
hidden treachery, he gently, with his hand, drew towards him
the head of the machine, thus letting go the levers and handles
of the crossbows; and immediately he was shot through by
arrows sped from all sides, and fell without uttering another
word. The traitress then went hurriedly out by the back-door,
and hid herself in the shades of the forest for the time ; but, a
little after, she safely reached her abettors. The king's com-
panions, however, after having long awaited his return from the
house, wondered why he delayed there. At last, having stood
before the gate, and knocked persistently at the door, and
hearing nothing, they furiously broke it open ; and when they
found that he had been murdered, they raised a great outcry,
and ran about in all directions, looking for the guilty woman
— but in vain : they found her not ; and, not knowing what to
do, they consumed the town with fire, and reduced it to ashes.
Then, taking with them the king's blood-stained body, they
shortly afterwards buried it with his fathers in lona, as was
the custom with the kings. About the twentieth year of this
Kenneth, after he had established the statutes respecting the
succession, on the death of Malcolm, the son of Duff, Prince of
Cumbria, he wished to make his own son, Malcolm, prince of
thatTordship ; so he sent him to Ethelred, king of the English,
who willingly admitted him, under the conditions above
touched upon — of fealty and homage.
168 JOHN OF fordun's chronicle
CHAPTEE XXXIV.
Accession of the Kings Constantine the Bald, and Chyme y
son of Kenneth,
The next day after the king's death, Constantine the Bald,
son of Culen — of whom mention was made above — came with
his supporters, and, despising the State ordinance, usurped the
throne ; and, backed up by a few of the nobles, he placed the
crown of the kingdom on his own head, in a.d. 994 — the
eleventh year of Otho iii. Thereupon there followed a long-
lasting division among the inhabitants, with massacres of the
populace, and troubling of the clergy. Moreover, there befell
the most pitiful slaughter of the great, and even of kings, and
much shedding of innocent blood ; and, briefly to sum up, the
final overthrow of the kingdom, as well as of the whole Scot-
tish race, would have been brought to pass — as many thought
it had — if God's pitiful mercy had not deigned to take pity
betimes on his people, in spite of their many sins. Meanwhile,
these accursed calamities lasted nine years ; and the ruin was
the greater, seeing that no one had the least idea which of
the competitors rather to obey — whether Constantine, who was
crowned, or Malcolm, who had the law on his side. Constan-
tine, however, held the kingdom — though not in peace — for a
year and a half after he had usurped it. For he was continually
harassed by Malcolm, and his illegitimate uncle, named Kenneth,
a soldier of known prowess, who was his unwearied persecutor,
and strove with his whole might to kill him, above all others.
Nor did Kenneth abandon his purpose, until, one day, they met
one another in Laudonia (Lothian), by the banks of the river
Almond ; and, engaging in battle, after great slaughter on either
side, both the leaders were killed. It is, however, said that
Kenneth had the upper hand. In the meantime, Constantine's
guards fled to his colleague Gryme, the son of Kenneth, son of
Duff — for he himself was, with Constantine, the chief supporter
of the old rule of succession —and Gryme, being joined by those
who wished him well; lost no time in taking upon him the
badges of kingship, by the same right as his predecessor, in a.d.
996 — the thirteenth year of the emperor Otho in. ; and he
reigned eight years and three months. Now, Malcolm, as luck
would have it, had gone to Cumbria a little before this struggle ;
and, after abiding there a fortnight, he heard from those who
had been present at the fight just mentioned, that his uncle and
the rest of his faithful friends had been slain, and the kingdom
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK IV. 169
usurped. So he came back at once, and having soon gathered
together some reinforcements, kept troubling Gryme (who had
then been set up as king), and all who favoured his cause, with
all manner of annoyances. The latter, however, withstood him
with all his might, and meted out the most grievous loss upon
him and his, with the self-same measure, and with no less
cruelty; and thus the wretched and helpless multitude long
lay crushed and oppressed by them both.
CHAPTEE XXXV.
The above-mentioned Prince of Cumbria, Malcolm^ son of Kenneth,
will not, on behalf of the Cumbrians, 'pay tribute to the Danes^
as the rest of the inhabitants of England do.
In those days, likewise, and a little before, the English, in
return for peace, gave the Danes tribute — first 10,000, next
16,000, soon after 24,000, and lastly, 30,000 pounds. So King
Ethelred wrote, by messenger, to the aforesaid Malcolm, prince
of Cumbria, commanding him to compel his Cumbrians to pay
the tribute, as the rest of the inhabitants did. He straightway
wrote back, disclaiming that his subjects owed any other tax
than to be always ready, at the king's edict, to fight with the
rest, whensoever he pleased. For it was more seemly — he said
— and far better, to defend one's liberty with the sword, like a
man, than with gold. The king, therefore, carried off a great
deal of plunder from Cumbria because of this, and, inasmuch
as the prince, in spite of the oath of allegiance he owed to him,
sided with the Danes — for so the king asserted in his wrath.
Afterwards, however, they soon came to a good understanding in
all respects, and were at one, for the future, in steadfast peace.
This plundering of Cumbria by King Ethelred took place in
A.D. 1000, the fifth year of King Gryme. But, in the seventh
year of this reign, this Ethelred, through the advice of the
treacherous leader Edric, ordered that all the Danes, throughout
all England, should be slain in one day — that of Saint Bricius,
to wit — and among them, a noble lady, Gunyldis, sister of
Swane, king of the Dacians (Danes). On this account, Swane,
maddened with rage, afterwards came to England, and landed
at Sandwyk (Sandwich) ; and, in revenge for so great a crime,
he destroyed it all by rapine and slaughter beyond all example,
stripping the inhabitants of their substance, and carrying it off,
together with hostages, to his ships — not like a lord — according
to William — but like a most savage tyrant. In the eighth year
1 70 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
of King Gryme, Otho iii. was succeeded by Henry, the first
elected emperor. We have already treated of this election in
Chapter xxvii. (xxviii.) Henry was twenty-two years emperor.
He gave his sister Gilla to wife to the Hungarian king, Salamon,
who had hitherto been given over unto idolatry ; but, by his
wife's exhortations, he and his whole nation embraced Christi-
anity ; and, at his baptism, he changed his name, and was called
Stephen. His merits are to this day commended throughout
Hungary for great and glorious miracles.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
Condition of the English, as set forth in the Polychronicon — ,
A certain Prophecy.
At the time of the aforesaid Ethelred's coronation, Saint
Duustan, in the spirit of prophecy, foretold these evils, which
soon came upon the English; for, according to William, he
said unto the king : — " Since thou hast aspired to the kingdom
through the death of thy brother, hear the word of the Lord.
Thus saith the Lord God : The sin of thine infamous mother,
and of the men who had a share in her base design, shall not
be washed out but by much blood of the wretched inhabitants ;
and there shall come upon the Anglic nation such evils
as it hath not suffered from the time it came into England
until then." The Polychronicon, Book i., last chapter, has
the following passage, on the state of the English: — Pope
Eugenius has said that English men would be equal to any-
thing they chose to undertake, were it not for a disposition
to trifle ; and, as Hannibal declared that the Romans could not
be vanquished save on their own ground, so the English nation
is invincible abroad, but may easily be overcome at home. In
another passage in that work, we read : — That nation loathes
what belongs to it, blames its own things, and praises other
men's ; is hardly ever content with the state of its circumstances ;
and is eager to show off in itself those qualities which are be-
coming in others. Nay, more : some of them, going the round
of every state of life, belong to none ; trying every condition,
remain in none. For, in bearing, they are players ; in address,
fiddlers; gluttons "in feeding; hucksterslmnoMiness'; swaggerers
in dress ; like Argus for gain ; like Daedalus in wariness ; like
Sardanapalus in bed ; puppets at church ; thunderers in the
courts ; while, throughout all the English-born people, such
a variety of dress and apparel of all shapes has grown into
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK IV. 171
use, that you cannot tell the sex of any one person. Touch-
ing this, a certain holy anchorite, in the earlier days of King
Ethelred, prophesied on this wise — as we see in the sixth book
of Henry's work : — The English, forasmuch as they are given to
treachery, drunkenness, and neglect of the house of God, shall be
trampled under foot, first, of the Danes — then, of the Normans
— and thirdly, of the Scots, whom they hold beneath contempt.
And of these three plague-spots, two, those of treachery and
gluttony, to wit, have been found out, first by the Danes, and
secondly by the Normans; but the third, that of neglecting
the house of God — still remains to be found out by the Scots.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
Source of the Calamities brought upon the English hy the Danes,
who, according to William, repeatedly lay England waste in
all directions.
I WILL now, as a warning to my hearers or readers in time to
come, briefly show by these passages the source of the calami-
ties which, as above described, were brought upon the English
by the Danes. In the early English Church, says the Tabula
Londonice, the religious life throve most remarkably : insomuch
that kings and queens, chiefs and leaders, earls and barons,
and rulers of the churches, had a yearning after the kingdom
of heaven kindled within them, and outvied each other in em-
bracing monkhood, voluntary exile, or the hermit's life ; and,
leaving all, followed the Lord. But, in course of time, all virtue
so withered away from among them, that no nation, it seemed,
could match them in treachery and guile. Nor was anything
so hateful to them as piety and justice ; nor cared they for any-
thing so much as wars more than civil, and the shedding of
innocent blood. Almighty God, therefore, sent heathen and
most cruel nations, like swarms of bees, who spared neither
woman's sex nor the age of the little ones — the Danes, to wit,
and the Norwegians, the Goths and Swedes, the Vandals and
Frisians, who, from the first years of King Ethelwlf, down to
the arrival of the Normans — for about two hundred and thirty
years, destroyed this sinful land from sea to sea, both man and
beast. And thus repeatedly invading England on all sides, they
did their best not only to subdue the country and take posses-
sion of it, but also to plunder and' destroy it. But, if the Eng-
lish sometimes got the upper hand, it profited them nothing ;
for a larger fleet and army would unexpectedly and suddenly
172 . JOHN OF fordun's chronicle
arrive elsewhere. Of a truth, while the English kings would be
wending towards the east coast of the kingdom, to fight against
them, before the troops approached the enemy, a messenger would
be sure to come flying towards them, saying, " Whither away,
0 king ? Behold ! even now a countless heathen fleet have seized
the shores of thy kingdom, on the south; and spoiling the
towns and villages with the sword, have burned down with fire
everything in their way." Such rumours, moreover, coming
upon them from the east, west, or north, as well, robbed the
natives of all hope of safety ; and thus the kings, with their
hearts exposed to so many evils and sinister rumours, would
divide their forces and enter upon a doubtful struggle against
these hostile inroads. Hence it happened that sometimes the
inhabitants were beaten, and sometimes their enemies — which
suggested these lines : —
" In English story many a plague is seen ;
England bears witness to the captive's woe.
War, pride, fraud, rapine — these the scourge have been
Wherewith the stranger's hand laid England low."
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
King Gryme slain hy the above-mentioned Malcolm^ son of
Kenneth.
But while the quarrel lasted between Malcolm, son of Ken-
neth— above referred to — and King Gryme, who could fully
unfold the losses of the inhabitants of the kingdom, continued
through eight years ? The people, however, showed more favour
to the cause of Malcolm than to that of the king ; for, in all
knightly deeds, both mimic and in earnest, the former was second
renown to hardly any one in the kingdom. Historical annals
inform us that he was skilled in brandishing the sword and
hurling the spear, and could bear hunger, thirst, cold, and
watching, wonderfully long. Roaming, therefore, very often
through various districts of the kingdom, and carefully guard-
ing himself against being waylaid by Gryme, he cemented to
himself the hearts of many of the aristocracy, and secretly
bound them by an oath of fealty to him. Moreover, the com-
mon people, who knew him to be endowed with many good
qualities, and distinguished for his stalwart and shapely figure,
began, with one accord, to extol his name and fame with
praises, and declared, even openly, that he was more worthy of the
kingship than the rest of men, seeing that he was the strongest.
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK IV. 173
Thus, strengthened by the favour of the people, and at the
instigation of some of the chiefs, he forthwith sent to the
king, by messenger, bidding him choose one of two things —
either that he should vacate the throne, and lay down the crown,
which he had, until then, like his predecessor, held unjustly, or
that they two should, either accompanied by their warrior hosts,
or man to man, if he liked, fight in the open field, and submit
it to the just verdict of God, which of them ought, in all lawful-
ness, to be subject unto the other. Gryme was very indignant
at this ; for he thought that Malcolm could not withstand him.
So, with such of his men as he could trust, he at once set out
to give him battle ; while Malcolm, on the other hand, with a
similar object in view, boldly advanced to meet him, with a
small but picked band, and reached a field named Auchnebard —
a meet place for a battle. There the two armies engaged one
another, and fought a cruel battle, considering their numbers. At
length the king was mortally wounded, while fighting bravely,
and was straightway led out of the battle by his men ; and he died
the same night. But when the rest of his party saw this, they all
fled ; and thus Malcolm was so fortunate as to gain the victory
and the kingdom. The day after, however, when he got sure
information of the king's death, he bade his own servants take
the body away, without fear, and bury, it in the sepulchre of the
kings in the island of lona.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
Accession of this King Malcolm — His daughter Beatrice marries
CrynynCy Abthane of DuL
Now after Malcolm had gained the victory, as already de-
scribed, he did not at once take upon himself the name of king ;
but, having summoned together the chiefs of the kingdom, he .
humbly requested them to give him the crown, if the Idiws^zkc^i^'^^
allowed it — not otherwise. They, for their part, fully ratified
the law of the royal succession which had been made in his
father's days ; and at once appointed him king, crowned with
the diadem of the kingdom. He began to reign in a.d. 1004 —
the second year of the oft-mentioned emperor Henry ; and he
reigned in happiness thirty years, a brave warrior, and the con-
queror of every neighbouring nation which ventured to put his
daring to the test. We read that he had no offspring but an
only daughter, named Beatrice, who married Crynyne, Abthane
of I)ul, and Steward of the Isles, a man of great vigour and
1 74 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
power. In some annals, by a blunder of the writer, this man
is called Crynyne, Abbot of Dul. Abthane of Dul, should
properly have been written. Abthane is derived from abhas^
which means father , or lord, and thana which means answering,
or numbering ; so that abthane is the superior of the thanes, or
their lord under the king ; to whom they are held yearly re-
sponsible for their farms and the rents due to their lord the
king. Thus the Abthane has to keep the account of the king's
rents, and moneys in his treasury, performing, as it were, the
duties of housekeeper or chamberlain. Now this Abthane
begat, of his wife, a son, named Duncan ; who afterwards, on his
grandfather's death, succeeded him on the throne, as will be
seen below. But, to resume : this Malcolm, by God's favour,
triumphed everywhere with such glorious victories over his
vanquished foes, that, in all the writings whei;ein he is men-
tioned, he is always called by the title of " the most victorious
king." On three occasions_did he, by a lucky chance, outwit
and defeat the Danish} piratesj who often sallied forth on shore
from their ships, and ravage^Tne parts of the kingdom bordering
on the sea ; and once these were routed by the natives, though
he was not there. Othred, likewise an English earl, but subject
to the Danes, endeavoured to plunder Cumbria — though I know
not what was the cause .of the hostilities which broke out be-
tween them. But Malcolm recovered the plunder, and overcame
him in a hard-fought battle near Burgum (Burgie). About the
first few days after his coronation, a Norwegian army arrived,
with a large fleet, in the north, and made a long stay there,
stripping the country. But it was destroyed by him in a night
attack ; so that few save the sailors escaped that disastrous
battle, to bring the tidings to the rest at home. He only lost
thirty of his men. Thus the land was freed from their inroads
for a long while after this battle. A victory like this fell, of
old, to the lot of Cneius Pompey, who had been intrusted, by
the Senate, with the prosecution of a war against Mithridates,
king of Lesser Armenia. Pompey, says Eutropiits, vanquislied
him in a night attack, broke up his camp, and killed 40,000 of
his men, losing only twenty men and two centurions of his
own army.
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK IV. 175
CHAPTEE XL.
Malcolm — Foundation of a Bishopric at Marthillach, now
transferred to Aberdeen.
Once, while the Danes and Northumbrians, who were then
united as one people, were laying Cumbria waste, King Malcolm,
being apprised of their arrival by his grandson Duncan, met
them, and swept down great part of their army with woeful
slaughter. For he had, before this, given Cumbria to Duncan,
though without having got King Ethelred's consent, because
one could not safely get across the kingdom to him, as well for
fear of the Danes — who wandered through the country at will,
so that they carried off plunder to their ships from a distance
of fifty miles, without dread of being waylaid by the inhabi-
tants— as on account of the treachery of the natives, who, accord-
ing to William, did not remain in their allegiance, even towards
their king. If, says William, driven by sore need, the king
and the leaders had decided on some secret and useful measure,
it was immediately reported to the Danes by traitors, the most
infamous of whom was Edric, a man whom the king had set over
the earldom of the Mercians. He was one of the dregs of man-
kind, and a disgrace to the English ; a wily knave, an artful dis-
sembler, and ready to feign anything. For he was wont to hound
out the king's designs in the character of a faithful friend, and
spread them abroad like a traitor ; and often, when sent to the
enemy to mediate for peace, he would kindle war. In the
seventh year of his reign, Malcolm, thinking over the manifold
blessings continually bestowed upon him by God, pondered
anxiously in his nund what he should give Him in return. At
length, the grace of the Holy Ghost working within him, he
set his heart upon increasing the worship of God ; so he estab-
lished a new episcopal see at Marthillach (Mortlach), not
far from the spot where he had overcome the Norwegians, and
gained the victory; and endowed it with churches, and the
rents of many estates. He desired to extend the territory of
this diocese, so as to make it reach from the stream or river
called the Dee to the river Spey. To this see, a holy man, and
one worthy the office of bishop, named Beyn, was, at the instance
of the king, appointed, as first bishop, by uUl' loi'lj^ the pope
Benedict. In the thirteenth year of this reign died King Ethel-
red — a man, says William, born to woes and toil — and was suc-
ceeded by his son Edmund Ironside, who was begotten of the
daughter of Earl Thoret, and wickedly slain, two years after,
176 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
by the treachery of the above-named traitor, Edric. We shall
speak of this Edmund at greater length in the following Book.
After him, Cnuto the Dane, son of Swane, was straightway
chosen king by the whole of England, as the true heirs had, in
the meantime, been driven out by the treachery of the aforesaid
traitor — as the following Book will also show forth. In the
twenty-second year, a.d. 1025, the first elected emperor, Henry,
died, and was succeeded by Conrad ii., who was fifteen years
emperor. In the seventh year of Conrad, King Cnuto went on
a pilgrimage to Kome ; and having there redeemed his sins by
alms, he returned to England some time afterwards.
CHAPTER XLI.
Stn(,ggle of King Malcolm for Cumbria with Cnuto the Dane,
then King of England — His Death.
Duncan, however, though summoned again and again by
Cnuto, king of England, to do homage for Cumbria, had not
hitherto done so because the latter had usurped the kingdom ;
for King Malcolm wrote back that, by rights, he owed fealty
therefor not to him, but to the English-born kings. Accordingly,
on his return from his pilgrimage to Eome, Cnuto speedily set
out with a large armed force, and, by easy stages, arrived in
Cumbria, to reduce it to his dominion. The king, on his side,
equally quite ready for battle, advanced to meet him, supported
by a strong escort. But, by God's will, they were brought, by
the intervention of the bishops and other upright men, to agree
to the following decision : namely, that the king's grandson,
Duncan, should thenceforward, in all time to come, freely enjoy
the lordship of Cumbria — as freely as any of his predecessors had
held it ; while, however, he, and the heirs, for the time being,
of after kings, should plight their troth, as usual, to King Cnuto
and the rest of the English kings, his successors. And thus
they departed in peace, fully reconciled. But some, begotten
of the stock of the two foregoing kings — Constantine and Gryime,
to wit — who had lawfully, it was thought, been slain by the king
and his adherents, treacherously entreated his friendship, for
fear he should view them with suspicion ; and though they
swore steadfast faith with him — which it is meet should be ob-
served even towards a public enemy — they were, nevertheless,
nothing bound thereby, and conspired to put him to death.
He, however, wishing to bring their hearts into kindliness of
feeling towards him, took great pains to enrich them with fre-
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK IV. 177
quent gifts and rents — but in vain : for what is rooted in the
hard bone can seldom be torn out of the soft flesh. So it came
to pass, afterwards, that when he set out one day, with his
usual train of knights, on the road he had to take — I know not
whither, nor to transact what business — those disloyal ruffians,
who had made diligent inquiries about it, got information _^
thereof ; and having, near Glammys, in the darkness of mid- j
night, barred with robbers from among their satellites, the path
along which he was to go, they suddenly poured out of their "^
ambush and surrounded him, far as he was from suspecting
any such violence. But he, indeed, undismayed, boldly rushed
upon them with his followers, and soon overcame their forces,
which were three times as numerous as his own ; and he slew
the ringleaders of the traitors. But it was a mournful victory :
for, woe worth the day ! the king was wounded in the fight ;
and after surviving three days, he was, at length, to the grief
of all of Scottish birth, released by death of a haemorrhage,
at the age of eighty or more. And thus God gave him freely,
even at his death, such meed of success in victory, as He had
often bestowed upon him during his life.
CHAPTEE XLII.
Vice of Treachery, the most shameful of all Vices, and one exe-
crated hy all men — Various examples of accursed Treachery.
CHAPTER XLIII.
King Malcolm's liberality, or, rather, prodigality; for he retained
for himself no part of the Kingdom hut the Moothill of
Scone.
Histories relate the aforesaid Malcolm to have been so open-
handed, or rather prodigal, that, while, according to ancient
custom, he held, as his own property, aU the lands, districts,
and provinces of the whole kingdom, he kept nothing thereof
in his possession, but the Moothill of the royal seat of Scone,
where the kings, sitting in their royal robes on the throne, are
wont to give out judgments, laws, and statutes, to their subjects.
Of old, indeed, the kings were accustomed to grant their soldiers,
in feu-farm, more or less of their own lands — a portion of any pro-
vince or thanage : for, at that time, almost the whole kingdom
was divided into thanages. Of these he granted part to each one
VOL. II. M
178 JOHN OF FORDUN's CHRONICLE
at will, or on lease by the year, as to tillers of the ground ; or
for ten or twenty years, or in liferent, with remainder to one or
two heirs, as to free and kindly tenants ; and to some, likewise,
though few, in perpetuity, as to knights, thanes, and chiefs ; — not
however, so freely, but that each of them paid a certain annual
feu-duty to their lord, the king. As, therefore, he had reserved,
it is said, nothing for himself from these lands and annual
rents, at length, driven by sore need, he requested, in a general
assembly, that out of them some allowance, suitable to the
kingly dignity, should be provided — namely, either lands, or
rents, or, at least, a meet yearly subsidy, whereby the honour of
his majesty might be fully sustained ; provided, however, that
the poor populace should not, on any account, be weighed down
by the heavy burden of a yearly contribution. This was
cheerfully approved of and granted by all, both commoners and
nobles. Moreover all the nobles, of whatever rank, agreed that
the wardship of all their lands and their heirs should remain
with the lord king for twenty years, as well as the relief and
marriage of every chief or freeholder after his decease. So this
King Malcolm, it seems, though magnanimous in peace as in
war, bestowed his property unadvisedly : not because he had
freely given becoming gifts to those who, having served with
him in war, well deserved them, and were worthy of them ; but
because he left the path of bountifulness, and lavishly squan-
dered, not part of his possessions, but the whole of them,
keeping nothing for himself ; — for it is certainly unadvised to
give away, when one must, of necessity, ask back the gift after-
wards. If, says Bernard, that man is a fool who makes his
share the worse, what must he be who renders himself utterly
destitute, so as not to leave himself any share of his goods ?
Gregory writes : — With some, who are unable to bear want, it
is better that they should give less, and not murmur at the
pinch of want, after their bountifulness. Seneca, again, says : —
Take heed lest thy beneficence be greater than thy ability ;
for in such liberality lurks the greed of gain, that one's means
may suffice for largess. Such largess is oftentimes followed by
rapine. For when men, through giving away, have begun to
want, they are driven to ' lay their hands on others' goods ; and
they incur greater hatred from those they have taken away
from, than good-will from those they have given to.
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK IV. 179
CHAPTEE XLIV.
Accession of King Duncan, grandson of the above-mentioned
Malcolm — His Death — He was too long-suffering, or easy-
going.
After Malcolm was buried with his fathers in the island of
lona, he was succeeded by his grandson Duncan, whom the
Abthane Crynyne had begotten of his daughter Beatrice.
Duncan began to reign in a.d. 1034 — the tenth year of the em-
peror Conrad ii. ; and reigned six years. In his second year, died
Cnuto the Dane, king of England, and was succeeded by his son
Harold Harefote, who reigned five years. The same year, also,
died Eobert, Duke of Normandy, and was succeeded by his
illegitimate son William, called the Bastard, a boy seven years
old, who afterwards invaded England. Henry, king of France,
"William's guardian, vanquished in battle the Normans who
opposed him, and shortly appointed him duke. Now Duncan,
in his grandfather's days, begat, of the cousin of Earl Siward,
two sons, Malcolm Canmore, that is, in English, Greathead,
and Donald Bane. On this Malcolm the district of Cumbria was
bestowed, as soon as his father was crowned. During the short
period of Duncan's reign, nothing was done whereof mention
should be made ; for he enjoyed the security of peace at the
hands of all, both abroad and at home, save that a rumour was
spread branding certain members of an old family of conspira-
tors as conspiring for his death, as they had done for his grand-
father's before him. And though this had more than once been
revealed to him by those faithful to him, he refused to put faith
in them, saying that it was past belief that those men should
dare to undertake the perpetration of so villanous a deed. Hence
it came to pass that forasmuch as he would not yield at first to
the words of the faithful, which he did not believe, he afterwards
suddenly fell into the snares of the faithless, which he had not
foreseen. For he had a praiseworthy habit of going through the
districts of the kingdom once a year, kindly comforting with his
presence his own peaceful people ; redressing the wrongs of the
weaker unlawfully oppressed by the stronger; putting a stop to
the unjust and unwonted exactions of his officers ; curbing with
judicious severity the lawlessness of freebooters and other evil-
doers, who ran riot among the people ; and hushing the domestic
broils of the inhabitants ; — and this good quality was inborn in
him, that he never suffered any dispute, either in his days or his
grandfather's, to spring up in the kingdom, between the chiefs,
jVc V'- - "''
180 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICL? '^ ..,>*- ^' ^^
but he heard it at once, and restored harmony by his good sense.
He was, however, murdered through the wickedness of a family,
the murderers of both his grandfather and gr^at-grandfather, the
head of which was Machabeus, son of Finele; by whom he
was privily wounded unto death at Bothgofnane ; and, being
carried to Elgin, he died there, and was buried, a few days after,
in the island of lona. He was, it seems, too long-suffering, or
rather easy-going, a king, in that he did not, by kindness, soothe
into friendship men who were accused by hearsay, or in anywise
suspected ; and in that he did not put them down by the laws, or,
at least, even while dissembling, put himself more carefully on
his guard against them. In his long-suffering, he was very like
the emperor Vespasian ; who, with huge dissimulation, despised
many conspiracies against him, even when brought to light,
though he punished with the penalty of exile — nothing more —
some persons guilty of high treason against him. Inasmuch,
however, as he inflicted punishment at all, he was harsher than
his son Titus, or King Duncan. The emperor Titus, indeed,
was a man admired for all manner of virtues, so that he was
called the " love and delight of mankind." He was so gentle and
mild that he punished no one at all. He forgave those who
had been convicted of vowing a conspiracy against him, and
admitted them into the same familiarity as they had before
enjoyed — though I think he guarded himself, for the future,
with more earnest care.
CHAPTEK XLV.
Accession of King 'Machabeus — King Duncan's sons driven ovi
of the Kingdom into England.
Then this Machabeus, hedged round with bands of the disaf-
fected and at the head of a powerful force, seized the kingly
dignity in a.d. 1040, and reigned seventeen years. The same
year died the emperor Conrad, and was succeeded by Henry,
called the Pious, who was emperor also seventeen years. But
King Machabeus, after King Duncan's death, went after his sons,
Malcolm Canmore, who should have succeeded him, and Donald
Bane, seeking, with all his might, to slay them. They, on the
other hand, withstanding him as best they could, and hoping for
victory, remained nearly two years in the kingdom; while few of
the people openly came either to his assistance, or to theirs. When,
therefore, they durst struggle no longer, Donald betook himself
to the isles, and Malcolm to Cumbria; for it seemed to them, that,
had they remained, they would more likely have died than lived.
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK IV. 181
Malcolm afterwards, wishing to have Earl Siward's advice in
all his undertakings there, went on to him ; and, by his advice
and guidance, he sought an audience of King Edward, who was
then reigning. The king, who was very merciful and mild,
willingly extended his friendship unto him, and promised him
help, — for Edward himself had lately been an exile, as
Malcolm now was. So Malcolm abode in England about
fourteen years, though many a time urged to return, both by
friends and rivals ; — his rivals, indeed, working for his ruin,
and his friends to raise him to the throne. Now, in these days,
some of the chiefs of the kingdom talked together in whispers
about recalling Malcolm, seeing that he was the true heir to
the throne. But they did so with too little secrecy ; and, accord-
ingly, it profited them nothing at all : for now and again what
was spoken in a man's ear, and passed on from one to another,
was openly told the king. Therefore many of them, and those
especially whom he knew to be in close friendship with Mal-
colm, when they had been found guilty of vowing a conspiracy,
the king condemned to various hardships. Some of them he
delivered over unto death ; others he thrust into loathsome
dungeons ; others he reduced to utter want, by confiscating all
their goods. Some, likewise, fearing the king's fierce judgments,
leaving their estates, their wives, and children, fled from the
country, with the hope, however, of some day returning. Now,
in the first year of Machabeus, Harold Harefote, king of Eng-
land, of Danish birth, was succeeded, after his death, by his
brother Hardcanute, who was the last king of Danish birth in
England, and reigned two years. This king, immediately after
his coronation, dug his brother, the aforesaid Harold, out of his
grave, cut off his head, and threw him into the river Thames.
After his death, his successor, Saint Edward the Confessor, son
of Ethelred, and brother of Edmund Ironside, after having long-
lived in exile in Normandy, obtained the throne of England,
and reigned twenty-four years.
CHAPTER XLVI.
Outlawry of the Thane of Fife, Macduff hy name, on account of
the friendship he lore towards Duncans sons, Malcolm,
called Canmore, and Donald.
The greatest and chief of those who laboured to advance
Malcolm to the throne was a distinguished, noble, and trusty
man, named Macduff, thane of Fife. Macduff kept the un-
182 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
known purpose of his heart hidden longer and more carefully
than the rest; but he was, nevertheless, again and again de-
nounced to the king, until, at length, he was viewed with sus-
picion. Meanwhile the king, one day, took occasion, I know not
on what pretext, first to upbraid him, more cruelly than usual,
perhaps on account of his disloyalty, with his shortcomings
towards him; and then added plainly that he should stoop his
neck under the yoke, as that of the ox in a wain ; and he swore
it should be so before long. Macduff, however, though seized
with exceeding great terror, turned upon him the blithe and
merry look of innocence, as the threatening and sudden emer-
gency demanded, with great tact, and soothed his fierceness for
the time, with a certain shrewd softness in his words. Then,
cautiously going away out of his presence, and stealthily
avoiding the court, he went off with all haste, and quickly
repaired to the sea ; and as the wind did not seem likely to
hold fair very long, he embarked on board a little vessel
scantily stocked with food. So, after having undergone
many dangers of the sea through boisterous weather, he safely
landed in England, with bare life, and was there kindly
received by Malcolm, on account of the support he had given
him. But when his secret departure became known to the
king, the latter was furious ; and, calling his horses and horse-
men every one, he hastily followed after the fugitive, until he
had made sure that he saw, out at sea, and clear of the land,
the little vessel, in which Macduff had sailed. So, as he had
no hope of being able to intercept her, he hastily came back,
besieged . all Macduff's castles and strongholds, took his
lands and estates, commanded everything that seemed precious
. or desirable to be confiscated, and, taking away all his substance,
i^ ^^^Q it be placed forthwith in his own treasury. Moreover, he
<i ^«'' caused him to be proclaimed, by the voice of a herald, an exile
n M^tJis/r.^or ever, and stripped of all his estates and other property what-
j soever. Thereupon there rose great murmuring throughout the
**'^ ' "^ whole kingdom, and especially among the nobles (for the thane
was beloved by them with kindly affection) ; for that the king,
led rather by wrath than by reason, had been too hasty in render-
ing so doughty and powerful a man exile, or disinherited, without
a decree of a general council, and of the nobles. They said that
it was quite wrong that any noble or private person should be
condemned by a sudden sentence of exile or disinheritance, until
ho had been summoned to court on the lawful day of the
appointed time. And if, then, when he came, he justified himself
by the laws, he should thus go forth free ; but if he were
worsted in court, he should atone to the king at the cost of
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK IV. 183
his body, or otherwise ; or, if he should neglect to come when
summoned, then, first, ought he to be outlawed as an exile j or,
if he should plead guilty, disinherited.
CHAPTEE XLVII.
First Arrival of Malcolm Canmore at the Court of Edward,
King of England — Marianus Scotus.
Now, after kings of Danish birth had held the kingdom of
England twenty-four years, and ceased to reign. Saint Edward,
son of Ethelred, and brother of King Edmund, called, from his
great bodily strength. Ironside, was chosen king by all the
people ; for the true heirs, sons of that same Edmund, were,
until then, and for a long time after, living in Hungary. In the
first year, then, of this same King Edward, Malcolm Canmore,
driven out of his fatherland, came to England ; and the king,
knowing that he had been unjustly deprived of the kingly
dignity, gladly took him under his protection, and into his own
service. In the last days of the foregoing emperor, Henry ill.,
or, as some maintain, in the earlier days of Henry iv., according
to Helinandus and Sigebert, lived the famous Marianus Scotus,
who came out of Scotland into France, and became a monk at
Cologne. He shut himself up first in the monastery of Fulda,
in Saxony, which is renowned for the body of Saint Gall, and
endowed with most magnificent estates. The abbot of that
place furnishes sixty thousand warriors against the emperor's
enemies. Afterwards, at Mentz, where he earned the grace of the
life to come by his contempt for this life. During his long life
of leisure, he examined the chronologers, thought over the dis-
crepancies of the cycles, and added twenty-two years over and
above, which were wanting in the aforesaid cycles ; but he had
few followers in his opinion. William says : — Wherefore I am
wont often to wonder why this misfortune besets the learned of
our time, that, with so great a number of students, saddening
their lives with wan moping, hardly any one gives full praise to
knowledge. Time-honoured use pleases so much, that no one,
almost, yields a fair assent, according to their worth, to fresh
discoveries, even though they can be proved. We make every
effort to crawl back to the opinion of the ancients ; everything
modern is paltry. Thus, since favour alone fosters wit, when
favour is wanting, wit is everywhere benumbed.
184 JOHN OF fordun's chronicle
BOOK V.
CHAPTEE I.
Macduff urges Malcolm Canmore to return to the Kingdom — Hie
latter, to try whether he was in good faith, or was deceiving
him, falsely asserts that he is Sensual.
After Macduff, therefore, had landed at Eavynsore, in Eng-
land, he hastened to Malcolm ; and, seizing a fit time for an
interview, urged him to return, warmly exhorting him to be-
take himself to the government of the kingdom, a consumma-
tion too long delayed through his own sloth, and no one else's.
" Do not," said he, " mistrust my good faith. Thy father always
held me faithful ; and in spite of the many hardships I have
borne, to thee also have I been faithful, and am, and shall be
all my life. The greater part of the chiefs of the kingdom have,
with an oath, plighted their steadfast troth to me, in thy name,
and I, in like manner, have also done the same to them, with-
out deceit : so thou mayest firmly believe that we are in heart
and soul oath-fellows in loyal obedience to thee. I know,
likewise, that thou possessest the hearts of all the common
people. They will joyfully hasten together to shed their blood
for thee, under thy unfolded banner, pleased to render service
to thee, their liege lord." When Malcolm heard this saying, he
was very glad in his heart ; but turning over and over again in
his faltering mind whether Macduff was urging true arguments,
in good faith, or false, in treachery, he was somewhat afraid.
For this very matter of his return had been cunningly urged
upon him before, by some of the opposite side, to deceive him ;
so he was prudent enough to try him carefully, in the following
manner : — " My dearest friend, I thank thee and thy comrades
with all my heart ; and according to your deserts shall I requite
you— and thee above all — as far as I can, under God's guidance.
But, being especially sure, in a manner, of thy fealty, I shall
reveal unto thee, my friend, some things that lurk implanted by
nature in my heart, without hesitating because tliou hast con-
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK V. 185
I
cealed them. There have grown up with me, from the begin-
ning, some monstrous besetting sins, which, even though thou
should succeed in bringing me to do what thou demandest, —
yea, even if every difficulty were swept away, and thou wert to
bestow the crown upon me, would not let me reign over you
long. The first of these is a marvellous pleasure in detestable
lust, which is rooted in my flesh ; and thou w^ouldst not believe
what a seducer of maids and women it makes me. And I feel
sure that, were I to get the sovereign power, I could not forbear
violating the beds of my nobles, and deflowering maidens. I am
aware, therefore, that, on a frequent repetition of such shame-
ful wickedness among the people, I should be utterly driven
out of the country by the chiefs, as well as the boors, of the
kingdom, whose wives and daughters I had wronged. Where-
fore it seems to me better to live as a private man, than, after
having come by the kingly dignity, to be shamefully degraded
therefrom by my revolted subjects, by reason of my faults.
CHAPTER II.
Malcolm adduces various instances of Kings having lost their
Kingdoms through Sensuality.
" Now I will give thee some instances of what evils, and how
great, have befallen various mighty kings, in times past, by
reason of their unbridled indulgence in lust. Tarquinius
Superbus, of old a mighty king of Rome, after having reigned
thirty-four years, lost the kingdom, as thou art aware, because
his son, also Tarquinius, lewdly violated Lucretia, the wife of
CoUatinus. For after she had bewailed her wrongs before her
father, and her husband, and the rest of her friends, she stabbed
herself with a dagger, and killed herself, in the sight of all.
Thereupon the citizens were roused to such wrath, that, after
they had deposed the king, and shut him out, they never could
bear any one who had the name of Tarquin — nor, indeed,
would they ever consent to have a king over them any more.
A king of Assyria, likewise, Sardanapalus, the last of his race,
a man more dissolute than a woman, in order that he might
have his fill of lustful pleasures, dressed purple floss with a
distaff, in women's clothes, amid bevies of strumpets. For this
he was held in such execration by all, that he lost his kingdom
as well as his life ; so that, in him, the line of his house ceased
to reign. Again, a king of the Franks, Chilperic, son of Mero-
veus, and father of the great Clovis, being too much given to
186 JOHN OF FOKDUN'S CHRONICLE
sensuality, and lewdly violating the wives and daughters of his
subjects, was deposed from the kingdom ; nor was it until eight
years were overpast, and then only by chance, at least, on his
promising continence, under a bond, that he was taken back to
be king. In like manner, Edwy, that late over-wanton king of
England, indulged so much in sensual lust, that, on the very
day he was consecrated king, while the lords were dealing
with matters of importance to the kingdom, he rose from
their midst, and burst into his chamber, where he sank into
the embraces of a harlot ; but Saint Dunstan pulled him off
the bed, and thus made him his enemy for ever. On account
of such vices, therefore, or greater than these, the nobles of the
kingdom always hated him, and held him, as it were, no king.
A former king of our own country of Scotland, too, Culen,
was he not slain by one of his subjects, through sensuality, to
wit, because he had ravished that man's maiden daughter ?
The kingdom of Hibernia, likewise, came to an end with the
lustful king Eodoric (begotten, forsooth, of the stock of our
own race), who would have six wives at once, not like a Chris-
tian king, and would not send them away, in spite of the loss
of his kingdom— though he had often been warned by tlie whole
Church, both archbishops and bishops, and chidden, with fear-
ful threats, by all the inhabitants, both chiefs and private per-
sons. He was therefore despised by them all ; and they would
never more deign to obey him — neither deign they to obey any
king to this day. Besides, as thou seest, that kingdom, so re-
nowned formerly, in our forefathers' time, is now miserably
split up into thirty kingdoms, or more. But I need not
stop here. I can bring thee forward an hundred instances of
kings and chiefs, who, I know full well, have been overwhelmed
solely through this vice of incontinence."
CHAPTER III.
Macduff, in ansiver, adduces the instance of the Emperor Octavian,
who was sensualy yet most happy.
Macduff, then, said unto him, as it were, scornfully: —
" Does this seem to thee a fit and satisfactory answer to make
to me ? and not to me alone, but to those who wish thee well,
to whom I am doing duty as messenger ? — to us all, namely,
who, for thee, have forsaken country, estates, wives, and
children, and the nation of our own blood? who, moreover,
lately put our lives in peril of death, as was meet, and would
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK V. 187
do SO again in time to come, if thou boldly do thy part ?
But I wonder much what this excusing of thyself with empty
pretexts would mean ? Thou fearest, as I understand, to
mount the pinnacle of the kingship, because of thy unbridled
love of pleasure, expecting that thou shalt not be able to get
plenty of women in the kingdom, without the daughters and
wives of the nobles. Does not such an excuse lack reason?
Shalt thou not, being king, be able to have, at will, the fairest
maidens and the most pleasant women to glut thy wanton lust ?
I make bold to say thou shalt indeed, even though thou wert
twice as sensual as the kings whose incontinence thou hast in-
stanced, as Sardanapalus and Chilperic, or Eodoric, — nay,
further, as the emperor Octavian, who was such a slave to lust,
as even to be a byword and a reproach. For, as history tells
us, he was wont to lie amid twelve maids and as many dissolute
women. But he did not, on that account, lose the name of
* the most happy emperor,' or the favour of the people, which
mourned him at his death, saying, * Oh that he had never been
born, or had never died !' He was a man who would certainly
never have drawn to him so much power in the commonwealth,
or possessed it so long, had he not teemed with great gifts, both
natural and acquired. For he wondrously strengthened, governed,
and increased the Eoman empire ; he adorned the city with
sundry buildings such as had not before been seen, making this
boast : — ' I found a city of brick, and leave it of marble.' In like
manner, thou, if thou meetly extend the borders of thy king-
dom, rule it in peace, and adornit with new laws and new build-
ings, thou shalt not, for such misdeeds, lose the name of a good
king, or the favour of the nation. And, as Octavian sang, of old,
boasting of his Eome, thou mayst sing of thy kingdom, — * I lately
found Scotland without laws, barren in crops, and herds of
cattle ; I now leave it in peace, and fruitful in all good things.' "
CHAPTEE IV.
Malcolm tries him a second time, hy asserting himself to he a
Thief — Macduff ansvjcrs hy laying down the Remedy for
this Vice.
" All thou tellest me is true," said Malcolm, " but my spirit
is always so eagerly prone to this vice, that sometimes it can
scarcely be curbed by reason. But there is yet a besetting sin
which stands in my way, one much more disgraceful than this ; —
and I should not speak of it, for very shame. However, I will
188 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
not hide it from thee, my friend, though I must tell it in secret.
I am a paltry thief, and a robber. For as the loadstone naturally
attracts iron, so does my wretched heart, attracted by every-
thing fair and delightful and pleasant to the eyes, strongly
yearn for it; and, luring on the other members of my body,
by some force they cannot resist, unceasingly prompts them to
steal. Thou mayst be sure of this : that it seems to me quite
impossible for me not to steal. Therefore it would be much
pleasanter and more endurable to go a needy beggar, from
door to door, or to die at last, than that through me, when
set upon the pinnacle of the kingship, the kingly majesty
should be wronged by such shameful misdeeds. The higher
a man is, the greater the scandal of his fall into vice, com-
pared with that of the backsliding of a man in a lower station."
"That is, no doubt, true," rejoined Macduff, "for, the higher
the rank, the more grievous the fall. In sooth, the higher a
man is raised on the ladder of honour, the more ought he to
be distinguished for his virtues ; and the higher he climbs up
the steep of virtue, the greater shame to him if he fall into
the depths of vice. A prince, likewise, is doubly a wrong-doer
if he stray from the path of virtue. For, first, he entangles
himself in vice, and, next, he affords the humbler classes an
example of wrong-doing. For
' The fickle rabble changes with the chief.'
But, to return : what thou sayest — that it seems to thee that
thou canst not help stealing, and, as thou saidst above, com-
mitting adultery — is incompatible with God's law, which He
wrote with His own hand. For He has written, — ' Thou shalt
not commit adultery,' * Thou shalt not steal ;' and we must
believe that, in His precepts for the observance of His law, God
wrote things not impossible, but possible for us. Furthermore,
no one is tried beyond his powers : for there is no doubt that, with
regard to all vices and virtues, it depends on our free will whether
we eschew them or yield to them. We can certainly keep all
God's precepts, whether in doing right, or in taking heed not to
do wrong, if we bring meet and willing earnestness to bear. So
neither this nor the foregoing excuse is a valid one. Every one
is aware that the crime of theft comes of want ; while, on the
other hand, it is always one of the conditions of kingly majesty
to be wealthy, and continually fuU of all manner of riches,
lacking nothing. What man, then, of sound mind, will not
leave off stealing, when he can boast of wealth of all kinds, to
overflowing ? Never, when thou art king, wilt thou lack gold,
or silver, or precious stones, or jewels ; or whatever, in short,
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK V. 189
shall be welcome and pleasant to thy heart. Be brave in spirit,
therefore. Do thy best to seize the wealthy office of king, and
refuse not to cast away far from thee those heinous sins, that of
stinking sensuality, to wit, and that needy fault, avarice, which
leads to theft.
CHAPTER y.
Malcolm tries him a third time, hy confessing that he is most
false and cunning — Macduff can find no remedy for this
fault, and retires in sorrow.
But Malcolm, wishing to probe to the core the heart of his
friend Macduff, who had not yet been fully tested, answered by
propounding the following problem : — " Grateful and useful to
me are the antidotes thou boldest out for screening the two
faults I have mentioned ; but there remains yet untouched the
wound of a third blemish, — that of unfaithfulness, and the sin
of cunning, lurking within me. I must indeed confess that I am
false,' though I hide it ; ingenious in contriving cunning devices ;
keeping with few the faith I have plighted ; yet making feigned
promises to keep it with all. There is always, in my inmost
spirit, this wickedness, that, if ever an opportunity presents itself,
I would rather cheat a man by the hidden artfulness of smooth
feigning, than openly trust my cause to be settled by the doubtful
chances of fortune. Now, help thou me in this sin also, as thou
didst in the foregoing ones ; and palliate it, I pray thee, with
some cloak from thy shrewd mind, and whatever the tenor of
thy proposal may require, I am ready to fulfil it with all my
might." When Macduff heard this, he was beyond measure
astonished ; and, after being silent for some time, he sighed, and
said, — " Oh wretched men that we are ! the most wretched of
wretches ! Alas for us ! for us, I say, who have struggled to
follow only such as thou, a silly, inglorious man, steeped in vice,
and lacking all virtue ! Alas for us ! Why were we born ? How
unhappy may we be called ! What a misfortune has befallen us !
for are we not confounded by a threefold chance against us ? Of
three accursed evils, we must incur at least one : that is to say,
we must either lose our wives and children, and all our earthly
goods, and, as wanderers, undergo perpetual banishment ; or
serve a tyrant king, who, by rights, ought not to be set over us
or the state, and to whom it belongs, as is usual with all tyrants,
to exercise his insatiable avarice, and cruel despotism, among
190 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
the people ; or be subject unto thee, our liege king, by law ; —
far be it from us ! for the tenor of thine own confession asserts
thee to be unworthy of being king, chief, or private person.
Thou confessest thyself to be lustful, and a thief, and, what is
worse — nay, the meanest of all sins, —false, cunning, and faithless,
and an artful deceiver. Lo 1 what other kind of badness seems to
be left, but that thou shouldst call thyself a traitor ? But it
follows, as a matter of course ; for when such faults are hidden
in the depths of the heart, treachery is, without fail, found
lurking therein in their company. So, forasmuch as all the kin-
dled torches of unrighteousness are gathered together within thee,
and a burning and craving covetousness, and a haughty and
unbearable cruelty reign in the breast of thine adversary, neither
of you shall ever lord it over me ; I will rather choose banish-
ment for ever." With these words, unable to contain himself
any longer, he burst into tears, which furrowed his cheeks ;
and wringing his hands, and groaning deeply, and weeping
and moaning, he looked mournfully northwards, and said : .
" Scotland, farewell for ever !"
CHAPTEK YI.
Malcolm^ now assured of his good faith, promises to return
to the Kingdom with him.
Macduff, then, was going away ; when Malcolm, finding to
the full that he detested perfidy above all things, and feeling
now assured of his good faith, quickly followed him, and asked
him to stop and speak with him, saying, — " Dearest of all my
friends, beloved above all living, hitherto I have been only
troubled as to whether thou art faithful or faithless ; lest thou,
like some froward ones sometime, as thou art aware, should
have been urging my return, with feigned quibbles, as they did,
that I might be betrayed to my rivals. Therefore did I wish to
find thee out by these several tests. And since thou hast been
tried, and I know that thou loathest the brand of guile and
treacheiy, I hold thee, and always shall hold thee, faithful, far
more fully than thou deemest. I am not sensual, or a thief, or
faithless ; but it was to try thee that I pretended I was given to
such faults. Far be it from me that these filthy sins and the
like, which are loathed by all men, should have dominion over
me more than over the rest of mankind. Come, then, my dear
friend. Henceforth fear not ! Thou shalt not be an exile from thy
fatherland and thy children, — nay, thou shalt be the first in the
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK V. 191
kingdom, after the king. From now, take comfort, and be
strong. Thou shalt bring me back into my land, the land the
Lord gave our fathers to dwell in." On hearing this, Macduff
fell on his face to the ground ; and, as he had been before all
bathed in tears through anguish, mourning with dismalsobs, so
was he now through joy and exultation; and, clasping Malcolm's
feet and kissing them, he said : " If what thou say est be true,
thou bringest me back from death to life. Hasten, my lord,
hasten, I beseech thee, and delay not to free thy people, which
yearns for thee above all things.
If thou would keep good men, and true, from harm,
Men who have fought without one helping arm,
Men on whose necks foes, for three lustres, trod.
Help them, in pity, for the love of God.
Stay not to think, but up, and fell the foe ;
Lighten the burden of thy people's w^oe.
Gird on thy sword, thy trusty weapons take ;
For strong thy limbs, and firm thy sturdy make.
A Scot, the heir of a long royal race.
Good hap advance thee to thy father's place.
Thou shalt, I swear, possess the kingly throne ;
All rights are thine, nought does thy rival own.
Be ever bold to battle for thy right ;
Yet think not rashness e'er can speed the fight.
If fate aUow, tempt not the headlong fray ;
For, unprepared, the best but blindly stray.
Let not the foe forestall thee in the field ;
Beware thou lest the vantage-ground thou yield."
CHAPTEE VIL
Malcolm's return to Scotland — Macliaheus falls in hattle.
When the discussion of these points was over, and all doubt
and ambiguity were removed, Malcolm sent this Macduff back
into Scotland, with a secret message to his friends, that they
should be carefully prepared, and without doubt expect his
return shortly. Then, after Macduff was gone, Malcolm at once
presented himself before King Edward, and humbly besought
him that he would graciously deign to let some of the
English lords, who were willing freely to do so, set out with
him to Scotland and recover his kingdom. The mild king at
once assented to his prayer, and granted free leave to aU who
192 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
I
wished it ; and graciously promised, moreover, that he himself
also would back him up with a powerful army. Malcolm,
thereupon, returned thanks beyond measure to that holy king
most mild, who was the compassionate adviser and ready helper
of all who were unjustly afflicted ; and, departing from him, as
soon as he was ready, he took with him, of the English lords,
only Siward, Earl of Northumberland, and set out to gain pos-
session of Scotland. But he had not yet reached the borders of
the kingdom, when he heard that the people of the country was
stirred by feuds, and divided into parties between Machabeus
and Macduff, by reason of the report spread by the latter, who
had preceded him, and had not been cautious enough in adher-
ing to his plans in the matter. So Malcolm hastened on
speedily with his soldiery, and rested not until he had, by com-
bining bands of men from all sides, organized a large army.
Many of these, who had formerly been following Machabeus, had
fallen away from him, and cleaved to Malcolm with their whole
strength. Thereupon Machabeus, seeing that his own forces
were daily diminishing, while Malcolm's were increasing, hur-
riedly left the southern districts, and made his way north,
where he hoped to keep himself in safety among the narrow
passes of the country and the thickets in the woods. Malcolm,
however, unexpectedly followed after him, at a quick pace,
across the hills, and even as far as Lunfanan ; and, engaging there
suddenly in a slight battle with him, he slew him, with a few
who stood their ground, on the 5th of December 1056. For
the people whom Machabeus had led forth to the battle knew
full well that Malcolm was their true lord ; so, refusing to with-
stand him in battle, they forsook the field, and fled at the first
trumpet-blast. William, in describing the aforesaid battle, says :
— Siward, Earl of Northumbria, at King Edward's command,
engaged Machabeus, king of the Scots, despoiled him of his
life and his kingdom, and there set up Malcolm, the son of
the king of Cumbria, as king. This is how William, ascribing
none of the praise for the victory in this battle to Malcolm,
assigned it all to Siward ; while the truth is, that the victory
was entirely owing to the former alone, with his men and his
standard-bearer. This at least I am pretty sure of, — that had
Malcolm not been there, this people would not have fled from
the battle, even if King Edward, and his men to boot, had been
present with Siward.
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK V. 193
CHAPTEE VIII.
The author makes allowance for the people of any kingdom desert-
ing an unlavjful King in battle — Lulath is raised to the
throne — His death.
Now, allowance might be made for the flight of this faithful
people, who, long weighed down by tyranny, either could not,
or durst not, rise up against it, yet, in their hearts, kept rest-
lessly brooding over their king's cruel death, and the rightful
heir's unlawful banishment for so long a time ; so that, not deign-
ing to submit any longer to this uneasy subjection of theirs
under a man of their own class, they took this opportunity of
giving the rightful heir, by their flight, an opening for surely
recovering ^the kingdom. For, truly, it seems, I think, that the
faithful native-born people of any country, when its head, that
is to say, its king, has been taken away by violence, or is suffer-
ing any humiliation, certainly suffers with him, and grieves for
his reproach, as if sorrowing for its own ; — as it is said in the
proverb : — " When the head aches, the other members droop."
Now, this is true of healthy members, which suffer with the
aching of the head ; not of rotten or cankered members, which
feel not faintness when the head is aching. For it often
happens that, from the touch of such members, certain members
fall into an incurable distemper ; and thus sometimes the head
also is infected by them with such a distemper, so that the
whole body may be made a mgnstrosity. May not, indeed, any
body whatsoever deserve to be called a monstrosity, whereof the
foot, — the lowest member I mean, — festering with a fiery dis-
temper, and not allayed in time by the hands, with cautery,
overrides the more worthy members, and infects its own head
with poison, tearing it off, and unnaturally putting itself,
instead of the head, upon the neck affl shoulders ? Now, at
the same time and year as the battle of Lumfanan, Griflin, king
of Wales, routed Eadulph, Earl of Hereford, in battle; and,
having slain Levegar, bishop of that town, and Eglenoth, the
Sheriff, with many others, he burnt up with fire the town and
the whole county, together with the bishop. But Siward, as
soon as he had received news of this from his king, by sure
hand, hastily came home again, as he was bidden, never more
to go back to Malcolm's assistance. For, on the death of
Machabeus, some of his kinsfolk, who were just the men for
such a piece of iniquity, came together, and bringing his cousin
Lulath, surnamed the Simple, to Scone, set him on the royal
VOL. II. N
194 JOHN OF FORDUX'S CHRONICLE
seat and appointed him king — for they hoped that the people
would willingly obey him as king ; but no one would yield him
obedience, or become a party to anything that had been or was
to be done. On hearing this, Malcolm sent forth his earls
hither and thither after him. But their efforts were fruitlessly
spun out through four months ; until, searching in the higher
districts, they found him at a place called Essy, in the district
of Strathbolgy, and slew him with his followers ; or, as some
relate, Malcolm came across him there, by chance, and put him
to death, in the year 1057, on the 3d of April, in Easter week,
on a Thursday. They also relate that both these kings, Macha-
beus and Lulath, were buried in the island of lona.
CHAPTEE IX.
Accession of King Malcolm to the kingdom — He fights with a
Traitor.
When all his enemies had been everywhere laid low, or were
made to submit to him, this aforesaid Malcolm was set on the
king's throne, at Scone, in the presence of the chiefs of the
kingdom, and crowned, to the honour and glory of all the Scots,
in that same month of April, on Saint Mark's day, in that same
year — 1057, to wit, the first year of the emperor Henry iv., who
reigned fifty years. The king reigned thirty-six years and six
months. He was a king very humble in heart, bold in spirit,
exceeding strong in bodily strength, daring, though not rash,
and endowed with many other good qualities, as will appear in
the sequel. During the first nine years of his reign, until the
arrival of William the Bastard, he maintained security of peace
and fellowship with the English. In the thirteenth year of the
said King Edward, his brother the late King Edmund Iron-
side's son, whose name was Edward, came to England from Hun-
gary, bringing with him his wife Agatha, his son Edgar, and
two daughters — Margaret, afterwards queen of the Scots, and
Christina, a holy nun ; and he was received with great rejoicings
by his uncle the king, and the whole English people. We shall
speak of these at greater length later, in their proper place. Of
Malcolm, the high-souled king of the Scots, says Turgot, we
instance this as worthy of mention, to the end that this one of
his doings, here set down, may show forth to those who read of
it how kind was his heart, and liow great his soul. Once upon
a time it was reported to him that one of his greatest nobles
had agreed with his enemies to slay him. The king commanded
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK V. 195
the man who had brought him this news to hold his peace ; and
himself awaited in silence the arrival of the traitor, who hap-
pened then to be away. So when the traitor came to court with
a great train to set a trap for the king, the latter, putting on as
pleasant a countenance as usual towards him and his followers,
pretended that he had heard nothing, and knew nothing, of what
he was brooding over in his mind and deep down in his heart.
To make a long story short, the king bade all his huntsmen meet
at daybreak, with their dogs. Dawn, then, had just chased away
the night, when the king, having called unto him all the nobles
and knights, hastened to go out hunting, for an airing. After a
time, he came to a certain broad plain, begirt by a very thick
wood, in the manner of a crown ; in the midst whereof a hillock
seemed to swell out as it were, enamelled with the motley beauty
of flowers of divers hues, and afforded a welcome lounge to the
knights whenever they were tired out with hunting. The king
then halted upon this hillock, above the others, and, according
to a law of hunting, which the people call tristra, told them
all off, severally, with their dogs and mates, to their several
places ; so that the quarry, hemmed in on every side, should find
death and destruction awaiting it at whatever outlet it might
choose. But the king himself went off apart from the others,
alone with one other, retaining his betrayer with him; and
they were side by side.
CHAPTEE X.
The fight — The Traitor is worsted.
Now, when they were out of sight and hearing of aU, the king
stopped, and, with a stern look that meant strife, broke out into
these words : — " Here we are," said he, " thou and I, man to man,
with like weapons to protect us. There is none to stand by me
— ^king though I be — and none to help thee ; nor can any see or
hear. So now, if thou can, if thou dare, if thy heart fail thee
not, fulfil by the deed what thou hast conceived in thy heart,
and redeem thy promise to my foes. If thou think to slay me,
when better, when more safely, when more freely, when, in
short, couldst thou do so in a more manly way ? Hast thou
poison ready for me? Who knows not that is only what a
girl would do ? Wouldst thou entrap me in my bed ? An
adulteress could do so too. Hast thou a dagger concealed to
strike me unawares ? None but would say that is a murderer's,
not a knight's part. Act rather like a knight, not like a traitor.
Act like a man, not like a woman. Meet me as man to man,
196 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
that thy treachery may seem to be free at least from meamiess ;
for, disloyalty it can never be free from !" All this time, the
wretched man could hardly bear up under this ; but soon, struck
by his words as by the weight of a thunderbolt, with all speed
he alighted from the horse he was riding, and, throwing away his
weapons, fell, in tears, at the king's feet ; and, with a trembling
heart, thus spake : — " My lord the king, let thy kingly might
overlook this unrighteous purpose of mine for this once ; and
whatever my evil heart may have lately plotted, touching such a
betrayal of thy body, shall henceforth be blotted out. For I pro-
mise before God and his mother that, for the future, I shall be
most faithful to thee against all men." " Fear not, my friend,"
rejoined the king, " fear not. Thou shalt suffer no evil through
me or from me, on account of this. I bid thee, however, name
me hostages in pledge, and bring them to me." The hostages
were named, and soon after brought to the king ; who there-
upon said, — ** I say unto thee, on the word of a king, that the
matter shall stand as I promised thee before." When, therefore,
that traitor had, in due time, satisfied the king's wishes in the
above particulars, they returned to their companions, and spoke
to no man of what they had done, or said.
CHAPTEE XI.
Death of Edward, King of the English — TJie nobles would have
Tnade the blessed Margaret's brother, Edward^ King, had the
Clergy consented — Visiati of Saint Edward.
King Edward, says William, bowed with age, and having no
children himself, while he saw Godwin's sons growing in power,
sent to the king of the Huns (but Turgot says, to the emperor)
to send him over Edward, the son of his brother Edmund Iron-
side, and all his family ; — for that either he was to succeed to
the kingdom of England by hereditary right, or his sons should
do so ; because his own childlessness ought to be made good
by the help of his kindred. Edward accordingly arrived, but
immediately paid the debt of nature at St. Paul's in London,
leaving his son Edgar, with his afore-named sisters, surviving
him. This Edgar, the king recommended to the nobles, as
being by blood the next for the kingship. The king, at length,
when he had not fully completed his twenty-fourth year on
the throne, died on the Eve of Epiphany ; and the next day,
while the grief for the king's death was stiU fresh, Harold, the
son of Godwin, extorted fealty from the chiefs — though, accord-
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK V. 197
ing to others, these consented — and seized the diadem of the
kingship, which he held scarcely nine months; for he was
slain in battle by William the Bastard. After him the nobles
would, but for the bishops, who would not support them,
have chosen Edgar king — and he was so chosen by some,
as the king had commanded. So speaks William. But it
seems to me that they did wrong in this, both before God and
the people : before God, because one whom He had preferred
for the kingship, by his birth, from so many kings, his fore-
bears, begotten, as he was, in the rightful line of descent, it was
not lawful for them to reject, nor unjustly to rob him of his
patrimony — guiltless, as he was — with their tongues sharper
than any sword ; for they knew that a king's boyhood, or old age,
or even his weak-mindedness, stands firm upon the fealty and
submissiveness of his subjects; — and before the people, inasmuch
as, to their own confusion, and to the eternal reproach and
scandal of all the inhabitants of the kingdom, they set up over
themselves, not according to the justice of law, but following
their heart's desires, a man without the least right to reign.
Harold, son of Godwin, son of Edric (of whom, not the fame,
but the infamy is noticed in various writings), appointing that
useless member king over them, in the stead of the rightful head.
Whence it came to pass that, shortly after, they wandered in
wretchedness and sorrow through strange countries, having been
driven out of their own homes, and having nowhere to lay their
heads ; as says the prophet : — They that do evil shall be driven
out of their borders; but they that abide the Lord shall
inherit the land. So the Lord himself, for a happy omen to the
Scots, freely joined to their royal line that holy royal line which
was thus kept up by them, though not forsaken by Him. For
He wished that they should inherit the land and reign together ;
and from them, by His providence, from that time even until
now, have sprung forth, and shall spring forth as long as they
shall please Him, kings sitting on the kingly throne. From the
following vision, which was revealed to Saint Edward, when in
the agonies of death, it is evident that the clergy did wrong in
the above matter. After he had lain, says William, two days
speechless, in a deep sleep, his speech was loosed, and, " I saw,"
said he, " two monks standing beside me, who, I knew, lived
religiously in Normandy, and died happily. They began by
saying that they were the messengers of God, and then spake
as follows : — ' Since the chiefs of England, leaders, bishops, and
abbots, are not the ministers of God, but of the devil, God hath
delivered this kingdom, after thy death, into the hands of the
enemy, for a year and a day; and devils shall wander over
198 JOHN OF fordun's chronicle
all this land/ " And when the king said that he would show
these things unto the people, so that, like the Mnevites of old,
they might repent, " Neither of these two things," said they,
" shall come to pass : for neither shall they repent, nor shall God
have mercy on them" — and so forth. William also says: —
Thus the English — who, had they been united in one mind, could
have retrieved the ruin of their country — would have no one
of their own people, and so brought in the stranger.
CHAPTEE XII.
How William the Bastard's coming to England was hrought
aho2it — Sai7it Faternus, the Scot.
But William the Bastard, count of Normandy, hearing that
Harold had usurped the kingdom of his cousin Edward, was
goaded on by various causes to come to England. Eirst, because
of the breach of the treaty which they had contracted between
them by oath: for Harold had pledged himself to give William the
castle of Dover at that time, and the kingdom of England after
Edward's death ; while William had promised that Harold
should wed his daughter, who was still under age. Next, be-
cause Harold's father, Godwin, had treacherously put to death his
cousin Alfred, together with many Englishmen and Normans at
Ely — all his comrades except every tenth man, being beheaded.
Also, because this Godwin had banished out of England the
archbishop Robert and Earl Odo, together with all the French.
Being therefore irritated on account of these and other matters,
he gathered his forces together from all sides, and sailed over
into England ; and, on the 14th of October 1066 — the tenth year
of the emperor Henry and king Malcolm — he deprived this same
Harold of his kingdom and his life together, in a slight and
ill-contested battle at Hastings. In the second year of this
emperor, Padbrunna (Paderbom), a city of Germany, was burnt
down, together with its cathedral. In a monastery of monks in
that same city, there was a certain Scot, Paternus by name, who
had long been a recluse, and had oftentimes foretold this fire.
In a certain Teutonic city, says Feier Damianus, there was a
servant of God, named Paternus, living shut up in a little
cell hard by a monastery. To him it was revealed that unless
the people made haste to appease God by repentance, the whole
city would perish by fire within thirty days! The vision was
noised abroad, but they would not be converted. He, however,
bade them take away all the valuables of the monastery, that
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK V. 199
they might be saved ; and at length a fire burst out suddenly
in seven parts of the city, and burnt the whole city and the
monastery to ashes. But when the fire had reached the little
cell of the man of God, and he was asked to come forth, he
would not; but intrusting all to the judgment of God, he
and his little cell were burnt up. In the year of William
the Bastard's arrival in England, a comet was seen ; whence
a rhymer says : —
" In the year one thousand and six and sixty more,
A comet's tresses streamed o'er England's shore."
CHAPTEK XIII.
Wretched and treacherous lives led hy the English hefore
William's arrival.
William has sorrowfully stated, in his Chronicle, the cause of
the sad slaughter of the battle of Hastings, wherein, through
that cause, the English lost their kingdom ; and it has been
thought proper to put it in also into this chronicle, that our
chieftains may take example therefrom, and learn to take heed
lest, at any time, they be burdened by besetting sins of such
kind and so great — far be it from them ! — that they be, like
him, unable to withstand their foes in battle. That was a fatal
day to England, says William, a mournful downfall of our dear
country, in passing over to its new lords. For it had before been
used to the manners of the Angles, which had altered a good
deal, according to the times. In the first years of their arrival,
they were savage in look and manner, of warlike habits, heathen
in their customs; but afterwards, when they had embraced
Christ's faith, little by little, as time went on, in proportion to
the ease in which they lived, did they put the use of arms in
the second place, and turned their thoughts entirely to religion.
To say nothing of the poor — even kings, who from the great-
ness of their power could over-freely indulge in pleasures,
took to the frock, some of them in their own country, some
of them at Kome, and won a heavenly kingdom, and gained
a life of bliss. What shall I say of so many bishops, hermits,
and abbots ? Does not the whole island blaze with so many
relics of natives, that you can scarcely pass a village of any
consequence but you hear the name of some new saint ? Never-
theless, afterwards, in course of time, for a good many years
before the arrival of the Normans, the upper classes, given up
to gluttony and wantonness, went not to church in the morn-
200 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
ing after the manner of Christians, but, in their chambers, and
in the arms of their wives, barely listened to a priest who
hurried through the rites of matins or the mass. The com-
monalty, left unprotected in their midst, became the prey of
the most powerful — who amassed heaps of treasure, by either
swallowing up their substance, or selling their persons into far
off lands. There was one custom of theirs repugnant to nature :
many of them, when their maid-servants were with child by
them, and had glutted their lust, were wont to sell them either
to some common brothel, or to service abroad. The clergy, con-
tented with a smattering of letters, could scarcely stammer out
the words of the sacraments ; and one who knew grammar was
an object of wonder and astonishment to the rest. The monks
made a mockery of the rule of their order by fine clothes and
every kind of food without distinction. Drinking-bouts were
indulged in by all, who continued nights as well as days in
that occupation. They eat till they brought on surfeiting, and
drank till they were sick ; whence there followed the vices
which wait on drunkenness, and unman the minds of men. So
it came to pass that, when they engaged William with more
rashness and headlong fury than military skill, they themselves
and their country sank into slavery by one, and that by no
means a hard-fought, battle. For nothing is more bootless than
rashness ; and what is begun with a rush, soon ends, or is
checked. But as God, in His mildness, often cherishes the bad
with the good in quietness, so does He in His sternness, some-
times fetter the good with the bad in bondage.
CHAPTER XIV.
Happily for the Scots, Edgar Atheling and his sister Margaret y
afterwards Queen of the Scots, land in Scotland.
So Edgar Atheling, says Turgot, seeing that everywhere
matters went not smoothly with the English, went on board
ship, with his mother and sisters, and tried to get back to the
country where he was born. But the Sovereign Ruler, who
rules the winds and waves, troubled the sea, and the billows
thereof were upheaved by the breath of the gale ; so, while the
stonn was raging, they all, losing all hope of life, commended
themselves to God, and left the vessel to the guidance of the
waves. Accordingly, after many dangers and huge toils, God
took pity on His forlorn children, for when no help from man
seems to be forthcoming, we must needs have recourse to God's
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK V. 201
help — and at length, tossed in the countless dangers of the deep,
they were forced to bring up in Scotland. So that holy family
brought up in a certain spot which was thenceforth called Saint
Margaret's Bay by the inhabitants. We believe that this did
not come about by chance, but that they arrived there through
the providence of God Most High. While, then, the aforesaid
family tarried in that bay, and were aU awaiting in fear the
upshot of the matter, news of their arrival was brought to
King Malcolm, who at that time was, with his men, staying not
far from that spot ; so he sent off messengers to the ship, to
inquire into the truth of the matter. When the messengers
came there, they were astonished at the unusual size of the
ship, and hurried back to the king as fast as they could, to
state what they had seen. On hearing these things, the king-
sent off thither, from among his highest lords, a larger embassy
of men more experienced than the former. So these, being wel-
comed as ambassadors from the king's majesty, carefully noted,
not without admiration, the lordliness of the men, the beauty
of the women, and the good-breeding of the whole family ; and
they had pleasant talk thereon among themselves. To be brief
— the ambassadors chosen for this duty plied them with ques-
tions, in sweet words and dulcet eloquence, as to how the thing
began, went on, and ended ; while they, on the other hand, as
guests newly come, humbly and eloquently unfolded to them, in
simple words, the cause and manner of their arrival. So the
ambassadors returned ; and when they had informed their king
of the stateliness of the older men, and the good sense of the
younger, the ripe womanhood of the matrons, and the loveliness
of the young girls, one of them went on to say : — " We saw a
lady there — whom, by the bye, from the matchless beauty of her
person, and the ready flow of her pleasant eloquence, teem-
ing, moreover, as she did, with all other qualities, I declare to
thee, 0 king, that I suspect, in my opinion, to be the mistress
of that family — whose admirable loveliness and gentleness one
must admire, as I deem, rather than describe." And no wonder
they believed her to be the mistress ; for she was not only the
mistress of that family, but also the heiress of the whole of
England, after her brother ; and God's providence had predes-
tined her to be Malcolm's future queen, and the sharer of his
throne. But the king, hearing that they were English, and
were there present, went in person to see them and talk
with them ; and made fuller inquiries whence they had come,
and whither they were going. For he had learnt the English
and Eoman tongues fully as well as his own, when, after his
father's death, he had remained fifteen years in England ; where.
202 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
from his knowledge of this holy family, he may happen to have
heard somewhat to make him deal more gently, and behave
more kindly, towards them.
CHAPTEK XV.
King Malcolm weds Saint Margaret — He gladly welcomes all
English fugitives.
The king, therefore, says Turgot again, when he had seen
Margaret, and learnt that she was begotten of royal, and even
imperial, seed, sought to have her to wife, and got her : for
Edgar Atheling, her brother, gave her away to him, rather
through the wish of his friends than his own — nay, by God's
behest. For as Hester of old was, through God's providence,
for the salvation of her fellow-countrymen, joined in wedlock
to King Ahasuerus, even so was this princess joined to the most
illustrious King Malcolm. Nor was she, however, in bondage ;
but she had abundant riches, which her uncle, the king of
England, had formerly given to her father, Edward, as being his
heir (whom also the Koman emperor, Henry, himself, had sent
to England, as we stated a little ago, graced with no small gifts),
and a very large share thereof tlie holy queen brought over with
her to Scotland. She brought, besides, many relics of saints,
more precious than any stone or gold. Among these was
that holy Cross, which they call the black, no less feared thaii
loved by all Scottish men, through veneration for its holiness.
The wedding took place in the year 1070, and was held, with
great magnificence, not far from the bay where she brought up,
at a place called Dunfermline, which was then the king's town.
For that place was of itself most strongly fortified by nature, being
begirt by very thick woods, and protected by steep crags. In the
midst thereof was a fair plain, likewise protected by crags and
streams ; so that one might think that was the spot whereof it
was said : — " Scarce man or beast may tread its pathless wilds."
Malcolm, says William, gladly welcomed all the English fugi-
tives, affording to each such protection as was in his power — to
Edgar, to Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury, and to Aldred of
York — but especially to Edgar, whose sister he made his con-
sort, out of regard for her old and noble descent. On his
behalf, Malcolm harried the border provinces of England with
fire and rapine. This king Malcolm, with his men, and Edgar,
Marcher and Waldeof, with the English and Danes, often
brooded over that nest of oppression, York, the only stronghold of
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK V. 203
rebellion ; and there they often killed William's leaders, whose
deaths I should, perhaps, not be doing too much were I to
recount one by one. These two, Stigand and Aldred, the chiefs
of the clergy, had been in London when this Edgar, the son of
Edward, son of Edmund Ironside, would, after King Edward's
death, and likewise after William's victory, have been raised to
the throne by all the others, had they themselves not wickedly
withstood them. Of them — and of all the rest, I think — was it
said by the prophet — " Judge ye justly, 0 children of men ! "
And seeing they judged unjustly, God justly brought again the
same judgment upon their heads ; so that, being straightway
ousted from all their property, they sought a place of refuge
under the wings of him they had unjustly spurned from them ;
and they secretly arrived in Scotland.
CHAPTEE XVI.
The Sons and Daughters he begat of Margaret — Ravages he
commits in England.
Margaret, says Turgot, was, as already stated, joined in
wedlock to this most illustrious man, Malcolm, king of the
Scots, in the year 1070, the fourteenth year of his reign. Some,
however, have written that it was in the year 1067. Her sister
Christina, for her part, is blessed as the bride of Christ. Mal-
colm begat, of Margaret, six sons : namely, Edward, Edmund,
Ethelred, Edgar, Alexander, and that most vigorous and
courteous of kings, David ; and two daughters, Matilda, after-
wards queen of England, and surnamed the good, and Mary,
countess of Boulogne — of each of whom we shall speak pre-
sently, in the proper place. Of how great w^orthiness was this
blessed Queen Margaret in the eyes of God and man, her
praiseworthy life, death, and miracles, a book written thereon
wiU show forth to those who read it. So writes Turgot.
Many a time, however, did the king, from the earliest days of
William the Bastard's reign even until after his death, march
into the northern provinces of England, with a strong hand,
wasting and destroying all things round about ; taking away,
in a hostile manner, by spoiling and plunder, all that had breath ;
and consuming with fire and sword, from off the face of the
earth, all he did not take away for the use of man. He like-
wise carried off countless crowds of people ; so that there was
hardly a house or cottage in his kingdom that did not shelter
some prisoner of the male or female sex. But who can unfold
204 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
and tell how many of these the blessed queen, the king's consort,
ransomed, and restored to freedom — these whom the violence of
their foes had carried off from among the English folk, and re-
duced to slavery ? But the king kept continually coming into
England, destroying and spoiling ; and laid Northumbria waste
beyond the river Tees. At length he came to an understanding
with the nobles of the whole of Northumbria, after having slain
Walcherius, bishop of Durham, and many others, at Gateshead.
The whole country, except some castles, surrendered to him,
and all the inhabitants submitted and swore fealty to him.
Now, though Malcolm was bound to do homage to William
the Bastard for twelve towns situated in England, he threw
off his allegiance on some provocation from certain Normans,
and, in his fearful raids, heaped upon them these unbearable
disasters which they well deserved. About the twelfth year
of Henry IV., says Vincentius, the Scots kept making inroads
upon England on one side, and the French on the other ; and
the English were wasted by famine to such a degree, that some
fed on human flesh, and many on horse-flesh.
CHAPTEE XVII.
The Northumbrians give hostages to King Malcolm, and cleave to
him — He routs William's brother, Odo,
At that time King William, after he had got the king-
dom, and arranged everything to his satisfaction, besieged the
castle of Dol, in the parts beyond the sea, and was forced to
raise the siege by the strong hand of the French king, Philip.
Eobert Curthose, also, his eldest son, made war upon his father
in aid of King Philip ; for William would not give him Nor-
mandy, as he had promised him in that king's presence. A few
days afterwards, however, peace was established, and William
and his son were reconciled. Now while William was still in
Normandy, news reached him that some of the dwellers in his
borders — the inhabitants of North umbria, to wit — had gone
over from him to King Malcolm ; so, to get them back, he sent
against them, with a large force, his brother, Odo, bishop of
Bayeux, whom he had made earl of Kent. The Northumbrians,
however, having already given hostages to King Malcolm, held
fast to the Scots ; and, after wasting their country, Odo went
back to the south. Malcolm pursued the retreating Odo, in-
flicting some loss on his troops ; and, pouring his host about
the banks of the river Huniber, he destroyed the lands of the
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK V. 205
Normans and English round about, with incredible slaughter,
and returned to his native land with booty and spoils without
end. But King William, unable to brook the never-tiring in-
roads of this outbreak, sent his son Kobert to Scotland, to make
war upon King Malcolm. Eobert, however, achieved nothing ;
and, on his return, built Newcastle-upon-Tyne. For long after
William liad invaded England, many Northumbrian and southern
lords, being supported by the help of the Scots, for many
years held the city of York and the whole country, and made
frequent inroads and most cruel outbreaks against the Nor-
mans across the river Humber. Now Earl Waldeof, Siward's
son, whom King Malcolm always held his most faithful friend,
and whom King William feared above all the English who had
withstood him, was craftily entrapped by the latter, by a
marriage with his niece Judith, and taken ; and after he had
long kept him in chains, William bade him be beheaded. His
dead body was brought down to Croyland, and buried there.
And God there showed that it is a true opinion which asserts
that his death w^as wrongful; for, in His mercy. He works
numberless miracles through him. Waldeof, singly, to use
William's own words, had cut down many of the Normans, at
the battle of York — cutting off their heads, as they marched in
one by one through the gate. He had sinewy arms, a brawny
chest, and was tall and sturdy in his whole body ; and they
surnamed him Bigera, a Danish word which means strong. But
King William, coming back from his expeditions across the sea,
in the fifteenth year of his reign, laid the whole of Northumbria
waste.
CHAPTEE XVIIL
Virtuous and Charitable works of King Malcolm and the Queen.
I WILL here shortly repeat somewhat of the virtuous works
and almsgiving of that high-minded King Malcolm, as Turgot
bears witness in his Legend of the Life of the blessed queen.
For, as David the prophet sang in the Psalm, *' with the holy
shalt thou be holy," even so did the king himself learn, from the
exhortations of the holy queen, to rejoice in holy works, and to
keep his heart from iniquity. Doubtless he was afraid in any
way to shock that queen, so estimable in her life, when he saw
that Christ dwelt in her heart ; and would rather hasten with
all speed to obey her wishes and wise advice. Whatever, also,
she eschewed he was wont to eschew ; and in his love, to love
206 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
whatever she loved ; and he learnt, by her example, oftentimes
to pass the watches of the night in prayer, and most devoutly
to pray to God with groans and tears from the heart. I confess,
says Turgot, I confess I wondered at that great miracle of God's
mercy, when I sometimes saw the king's great earnestness in
prayer, and such great compunction in praying in the breast of
a layman. In Lent, and the days of Advent, before Christmas, the
king, unless prevented by great press of secular business, was
wont, after he had gone through matins, and the celebration of
the mass at daybreak, to come back into his chamber, where he
and the queen would wash the feet of six beggars, and lay out
something to comfort their poverty. Meanwhile, as the poor
became more numerous, it became customary that they should
be brought into the king's court ; and while they sat round in
a row, the king and queen would walk in, and the gates be shut
by the servants. Thus, except the chaplains, some monks, and
a few servants, no one was allowed to be present at their alms-
giving. Then the king on the one side, and the queen on the
other, served Christ in the poor, with great devoutness hand-
ing them meat and drink specially prepared for that purpose.
Indeed the king and queen were both equal in works of charity
— both remarkable for their godly behaviour. After this, the
king was wont to busy himself anxiously with things of this
world, and affairs of state ; while the queen would go to church,
and there, with long-drawn prayers, and tearful sobs, heartily
offer herself a sacrifice unto God. So far Turgot.
CHAPTER XIX.
Deatli of William the Bastard — He could not go to his grave
without challenge — Good understanding come to between
William Bufus, son of William, and Malcolm — Virtues of
Malcolm and his queen.
In the thirty-first year of King Malcolm, William the Bas-
tard, king of England, died at Rouen ; and his body was taken
down the Seine to Caen. Thence, says William, might be seen
the wretchedness of earthly vicissitude ; — that man, formerly
the glory of aU Europe, and more powerful than any of his
predecessors, could not, without challenge, find a place of ever-
lasting rest. For a certain knight, to whose patrimony that place
belonged, loudly protested against the robbery, and forbade the
burial : saying that the ground was his own, by right of his
forebears ; and that the king ought not to rest in any place wliich
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK V. 207
he had seized by force. Whereupon, at the desire of Henry, the
only one of his sons who was there, a hundred pounds of silver
were paid to this brawler, and set his audacious challenge at
rest. In the same year of our Lord — namely, 1087 — his son
William Rufus succeeded to the English throne, and reigned
' thirteen years. In the fifth year of his reign, he and his brother
Eobert combined against their younger brother Henry, and
during the whole of Lent, laid siege to Mount St. Michael, across
the sea; but without success. At length peace was made
between them ; and William, coming back with his two brothers,
encountered King Malcolm, who was laying Northumbria waste.
Peace was then made between them, by Earl Eobert, on these
terms : that the king of Scotland should obey King William ;
that William should restore to Malcolm the twelve towns the
latter had held under William's father ; and that Malcolm also
should give twelve golden merks a year. This King William,
when about to fight against his brother in Normandy, put an end
to the war, says William, without achieving what he had aimed
at ; and as the turbulence of the Scots and Welsh called him
away, he betook himself to his kingdom, with both his brothers.
He then at once set on foot an expedition, first, against the
Welsh, and then, against the Scots ; but he did nothing striking
or worthy of his greatness, and lost many of his knights, both
killed and taken prisoners. At that time, however, through the
efforts of Earl Eobert, who had long since gained the good
graces of the Scots, a good understanding was brought about
between Malcolm and William. Nevertheless there were many
disputes on both sides, and justice wavered by reason of the
fierce enmity of the two nations. This same Malcolm fell, the
second year after, rather through guile than force, by the hand
of the men of the Northumbrian earl Eobert Mowbray. Now
when his wife, Margaret, a woman remarkable for her alms-
giving and her modesty, got news of his death, she was sick of
lingering in this life, and prayerfully besought God for death.
They were both remarkable for their godly behaviour — but she
especially. For during the whole of her lifetime, wherever she
might be, she had twenty-four beggars whom she supplied with
food and clothing. In Lent, forestalling the chanting of the
priests, she used to watch all night in church, herself assisting
at triple matins — of the Trinity, of the Cross, and of St. Mary ;
and afterwards repeating the Psalter, with tears bedewing her
raiment and upheaving her breast. Then she would walk
out of church, and feed the poor — first three, then nine, then
twenty-four, at last three hundred — herself standing by with
the king, and pouring water on their hands. So far William.
208 JOHN OF fordun's chronicle
CHAPTEE XX.
Foundation of the Church of Durham hy Malcolm — Siege of tlie
Castle of Murealden hy the same — He and his Son slain there.
This King Malcolm, practising these and the like works of
piety, as we read in Turgot, began to found and to build the
new church of Durham — this same King Malcolm, William,
bishop of that church, and Turgot, the prior, laying the first
stones in the foundation. He had likewise, long before, founded
the church of the Holy Trinity at Dunfermline, and endowed it
with many offerings and revenues. But when he had, in his
wonted manner, many a time carried off much plunder out of
England, beyond the river Tees — from Cleveland, Kichmond, and
elsewhere — and besieged the Castle of Alnwick (or Murealden,
which is the same thing), smiting sore those of the besieged
who made head against him, those who had been shut in, being
shut out from all help of man, and acknowledging that they had
not strength to cope with so mighty and impetuous an army,
held a council, and brought to bear a novel device of treachery,
on this wise : — One, more experienced than the rest, mighty in
strength, and bold in deed, offered to risk death, so as either
to deliver himself unto death, or free his comrades from death.
So he warily approached the king's army, and courteously asked
where the king was, and which was he. But when they ques-
tioned him as to the motive of his inquiries, he said that he
would betray the castle to the king ; and, as a proof of good
faith, he canied on his lance, in the sight of all, the keys there-
of, which he was going to hand over. On hearing this, the
king, who knew no guile, incautiously sprang out of his tent
unarmed, and came unawares upon the traitor. The latter, who
had looked for this opportunity, being armed himself, ran the
unarmed king through, and hastily plunged into the cover of a
neighbouring wood. And thus died that vigorous king, in the
year 1093, on the 13th of November, to wit — Saint Brice's day.
The army was thus thrown into confusion. And grief was heaped
upon grief: for Edward, the king's firstborn, was mortally
wounded, and met his fate on the 15th of November, in the
year above noted — the third day after his father — at Edwardisle,
in the forest of Jedwart. He was buried beside his father,
before the altar of the Holy Cross, in the Church of the Holy
Trinity, at Dunfermline. King Malcolm, after he was killed,
says William, for many years lay buried at Tynemouth ; and
he was afterwards conveyed to Scotland, to Dunfermline, by his
son Alexander.
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK V. 209
CHAPTER XXL
Death of Saint Margaret — Siege of the Castle of Maidens hy
Donald, the King's hrother, who invades the Kingdom —
Flight of the King's Sons oiU of the Kingdom.
When the queen, who had before been racked with many in-
firmities, almost unto death, heard this — or, rather, foreknew it
through the Holy Ghost — she shrived, and devoutly took the
Communion in church ; and, commending herself unto God in
prayer, she gave back her saintly soul to heaven, in the Castle
of Maidens (Edinburgh), on the 16th of November, the fourth
day after the king. Whereupon, while the holy queen's body
was still in the castle where her happy soul had passed away to
Christ, whom she had always loved, Donald the Eed, or Donald
Bane, the king's brother, having heard of her death, invaded
the kingdom, at the head of a numerous band, and in hostilewise
besieged the aforesaid castle, where he knew the king's rightful
and lawful heirs were. But, forasmuch as that spot is in itself
strongly fortified by nature, he thought that the gates only
should be guarded, because it was not easy to see any other
entrance or outlet. When those who were within understood
this, being taught of God, through the merits, we believe, of the
holy queen, they brought down her holy body by a postern on
the western side. Some, indeed, tell us that, during the whole
of that journey, a cloudy mist was round about all this family,
and miraculously sheltered them from the gaze of any of their
foes, so that nothing hindered them as they journeyed by land
or by sea ; but they brought her away, as she had herself before
bidden them, and prosperously reached the place they wished —
namely, the church of Dunfermline, where she now rests in
Christ. And thus did Donald come by the kingdom, having
ousted the true heirs. Meanwhile Edgar Atheling, brother to
the just mentioned queen, fearing that it might be with his
nephews as the common saying is, " Trust not the sharer of thy
throne," thought it, therefore, safer to take them away for a
time, than to intrust them to their uncle, that they might reign
with him ; — for every one seeks a partner in sin, but no one
does so in the kingship. Wherefore he gathered together the
sons and daughters of the king and of the queen, his sister,
and, secretly bringing them over with him into England, sent
them to be brought up by his kinsmen and acquaintances,
not openly, but in hiding, as it were. For he feared lest the
Normans — who had, at that time, seized England — should try
VOL. II. 0
210 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
to bring evil upon him and his, seeing that the throne of
England was their due by hereditary right ; and, though he
had stayed there in secret, as it were, for a short time, yet it
was told the king that he was mixed up in treason against him.
And thus what he dreaded befell him on this wise.
CHAPTEE XXII.
An Englishman, Orgar hy name, cTiallen^es Edgar Atheling to
single combat for treason against King William II.
At that time, while William ii. was reigning, a certain re-
creant English knight, Orgar by name, wishing to curry favour
with the king, came forward and challenged this Edgar Clito,
that is, of glorious hirth — for so they called him — for treason
against the aforesaid King William. Thereupon the cause was
brought before the king, for Edgar was begotten of the kingly
stock, and was, by rights, the nearest to the English throne.
So the king, thinking that he had good reason to beware,
upheld the plaintiff with his kingly might and protection ; nor
could there have been any doubt as to Edgar's sentence, if
the offence he was charged with could have been proved.
This made Edgar anxious; and he began busily to inquire
whether any one would dare to take up his cause either by
word or counsel. But, though he promised a reward, fear of
the king stood in his way : because the nobility believed they
could not, with impunity, side with him ; for they would have
incuiTed the king's hatred by defending him. While he was in
suspense, therefore, and downcast with deep anxiety, a knight
of Winton, named Godwin, an Englishman by birth, and of
no mean blood, being not unmindful of Edgar's ancient
parentage, engaged to lend him his help in this awkward
matter. Now the day fixed for the settlement of this cause
was already at hand. There, straightway, stood the plaintiff,
with his supercilious bearing — who, because he seemed to
excel in bodily strength, and by reason of his skill in war, in
which he was well versed, deemed that no one was his match in
battle. Moreover, the king's favour heightened this conceit;
and he was thereby so puffed up that he believed he could
easily prove whatever he chose to lay to another's charge.
Since, therefore, he had thus challenged him, Edgar was forced
to defend himself in single combat, or to get another to fight in
his stead ; for, by getting a judgment in this way, he hoped to
establish the truth of the matter. Godwin, therefore, having
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK V. 211
taken up Edgar's cause, by means of an oath on either side, as
is customary, stood forth as Edgar's champion. Soon there
was much warlike arraying on either side, and they came
together to battle. Orgar, puffed up with the king's favour,
and hedged about with the king's hangers-on, marched on-
wards glittering with arms showily bedight. Godwin, on the
other hand, entered the lists with a no less confident heart,
though he was not, like his opponent, backed up by the leaders
who sided with the king. Now Godwin, though he dreaded
the king's wrath for upholding the opposite side, nevertheless
rightly deemed that he owed it to nature to take up the cause
of one who, as he knew, ought naturally and rightly to have
dominion over him and the rest, as their leader. And hence he
upbraided the challenger with just reproof: inasmuch as the
latter, being an Englishman by birth, seemed to fight against
nature; for that he ought to reverence Edgar as his lord, as
being, by right of birth, one to whom he owed himself and all
he had. But when a herald had imposed silence on all, the
judge threw within the lists the wagers of battle of both, and
appealed to God, from Whom nothing is hid, to show forth the
truth in this cause. So the matter was, in the end, referred to
arms, and the cause to the Supreme Judge.
CHAPTER XXIII.
H| Duel — The Challenger is slain by Godwin of Winton.
They each went at the other, without loss of time, — the
plaintiff and the defendant. Soon stroke followed stroke on
either side. Orgar charged, and while the other received the
blow upon his shield, tore off a good piece of the shield. Nor
was Godwin idle, for his wrath was kindled by that heavy
stroke ; and, while the other incautiously bent down his shield,
he rose to the stroke, and dealt him a blow between the head and
shoulder, hewing through the knots of his corslet, and that bone
which joins the left shoulder to the neck. But by this blow
the sword-hilt was loosened, and cheated the striker's hand ; so
the sword slipped out of the hand that held it. When his foe
perceived this, though he was badly wounded, and his left hand
was disabled, yet he plied his adversary more sorely, and thought
to have disabled him the more easily that the latter lacked
the aid of that wherewith especially he was to have fought.
But that hope beguiled its lord ; for Godwin, though his adver-
sary withstood him with his whole might, thrust forward his
212 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
shield, and between the dreadful blows of the striker, picked up
from the ground the sword that had just slipped from his grasp.
But, as he could not grip it tight because of the thinness of the
hilt, he grasped the edge of the sword with the first and second
fingers ; and though he could not, in striking, hurt his adversary
without hurting himself, yet he seemed not behind his adversary
in thrusting and showering deadly strokes. For he neither
gave way before the attacks of his foe, nor left off his blows.
With one stroke, indeed, he put out his adversary's eye, and
cut his head open ; and, with a second, he wounded so sore the
remaining part of his false foe's body, and brought it to nought,
that Orgar no longer tried to keep his feet, but fell grovelling
on the ground, almost dead. And now, with great clattering
of armour, Godwin nimbly set his foot upon his prostrate foe, and
all at once the enemy's treachery and cunning now came out,
and were laid bare, and he was openly found guilty of perjury :
for, he drew out a knife, which was hidden in his boot, and
strove to stab Godwin ; whereas, before the conflict was begun,
he had sworn that he would carry no weapons in this duel but
such as became a knight. But he soon paid the penalty of his
perjury. So, when the dagger was wrested from him, and hope
forsook the guilty man, he straightway confessed his crime.
This confession, however, was of no use to him in prolonging
his life; for he was stabbed all over, wound after wound,
until the violent pain and deep wounds drove out his ungodly
soul. When the chances, therefore, of this battle were thus
at an end, all wondered and were praising the righteous
judgment of God, — seeing that, while the challenger was over-
thrown, he who was the defender of truth and innocence did
not get a single wound from his assailant. And thenceforth,
by reason of his signal display of valour, he became a great
favourite with both king and leaders ; and the king even granted
him the lands and property of his worsted foe in posses-
sion by hereditary right. But Edgar Atheling, also, being
thus proved most faithful to the king, became, moreover, his
great friend ; and the latter, furthermore, endowed him with
many gifts and honours.
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK V. 213
CHAPTEE XXIV.
Duncan, Malcolm's illegitimate so7i, wrests the kingdom from his
uncle Donald — His death — Donald recovers the kingdom — At
this time the King of Norway takes 'possession of our Isles.
Now when the throne of Scotland had been usurped by-
Donald, King Malcolm's lawful heirs — that is to say, Edgar,
Alexander, and David, who, though the least in years, was
nevertheless endowed with the greatest virtue — tarried in
England through fear of him. For, as stated below, the king's
three other older sons were not then living. Edward, as
was said, was slain with his father. About Ethelred I find
nothing certain, in any writings, as to where he died or was
buried ; except that, as some assert, he lies buried in Saint
Andrew's Church at Kilremont. Edmund, a vigorous man,
and devout in God's service, after his death was buried at
Montacute, in England. William, however, has written that
Edmund's death happened otherwise, as will be seen afterwards
in the sequel. Meanwhile Duncan, King Malcolm's illegitimate
son, when he was with King William Kufus, in England, as a
hostage, was by him dubbed knight; and, backed up by his help,
he arrived in Scotland, put his uncle Donald to flight, and was
set up as king. But when he had reigned a year and six months,
he fell slain at Monthechin by the Earl of Mernys, by name
Malpetri, in Scottish, Malpedir, through the wiles of his uncle
Donald, whom he had often vanquished in battle ; and he was
buried in the island of lona. After his death, Donald again
usurped the kingship, and held it for three years ; while he had
reigned for six months before Duncan. And thus after King
Malcolm's death, so sad for the Scots, these two — Donald and
Duncan, to wit — reigned five years between them. Now
William, writing about the aforesaid Edmund, says : — Of the
sons of the king and Margaret, Edmund was the only one who
fell away from goodness. Partaking of his uncle Donald's
wickedness, he was privy to his brother Duncan's death, having,
forsooth, bargained with his uncle for half the kingdom. But
being taken, and kept in fetters for ever, he sincerely repented ;
and, when at death's door, he bade them bury him in his
chains, confessing that he was worthily punished for the crime
of fratricide. While these, then — namely, Donald, Duncan, and
Edgar, too — were struggling for the kingdom in this wise, the
king of the Noricans (Northmen), Magnus, the son of King Olave,
214 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
son of King Harold surnamed Harfager, sweeping the gulfs of
the sea with a host of seamen, subdued the Orkneys to his
dominion, and the Mevanian islands, both of Scotland and
England (Man and the Western Isles), which, indeed, for the
most part, used to belong to Scotland by ancient right. For
the Scots continued, without any break, to hold these same
islands from the time of Ethdacus Eothay, Simon Brek's great-
grandson, who was the first of all the Scots to dwell in the
islands — about five hundred years before the Scottish king
Fergus, son of Feradach, entered the soil of Albion — even until
now, for a space of nearly two thousand years.
CHAPTER XXV.
Return of Malcolm's sons from England — Flight of Donald
from battle.
Meanwhile, when Edgar Clito saw that Donald had wickedly
usurped the throne of Scotland, which, by right, belonged to his
nephews, and that he would not restore it, though more than
once besought thereto by ambassadors, by a friendly inter-
vention, he was stirred to wrath. So he gathered together
from all sides a vast number of his friends, and being
strengthened by the aforesaid King William's help, set out
against Donald in order to drive him out, and appoint, as king
of Scotland, his nephew, Edgar, a younger son of King Mal-
colm and his sister Margaret. While, therefore, young Edgar
was hastening towards his native soil, and was in fear of the
turbulence of his foes, Saint Cuthbert stood before him, in the
stillness of night, and said : — " Fear not, my son ; for God has
been pleased to give thee the kingdom. And this shall be a
token unto thee : When thou shalt have taken my standard with
thee from the monastery of Durham, and set it up against thine
adversaries, I shall up and help thee ; and thy foes shall be
scattered, and those that hate thee shall flee before thy face ! "
When the young man awoke, he reported the matter to his
uncle Edgar ; and, committing himself and all his friends to
God and to the patronage of Saint Cuthbert, he carried out,
with a stout heart, what the saint had encouragingly bidden
him do. When, afterwards, the armies met, and Saint Cuth-
bert's standard was raised aloft, a certain knight of English birth,
named Robert, the son of the aforesaid Godwin, and the heir
and rival of his father's prowess, being accompanied by only two
knights, charged the enemy, and slew their mightiest, who stood
r
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK V. 215
out, like champions, in front of the line of battle. So, be-
fore the armies had neared one another, Donald and his men
were put to flight ; and thus, by the favour of God and the
merits of Saint Cuthbert, Edgar happily achieved a bloodless
victory. See how a faithful home-born people is afraid to with-
stand its true and liege lord — and so forth, as already shown
in Chapter viii. Let, therefore, the lawless usurpers of king-
doms beware, and shrink from leading a faithful people to war
against their lawful and liege lord, or his heir, any more than
a good son against his father. But Edgar, being now in better
heart, revived the manly courage of his men — though, indeed,
that was not needed — and marched into the kingdom of his
fathers, which rightfully belonged to him ; and, as he marched
in, the kingdom was joyfully offered him by the inhabitants,
with none to hinder or gainsay; and he accepted it, and
governed it gloriously ever after.
I CHAPTER XXVI.
' Accession of King Edgar, Malcolm's son, to the Throne — Donations
made to Saint Cuthhert
f In the year 1098, therefore — the forty-second of the Emperor
Henry, — Edgar, son of King Malcolm and Margaret, suc-
ceeded his uncle Donald, and reigned nine years and some
months. Donald himself, indeed, was by him taken prisoner,
blinded, and doomed to perpetual imprisonment. Now, when
Edgar had been peacefully raised to the throne, and had under-
taken to order all things according to his will, he remembered
that saying of Solomon's, " In the days of prosperity be not
unmindful of adversity." So he was not unmindful of his
leader. Saint Cuthbert ; and gave, granted, and confirmed to the
monks of Durham, in perpetuity, his estate of Coldingham, with
all the pertinents thereof. This princely man ani bounti-
ful king likewise heaped gift on gift ; for he gave and confirmed
in possession to the bishop of Durham and his successors, the
noble village of Berwick, with its appurtenances. This great
gift of the king's the whole bishopric thankfully received, and
held it in happy peace ; until Ranulf, the bishop, proved him-
self unworthy of it — and justly so — on this wise. While King
Edgar was on his way to William ii., king of England, that
Eobert, son of Godwin, of whom mention was made above,
tarried, with the king's leave, on an estate the king had given
him, in Laudonia (Lothian) ; and while he was seeking to build
216 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
a castle there, he was at last, all of a sudden, beset and taken
by the countrymen and barons of Durham — and that same
Bishop Eanulf was at the bottom of it. In being thus taken,
however, he left a signal remembrance of his bravery among the
dwellers in the whole country. Now when Edgar, on his
return, heard of this, he brought Eobert, who had been set free
by order of the king of England, back with him to Scotland,
in great honour; and whatever he had previously given the
bishop, he took back to himself — being thoroughly well advised
therein. In the eleventh year of King William ii., says William,
Magnus, king of the Noricans (Norwegians), who has been spoken
of above, subdued by his arms the Orkney Islands, the Me-
vanian, and whatever other islands lie in the sea ; and while he
was steadily making his way to England, by Anglesea, he was
met by Hugh Earl of Chester, and Hugh Earl of Shrewsbury,
and driven out by their arms. Hugh of Shrewsbury fell there.
CHAPTEK XXVII.
Marriage of Edgar's sisters, Matilda to Henry King of Englaiid,
and Mary to Eustace Count of Boulogne — Their sons and
daughters — Edgar's death.
Now this King Edgar was a sweet and amiable man, like his
kinsman, the holy King Edward, in every way ; using no harsh-
ness, no tyrannical or bitter treatment towards his subjects ; but
ruling and correcting them with the greatest charity, goodness,
and loving-kindness. In the fourth year of his reign, on the
2d of August, William Rufus, king of England, having gone out
hunting in the New Forest, was unknowingly, and without malice
aforethought, slain by Walter Tirel, a knight from over the sea,
while the latter was letting fly a shaft at some wild beast. The
king fell without uttering a word afterwards, thus in one short
hour atoning for many misdeeds. He was at once deserted by
all his train ; and being carried away on a cart by some country-
men, he was buried under the tower at Winchester. He was
succeeded in the kingship by his younger brother Henry, sur-
named Beauclerk, to whom this King Edgar, the same year, gave
his sister Matilda to wife. She was anointed and consecrated
queen the following Martinmas, by Archbishop Auselm. But
Mary, his younger sister, Edgar gave in marriage to Eustace
the younger. Count of Bouillon. The characters of these sisters,
and their good deeds, will be afterwards, in this little book, in
some wise shown forth to whoever would know somewhat there-
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK V. 217
of. But this same Henry, king of England, begat, of Queen
Matilda, a son named William ; who, when seventeen years of
age, together with his illegitimate brother Eichard, his sister and
niece, Eichard, Earl of Chester, and many nobles, both men and
women, as well as 140 knights and 50 seamen, was drowned in
the sea at Barbefloth, while coming back to England from Nor-
mandy with his father. The king barely escaped with a few
followers. The king likewise begat, of Matilda, a daughter
named Matilda; who, worthy of an empire by her wisdom,
beauty, and wealth, wedded Henry, the Eoman emperor. To
this Matilda, Henry, king of England, her father, made all the
English lords swear fealty, before he crossed the sea a second
time ; for he had no heir to the throne but her. Then the afore-
said Eustace, Count of Boulogne, begat of the aforesaid Mary,
Queen Matilda's sister, a daughter, likewise named Matilda,
who married a man of great vigour, begotten of a stock equally
of kings and of consuls, Stephen, Count of Mauritania (Moriton),
King Henry's nephew, and afterwards king of England. Though
I pass over the daughters, I hold up the mothers as a pattern
to all living. For, while beset by the pomps of this world,
they were rich in holy virtues — a thing rarely found ; tended
the poor of both sexes, of whatever condition they might be,
as though they were Christ's members ; and most ten-
derly cherished men of religious orders, clerics, priests, and
monks, with singleness of love, as their patrons, and men who
with Christ were to be their judges. But after Edgar had
reigned nine years and three months in happy peace, as was
said above, he ended his life at Dundee on the 8th of January,
and was entombed in the church of Dunfermline, before the
great altar.
CHAPTEE XXVIII.
Accession of his brother Alexander, surnamed Fers —
His character.
He was succeeded by his brother Alexander, surnamed Fers
(fierce), in the year 1107 — the first of the emperor Henry v.,
who wedded Matilda, this Alexander's niece, and daughter of
Henry, king of England, and the good Queen Matilda. Henry
held the empire twenty years ; and King Alexander reigned
seventeen. Now the king was a lettered and godly man ; very
humble and amiable towards the clerics and regulars, but
terrible beyond measure to the rest of his subjects ; a man of
218 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
large heart, exerting himself in all things beyond his strength.
He was most zealous in building churches, in searching for
relics of saints, in providing and arranging priestly vestments
and sacred books ; most open-handed, even beyond his means,
to all new comers ; and so devoted to the poor, that he seemed
to delight in nothing so much as in supporting them, washing,
nourishing, and clothing them. For, following in his mother's
footsteps, he vied with her in pious acts so much, tliat, with
regard to three churches — Saint Andrew's church at Kilremont,
to wit, and the churches of Dunfermline and Scone, one of them
founded by his father and mother, and the other founded and
erected by himself at Scone, the chief seat of government, in
honour of the Holy Trinity and the Archangel Saint Michael —
he endowed them with offerings so many and so great, that his
descendants rather impoverished them than added unto them ;
save that his illustrious successor and brother David kept them
in good condition, and by his gifts raised Dunfermline especially
— where he himself also rests — and enlarged it by fresh bmldings.
(Alexander also founded the monastery of Canons of the island
of Emonia (Inchcolm), by Inverkeithing.) He it was who be-
stowed the Boar's Chase upon the blessed Andrew. He it was,
likewise, who gave so many privileges to the aforesaid church
of the Holy Trinity, at Scone. He had founded and built it
on the spot where both the Scottish and Pictish kings had
whilom established the chief seat of government; and, when con-
structed with a framework of stone, according to the custom of
that time, he had had it dedicated — to which dedication, by
strict order of the king, nearly the whole kingdom flocked.
That church, indeed, with all its pertinents, he freely made over,
God so ordering it, to the governance of canons-regular called
from the church of Saint Oswald at Nostle (Nastlay, near Ponte-
fract), and of the others after them who should serve God, until
the end of the world.
CHAPTER XXIX.
Death of his sisters, namely, Queen Matilda and the Countess
Mary — Their holy acts — Their burial.
In the eleventh year of this Alexander's reign, his sister
Matilda, surnamed the Good, queen of England, died on the 1st
of May, and was buried with honour in the church of the
Apostle Saint Peter, at Westminster, in London, in the chapel
behind the great altar. In the midst thereof, on the top of a
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK V. 219
tomb tastefully and cunningly fashioned, with costly work-
manship, are enshrined the remains of the holy King Edward ;
and, round about the tomb, kings are buried in state. On this
queen's virtues some one has written these lines : —
" Weal brought no joys to her, no sorrow woe ;
She smiled at woe ; 'twas weal she dreaded so.
Beauty no frailty brought, nor sceptre pride ;
Meekness her might, shame did her beauty hide.
May's opening day, when night enthralled us here,
Took her away to Day's eternal sphere."
I also, some time ago, read another epitaph of hers, hung upon
that same tomb, and written in letters of gold, thus : — " Here
lies Matilda, the good queen of England, whilom wife of King
Henry I., and daughter of Malcolm, king of Scotland, and his
wife. Saint Margaret. She died in the year 1117. A day would
not suffice to tell of all her goodness and uprightness of
character." William says : — Matilda, King Henry's wife,
daughter of Malcolm, king of the Scots, was descended from an
old and illustrious stock of kings. She was, from a tender age,
remarkable for holiness ; rivalling her mother in godliness ;
never allowing anything wrong in her manners, as far as she
herself was concerned ; and, but for the king's bed, of un-
blemished chastity, and unscathed even by suspicion. Wrapped
in hair-cloth under her regal dress, she used, in Lent, to wear
out the thresholds of the churches with her bare feet ; nor did
she shrink from washing the feet of the sick, or touching with her
hands their sores dripping with matter, and, finally, lingering over
them with long kisses, and laying their table ; and her one
pleasure was listening to divine service. Amid all this, she
was snatched away, to the great loss of her country's people —
but not to her own. Her body was nobly cared for, entering
into its rest at Westminster ; while her spirit showed, by no
trifling tokens, that it dwells in heaven. She died, willingly
leaving the throne after seventeen years and six months.
Thus far William. But her sister Mary, Countess of Bouillon,
departed this life in the third year before her sister's death, and
rests in peace at Saint Saviour's monastery in Bermondsey, on
the other side of London. Though she had not royal rank, she
was no less upright than the queen, her sister. Her marble
tomb, having the images of kings and queens engraved upon it,
shows forth the descent of her who rests there. On the surface
of that tomb, an inscription, written in letters of gold, thus
briefly sums up her life and extraction : —
220 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
" Here the good Countess Mary lies entombed ;
Whose acts with charity and kindness bloomed.
Eoyal her blood, she grew in virtue's might ;
Kind to the poor, dwell she in heaven's height."
These two sisters, Matilda and Mary, daughters of King Mal-
colm and Margaret, fitly adorned their high birth by their
marriage, their gentle demeanour, their great piety, and their
free-handed dispensing of their worldly goods to the poor and
to churches.
CHAPTEK XXX.
Praise of the virtues of that Queen Matilda ; of one good work
especially, told hy her hr other, King David, to the Abbot
Baldred.
Whosoever would write about the wondrous glory of the
good queen Matilda, sister of the said kings, Edgar, Alex-
ander, and David (whom I shall tell you about), of her vir-
tuous mind, how zealous and devout she was in divine service
and sacred vigils, how lowly, moreover, with all her power —
whosoever would do this, will show forth to us another Hester
in our times. We have forborne to do this, both on account of
the magnitude of the subject, and because our knowledge of
these things is, as yet, too little. I will, however, relate one
thing she did, which I heard from the mouth of David, a king
renowned and never to be forgotten, and whereby, in my
opinion, how she behaved to Christ's poor will be clearly
enough brought out. When, says he, I was still a youth serv-
ing at the king's court, one night while I was in my lodging
with my fellows, doing I know not what, I was called by the
queen herself to her chamber, and went there accordingly ; and
lo ! a house full of lepers, and, standing in the midst, the queen,
who, having laid aside her cloak, and girded herself with a linen
cloth, put water into a basin, and began to wash and dry their
feet, pressing them, when dry, between her hands, and kissing
them most devoutly. "What doest thou, madam?" said I to
her. " Surely, if the king knew of such a thing, he would never
deign to touch, with his lips, thy mouth defiled by such rotten-
ness." She then, smiling, said : — " Who knows not that the
feet of the everlasting King are to be preferred to the lips of a
king who must die ? Of a truth, therefor called I thee, that
thou might, by my example, learn to do such works." Then,
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK Y, 221
taking up the basin, " Do," said she, " what thou didst behold
me doing." At these words, I was sore afraid, and answered
that I could on no account undergo that. For as yet I knew
not the Lord, and His Spirit had not been revealed unto me.
She, however, went on persisting; so I laughed out, "Have
mercy on me 1" and hied me back to my fellows. Now King
Alexander, than whom no man was more devoted to the clergy,
more bountiful to strangers, or more unbending towards his
own people, paid the debt of nature at Strivelin (Stirling), in
full health of body and faculties, on the 24th of April 1124,
and, being taken away from this life, gave up the ghost to
heaven, and his body to the ground. He was buried in state at
Dunfermline on the day of Saint Mark the Evangelist, near his
father, in front of the great altar, after having completed seven-
teen years and twenty-one days on the throne.
CHAPTEE XXXL
Accession of the Messed King David — Praise of him and his
hrothers — He weds Matilda, daughter and heiress of Waldeof
i Earl of Huntingdon.
David, the youngest of the sons of Malcolm and Margaret,
and the pride of his race, succeeded his brother Alexander in
the year above mentioned — the eighteenth of the emperor Henry
V. — and reigned twenty-nine years, two months, and three days.
He was pious and God-fearing ; bountiful in almsgiving ;
vigorous towards his people ; sagacious in the task he was
intent upon, of enlarging the kingdom by fair means ; and, in
short, he shone forth in the beauty of every virtue — whence he
always abounded in the ripe fruit of good works. How very
powerful this king was, how many conquests he made, above all
other kings, by fair means, and how many abbeys and houses
of God he founded, Baldred, in bewailing his death, will show
forth truly to the reader, as will be seen below. He, indeed, be-
trayed no pride in his manners, no cruelty in his words, nothing
unseemly in what he said or did. There was no king like him
among the kings of the earth in his day; for he was godly, wise,
lowly, modest, sober, and chaste, etc. Never, says William,
have we been told among the events of history, of three kings,
— and at the same time brothers, — who were of holiness so great,
and savoured so much of the nectar of their mother's godliness.
Eor, besides their feeding sparingly, their plentiful almsgiving,
their zeal in prayer, they so thoroughly subdued the vice that
222 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
haunts king's houses, that never was it said that any but their
lawful wives came to their bed, or that any one of them had
shocked modesty by wenching. Before this King David was
raised to the throne, the king of the English, his sister the good
Queen Matilda's husband, gave him to wife Matilda, the
daughter and heiress of Waldeof, Earl of Huntingdon, and Judith,
who was the niece of the first King William; and, of this
Matilda, David had a son named Henry, a meek and godly
man, and of a gracious spirit, in all things worthy to have been
born of such a father. Meanwhile the empress Matilda, on her
husband the emperor's death without children, came back to her
father Henry, king of England ; and the latter afterwards gave
her to wife to Geofiroy, Count of Anjou, who begat of her a son,
Henry, the future king of England. On the death of the afore-
said Henry, king of England, Stephen, Count of Boulogne, and
his nephew, through his sister, seized the throne, in violation of
his oath — for he had, during the said king's lifetime, consented
by oath that the kingdom should go to the king's daughter, the
empress Matilda. Count Geoffroy was indignant at this, but did
him little, if any, hurt.
CHAPTER XXXII.
War waged hy King David against Stephen, King of England —
Conquest of Northumhria and Cumbria by a Battle fought
at Allerton.
When David, king of Scots, and uncle of that empress, heard
this, he at once rose up against Stephen, and began to lay
waste the northern regions of England — namely, Northumhria
and Cumbria. And when he had repeatedly invaded now this,
now that, region, and plundered them, the nobles of both pro-
vinces, at the head of a large force, beset him at Allerton (North-
allerton), on the 21st of August, and there a battle was fought,
and many fell on either side. At length, when a great multi-
tude of the English had been slain, the others fled, and many of
the nobles were carried off prisoners. They all, however, went
back about the Feast of All Saints, being freed by ransom; while
Cumbria, as well as Northumhria, and their pertinents, were sur-
rendered to King David. But King David and King Stephen
were straightway set at peace on this wise : to wit, that Northum-
hria should go back to King Stephen, while Cumbria was freely
left with King David. This peace, however, which was entered
into between them, lasted only a short time ; for King David
1
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK V. 223
made ready for war with the Northumbrians. Wherefore Tur-
stan, archbishop of York, came to the castle of Marchmont — that
is, Eox burgh — and meanwhile obtained from the king that he
should not, for the time, lay the country waste. But not long
after, when the truce came to an end, the country was all sadly
laid waste, forasmuch as King Stephen would not give it to
David's son Henry, whom he had begotten of the aforesaid
Countess Matilda. So the following year — that is, in 1138 —
on Ash-Wednesday, King Stephen came with a large army to
Eoxburgh; and being there struck with a sudden panic, he
straightway returned in shame. Then, again, the following
year, this King Stephen came to Durham, where he tarried fifteen
days, to treat for peace ; while King David was at Newcastle.
They had a solemn interview on the subject of peace ; and,
at the instance of Queen Matilda, — Stephen's wife, and King
David's niece through his sister Mary, — they came to an under-
standing to this effect : namely, that King David's son, Henry,
should do homage to King Stephen for the earldom of Hunting-
don, and freely hold the earldom of Northumberland. For
Matilda, this Henry's mother, was the daughter and heiress of
Waldeof, Earl of Huntingdon, who was the son and heir of
Siward, Earl of Northumberland. Now, when King David
returned from Newcastle, he came to Carlisle, in which town he
had a very strong keep built, and made the city walls a
great deal higher. To him, moreover, repaired Henry, his niece,
the Empress Matilda's son, and future king of England, having
been sent by his mother ; and he there received the knightly
belt from King David, having first given a pledge that his heirs
would at no time lop off any part of the lands which had then,
through this feud with England, passed under the dominion of
the Scots.
CHAPTEK XXXIII.
David's son Henry weds Ada, daughter of William Earl of
Warenne — Their Sons and Daughters, and to whom the latter
were wedded — Henry's death.
King David's son, Henry, Earl of Northumberland and Hunt-
ingdon, took Ada to wife, the daughter of the elder, and sister
of the younger, William, Earl of Warenne, and sister of Eobert,
Earl of Leicester, and of Waleran, Count of Melent (Melun).
Her mother was the sister of Radulf, Count of Peronne, and
224 JOHN OF fordun's chronicle
cousin to Louis, king of France. By her he had three sons ;
namely, Malcolm, the future king of Scotland ; David, who was
afterwards Earl of Huntingdon and Garviach ; and William, who
was also to be afterwards king — and as many daughters. One,
Ada, was given in marriage to Florence, Count of Holland. The
second, Margaret, wedded Conan, Duke of Brittany and Earl of
Eichmond, and bore him a daughter, named Constance, who
was given in marriage to Geoffrey, brother of Eichard, king
of England. Of her this Geoffrey begat a son, named Ar-
thur, who was afterwards drowned at sea, a daughter named
Alice, who conceived of Peter Mauclerk, and bore a son, named
John, afterwards Duke of Brittany, and another daughter,
named Eleanor, who perished at sea, with her brother Arthur.
Earl Henry's third daughter, Matilda, moreover, departed this
life in the same year as her father. Now this Henry, the king's
only son. Earl of Northumberland and Huntingdon, a youth of
comely mien, with his father's virtues budding within him, was
taken away from this life on the 12th of June 1152, before he
had completed the years of the first bloom of youth. He was
a most handsome lad, amiable to all men, the expected succes-
sor to the throne, a prince of most unassuming spirit, a well-
disciplined and pious man, devout towards God, and a most
compassionate guardian of the poor ; in short — to recount all
his good qualities — he was in all things like his father, save
that he was a little more fair-spoken. Leaving the three sons
above mentioned, and two daughters surviving him, he was, amid
very deep mourning and wailing on the part of both Scots and
English, buried near Eoxburgh, at the Monastery of Calkhow
(Kelso), which his father had reared from its very foundations,
and endowed with ample possessions and great honours. In the
fourth year of King David, Lothaire was elected to succeed the
emperor Henry v., and was eleven years emperor. In the
seventh year of this same David, his wife. Queen Matilda, died,
and was buried at Scone. The same year, Angus, earl of
Moray, was, with his men, slain at Strucathrow. In the
fifteenth year, Conrad iii. succeeded the emperor Lothaire, and
was fifteen years emperor. The same year died John de
Temporibus, in the three hundred and sixty-first year of his
age ; for he was a squire of Charles the Great. At this time,
likewise, flourished the great teacher, Eichard of Saint Victor,
the Scot. In the eighteenth year was born to Henry, the king's
son aforesaid, a son named Malcolm, who was to be king ; in
the nineteenth, David, afterwards earl ; and in the twentieth
"William, who was, likewise, to be king.
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK V. 225
CHAPTEE XXXIV.
King David bids his grandson Malcolm, Henry* s son, he taken
about through the kingdom, and proclaimed as the future
King — David's death to he bewailed, not on his own account,
hut for the Scots.
King David, disguising his sorrow at the death of his only son,
straightway took Malcolm, his aforesaid son's firstborn, and
giving him Duncan, Earl of Fife, as governor, bade him be taken
about, with a large army, through the country, in Scotland, and
proclaimed heir to the throne. Taking likewise the younger
brother William, the king came to Newcastle ; and having
there taken hostages from the J^orthumbrian chiefs, he made
them all subject to the dominion of that boy. What was done
then with the third grandson David, or where he was, I have
not found in any writings. But the king came back, and left
nothing in disorder, nothing unsettled, in all the ends of the
kingdom. Then, the following year, after Easter, he went to
Carlisle, that he might settle the affairs of the west of the
kingdom also, as of the east ; when, all of a sudden, that godly
and religious king was smitten with a grievous sickness, and,
on the 2 2d of May, the Sunday before Ascension-day, in the
year 1153, after he had ruled the kingdom gloriously for
twenty-nine years and one month, he died happily, putting off
his manhood, and surrendering his body to the earth, and his
soul to the fellowship of angels in heaven. He was buried in
state in tlie pavement before the high altar of the church of
the Holy Trinity at Dunfermline, which, first founded by his
father and mother, had been added to in property and buildings
by his brother Alexander, while he himself also had loaded and
endowed it with more ample gifts and honours ; and he was
laid there, at a good old age, beside his parents and brothers.
His memory is blessed through all generations ; for there never,
from time immemorial, arose a prince like him. He was so
devout in divine service, that he never missed saying and hear-
ing, day by day, all the canonical hours, and even the vigils for
the dead. And this also was praiseworthy in him — that, in a
spirit of prudence and firmness, he wisely toned down the
fierceness of his nation ; and that he was most constant in
washing the feet of the poor, and merciful in feeding and cloth-
ing them. He, moreover, behaved with lowliness and homeliness
towards strangers, pilgrims, and regular and secular clergy ; and
VOL II. p
226 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
most lavishly gave them gifts of his bounty. For he was a glo-
rious king, fed and clad with everyday thrift ; and, in holiness
and integrity of life and in disciplined behaviour, he showed
himself on a level even with votaries of religion. And, in sooth,
his life, worthy to be praised — nay, to be wondered at — by all,
was followed by a precious death. Therefore, whosoever aims at
dying a happy death, let him read the life of this king so dear
to God, and the following lament on his death ; and, by the
example of his most happy death, let him learn how to die.
CHAPTER XX?:V.
Preface to the Abbot Batdred's Lament on King David's death —
Praise of Henry, king of England, forasmuch as King David
sprang from his family, and was knighted by him.
Here follows the Preface to the Lament of the Abbot Baldred
of Rivaulx, on King David's death ; which he wrote in sorrow
and wailing, and sent to the son of that David's niece, the
empress — namely, Henry, who was to be king of England —
that he might, by his example, learn the way to live aright, as
well as to die blessed : —
To the most illustrious Henry, Duke of Normandy, and
Count of Aquitaine and Anjou, brother Baldred, by some
called Ethelred, the servant of Christ's servants who are at Ri-
vaulx— greeting and prayers. — So much is virtue in accordance
with nature, and vice opposed to her, that even the vicious will
praise and think well of virtue; nor will even the vicious
palliate vice, if it follow upon the judgment of man's reason.
For Vice, blushing herself, as it were, at the foulness inborn in
her, always seeks a lurking-place, and longs for secrecy ; while
Virtue, on the other hand, alive to her own comeliness and grace,
is at all times dancing and tripping it, only from her lowliness
avoiding the common gaze, and shrinking from the witness of
man. Since, therefore, the love of virtue and the hatred of
vice dwell by nature in a reasoning soul, whoever strives after
virtue and good behaviour easily draws and turns unto him the
love of all men. Hence is it, most illustrious sir, that the fame
of thy virtue has sunk deep into the minds of many who have
not seen thee with their eyes ; for it is a wonder, no less than
a delight, to all to find, at such an age, so much wisdom ; amid
such allurements, so much self-restraint ; in matters so great, so
much foresight ; in so lofty a station, such austerity ; in such
austerity, such kindliness. For who is not amazed that a youth.
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK V. 227
who is struggling for the throne should eschew rapine, forbear
from slaughter, keep from setting on fire, bring no hardships
upon the poor, preserve peace and respect towards priests and
churches ? Whence thou art not unworthily proclaimed by all
the glory of Anjou, the bulwark of Normandy, the hope of
England, and the pride of Aquitaine. This alone is left —
that thou should acknowledge Christ Jesus as the bounteous
Dispenser of these gifts, and long for Him as thy Keeper. But
I, indeed, bethinking myself of whose seed thou art sprung from,
give thanks unto the Lord my God for that, in such fathers*
stead, such a son has shone, like a fresh flood of light, upon us.
And though all thine ancestors' virtues have met in thee, yet I
rejoice, above all, that the spirit of David, the most Christian
king of Scots, rests within thee. For I deem that it was
through God's Providence it came to pass that King David's
pure hands girded thee with the knightly belt, that, through
them, the grace of Christ might pour into thee the virtue of that
king's chastity, lowliness, and godliness. And as, sorrowing for
his recent death, I have shortly, less as a historian than as a
mourner, summed up his life and character, according as my
feelings wavered between love and fear, hope and grief, I am
anxious to address this lament unto thee, taking thee, in my
inmost heart's love, as the heir of his godliness. And when
thou have read therein his praiseworthy life and precious death,
imitate thou the former, that thou may be worthy to rival the
latter.
CHAPTEE XXXVI.
Beginning of the Lament, for all his people had reason to
bewail him.
The God-fearing and pious King David has passed away from
this world. Though he has found a place worthy of his soul,
yet his death bespeaks our wailing. For who, but he who
grudges peace and prosperity to mankind, would not mourn
that a man the world stands so much in need of, should have
been withdrawn from human affairs ? Young men and maidens,
old men and children, put on sackcloth, and sprinkle yourselves
with ashes ; let your crying be heard on high, and your wailing
in the heavens. 0 priests of the Lord, and ministers of your
God, — weep ye between the sacristy and the altar ; for he has
departed from you, who was wont to cheer you, to clothe you
twice over, to endow you with gifts, and exalt you with
honours. Nevertheless, weep ye not over him, but weep ye
228 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
over yourselves and your sons. Indeed, even now the Spirit
tells me he is resting from his troubles : for his works follow
him. Therefore no evil has befallen that best of men ; if any
has befallen, it has befallen us. But how can I say — " If any
has befallen " ? Alas ! it is beyond belief how great an evil
has befallen us ; for we have lost a man who lived not for him-
self but for all men, cared for all men, and looked to the well-
being of all men ; the guide of manners, the chider of wickedness,
the encourager of virtue ; whose life was the mould of lowliness,
the mirror of righteousness, and the pattern of chastity. He
was a meek king, a righteous king, a chaste king, a lowly king.
Who would find it easy to say how profitable he was unto the
life of man — he whom meekness had made loveable, righteous-
ness terrible, chasteness calm, and lowliness affable ? And
if all these things are deemed most worthy of praise in any
private person, how much more so in a king, to whom power
gives freely what is unlawful, whose faults his underlings
eagerly ape and fawningly applaud — while impunity gives
boldness, and lust sharpens and kindles wantonness ? For the
sinner is praised by sinners for the desires of his heart ; the
unrighteous speak well of him who worketh unrighteousness.
Who, then, is this, that we may praise him ? For he has done
wonders who could transgress in his life, and transgressed not.
Who is like unto thee among the kings of the earth, 0 best of
kings ; who didst show thyself poor amidst gold, lowly on a
throne, chaste among pleasures, mild in arms ? — who didst be-
have to the people with moderation, to knights as an equal, to
priests as an inferior, becoming aU things to all men, that thou
might counsel all men to virtue.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
Lament continued — He was beloved by God and man, and under-
took the Sovereignty rather because of others* need than
through lust of power.
Justly, therefore, is the remembrance of thy name sweet to
our hearts, soothing to our feelings, celebrated in our discourse ;
for that title fits thee well — " beloved of God and man ;" and
thy memory is blessed. David was truly beloved of God, Who
directs the meek in judgment. Who teaches the mild His ways.
That mild and lowly-hearted God loved, forsooth, the meek and
godly king, rewarding his uprightness at a great price even in
this life, not sparing the misdeeds of his life, now punishing,
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK V. 229
now recompensing ; but always giving heed to the object of his
wishes, and thus always hearkening unto him to his well-being.
So didst Thou, Lord, hearken unto him — so, 0 God, didst Thou
bestead him, even though taking vengeance on all his devices.
For in him was surely fulfilled, to the very letter, what is written
in the Psalm, " The meek shall inherit the earth, and delight in
fulness of peace." Now, we know that he sought not the king-
ship, but shrank from it ; and that he rather undertook it because
of others' need, than greedily seized and entered upon it through
lust of power. Hence he so shrank from those services which,
after the manner of their fathers, are rendered by Scottish men
on a king being newly raised to the throne, that it was with diffi-
culty that the bishops could get him to receive them. But, on
his elevation to the kingship, he betrayed no pride in his be-
haviour, no cruelty in words, no unseemliness in deeds. Hence,
all the savageness of that nation became meekness, and was soon
overlaid with so much kindliness and lowliness, that, forgetting
their inborn fierceness, they bowed their necks under the laws
which the king's meekness laid down, and thankfully welcomed
a peace until then unknown to them. Nor did that meekness
seem slack or slothful ; for, in punishing the wicked, it yielded
in all things to justice, so that the king should not seem to bear
the sword in vain ; and he kept his meekness in his heart, lest
he should seem not to wreak judgment, but rather to humour
his impulses. I believe that he never, without a heart sore
bruised, wreaked vengeance even on those who had been guilty
of treason towards him. We have often seen him beat his
breast, and shed tears, in punishing robbers and traitors ; so as
to make it manifest that, in punishing the guilty, he, as the
administrator of the laws, obeyed justice, but gave not way to
fierceness. Therefore he, as being meek, not unjustly inherited
the earth — more of it than any of his ancestors were masters of,
in our day ; and he delighted in fulness of peace between savage
nations, which were set against each other by differences of
tongue and manners, and were most unfriendly one to the other,
because of the slaughter and wounds each had dealt to the other
— a peace which he settled with so much tact, and kept with
so strong a will, that we have hardly ever seen such a treaty
preserved for so long a time even between kindred nations, and
men of the same blood and tongue.
230 JOHN OF FOEDUN'S CHRONICLE
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
Lament continued — Bishoprics and Monasteries founded and
endowed hy him.
He excelled in this, it seems to me — that he so kept within
bounds on either side that, for all the strictness of his justice,
he was beloved by all, and for all the mildness and mercy of
his justice, he was feared by all ; although he always longed
rather to be loved than feared. Hence he seemed not unde-
servedly beloved by God and man. He was plainly beloved by
God ; for at the very outset of his reign, he diligently
practised the things of God, in building churches and founding
monasteries, to which, also, he gave increase of property and
wealth, as each had need. For, whereas he had found only
three or four bishops in the whole kingdom of the Scots, while
the other churches tottered on without a chief pastor, with both
morals and substance going to wrack and ruin, at his death he
left twelve bishoprics, what with the old ones he restored, and the
new he reared. He also established and left monasteries of divers
orders — the Cluniac, the Cistercian, the Tyronensian, the Aro-
venian, the Prsemonstratensian, the Belvacian — namely, those
of Calkhow (Kelso), Melrose, Jedwart (Jedburgh), Newbotill
(Newbattle), Holmcultrane, Dundrennan, the monastery of Holy-
rood at Edinburgh, those of Cambuskenneth and Kinloss, and
a monastery of holy nuns close to Berwick, as well as many
others full of friars. Among these he was even as one of them-
selves ; praising goodness, and well-pleasing, and perfect ; — and
if haply anything less worthy of praise cropped up, he would
be ashamed, and would disguise it; submissive to all men,
caring for all men ; lavishing much, and exacting nothing. Oh !
sweet soul, whither art thou gone away, whither fled? Our
eyes seek thee, and cannot find thee ; our ears are listening to
hear the voice of thy mirth, the voice of lowliness, the voice of
shriving, the voice of comforting — and lo, it is hushed. Where
is that most gentle look which beamed so mildly on the poor,
so meekly on the holy, so mirthfully on thy companions ?
Where are those eyes so full of godliness and grace, wherewith
thou wast wont to rejoice with the joyful, and to weep with
those that wept ? What do ye, 0 my eyes, what do ye ? Why
do ye not unfeignedly bring forth that wherewithal ye are in
labour, and give vent to that ye hide within you ? Shed ye
tears day and night, and spare not ; for this shall be my delight
in remembering my sweetest lord and friend. Nor do I mourn
alone. I know there are, mourning with me, priests and
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK V. 231
clerics, whom he revered as fathers. There are holy nuns
mourning, — and monks, whom he took to his bosom as brothers.
There are, mourning, knights, whose comrade — and not their
lord — he acknowledged himself. There are, mourning, widows,
whom he shielded ; the fatherless, whom he cheered ; the poor,
whom he sustained ; the wretched, whom he cherished.
CHAPTEK XXXIX.
Xament continued — He was the comforter of the sorrowing and
the father of the fatherless.
He was, indeed, the comfoi-ter of the sorrowing, the father of
the fatherless, and the ready judge of the widow. For while he
intrusted the other business of the country to other judges, he
always kept for himself what concerned the poor and the
widows. He heard, he defended, he judged them. Nor was
any poor man, widow, or orphan, who wanted to lay any
grievance before him, forbidden to walk into his presence ; but
as soon as they were shown in by the usher, — even though the
king were engaged in the most important and urgent matters
or deliberations, with any persons, great or small, — he would
break off everything to hear them. I have even seen him, with
my own eyes, sometimes, when ready^cT'gd' out hunting, and,
with his foot in the stiiTup, on the point of mounting his horse,
withdraw his foot, at the voice of a poor man begging that a
hearing should be given him, leave his horse, and walk back
into court, giving up all thoughts of returning to his design for
that day ; and surpassing, or at least rivalling, the judgments
of Trajan — that most courteous and princely chief — kindly and
patiently hear the cause on which he had been appealed to. He
was, moreover, wont to sit at the gate of the king's court, and
hear carefully the causes of poor old women, who, on certain days,
w^ere called up from any part of the country they came to ; and
he would give satisfaction to each, often after much trouble.
For they would often wrangle with him, and he with them,
when he would not admit the person of a poor man to judgment,
in violation of justice, and they would not listen to reason, as he
put it to them. I will say nothing of how he won upon the
feelings of all men by the wondrous courtesy and sweetness of
his manner, how he suited himself to the ways of all men, so
that he was neither thought soft by the harsh, nor hard by the
soft. In short, if it fell out that priest, or knight, or monk,
rich or poor, citizen or pilgrim, tradesman or peasant, talked
232 JOHN OF FORDUN's CHRONICLE
with him, he conversed with each on his business or duties
in so seemly and unassuming a tone, that each in turn thought
the king had his affairs only at heart ; and thus he sent
them all away merry and edified. For he did his utmost to
draw on that rough and boorish people towards quiet and
chastened manners ; so much so that he looked after not only
the great affairs of State, but all things, down to the very least
— such as gardens, buildings, or orchards — in order that he
might, by his example, stir his people up to do likewise.
CHAPTER XL.
Lament continued — He was always anxious to bring hack to
peace and concord those at variance, especially wrangling
Clergy.
But, above all things, he was anxious that priests of the Lord,
especially, and men of religious orders, should be free from feuds,
as well at home among themselves as with those outside. So
whensoever strife arose among them — such is man's wretched-
ness ! — his spirit had no rest, nor had his flesh repose, until
he had by prayers and coaxing — nay, sometimes by tears, but
seldom by threats, made them be at peace again, as of yore.
Nor, in such a cause, was he too proud, humbly, with holy words,
to bow that kingly head to the knees of such an one as haply
seemed too unbending on this side ; so that he who could not be
overcome by kindliness might be overcome by shame. More-
over, there is truly no need to praise the chastity that was in
him : for, after he had once entered into wedlock, he was true
to his wife's bed ; so that not only did he never know another,
but he never even looked at another unbecomingly ; and, as in
flesh, so was he pure in mind, hand, thought, behaviour, eyes,
and speech. For his life was so public, his doings so open and
above-board, that he was never even singed by ever so light a
suspicion on this score. Nought about him was hidden but
liis counsels : and his chamber was open to all, at his sitting or
lying down, or at his retiring. Hence — wonderful to say ! —
with so much grace was he endowed by God's power, that,
after the death of his wife, whom he outlived twenty -three
years, he never, even in sleep, suffered the wrong of fleshly
taint. Why tremblest thou, 0 my soul ? Why art thou afraid
to bring forward such things as are unpleasing — since we must
not only praise the righteousness of good men, but also com-
mend their repentance, after any shortcoming ? We have read
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK V. 233
that Aaron, the first high priest under the law, vouchsafed con-
sent unto the people, who asked that an idol be made unto
them. Moses himself was pronounced, by the judgment of
heaven, to have done wrong at the waters of strife. The Scrip-
ture bears witness that Miriam, the prophetess, was smitten
with leprosy, for murmuring against Moses. After numberless
gifts of spiritual graces, holy David, as though forgetful of
God's goodness, first committed adultery with the wife of his
faitlifiil servant, whom he afterwards slew through mar-
vellous treachery. I own it — our David also sinned. He
sinned, not by defiling himself with any wickedness, but by
ministering more than behoved him to others' cruelty by his
might. For when, after the death of his sister's son Henry,
king of England, he had led an army into England, these wild
men, bitter foes to the English, raged, beyond the wont of man,
against the Church, against priests, against either sex, against
all ages, and wreaked cruel judgments upon them. Now, though
these things were done against his will — nay, though he forbade
them — still, as it was in his power not to have brought them,
not to have brought them again when he had once put them
to the test, or perhaps to have better kept them under, we own
with tears that he also sinned. Let others make allowances for
him by pleading his zeal for justice, by bethinking themselves
of the oath which he had taken, by asserting loudly that it be-
seemed his kingly virtue, because he kept his word ; because
he broke not his oath ; because he bore arms against men for-
sworn ; because he tried to bring back to the rightful heirs a
kingdom which their father had made over to them, which the
clergy and people had confirmed to them by a sworn pledge.
Haply, the record of this plea had some place in thy pity, good
Jesus ; but I, knowing that it is good to confess unto Thee,
have chosen to beg, not to plead — seeking mercy, not challenging
judgment.
CHAPTEE XLI.
Lament continued — He would have resigned the Throne, and
hetaken himself to the spot where Our Lord suffered, had he
not been turned hack hy the advice of Churchmen, the tears
of the Poor, the groans of the Widoiv, the desolation of the
People, and the crying and wailing of the whole Country.
Theeefoee I say, Enter not into judgment with thy servant,
0 Lord ; for in thy sight is no man justified, unless forgiveness
234 JOHN OF fordun's chronicle
of all his sins is vouchsafed him by Thee. For the king him-
self would rather accuse than excuse himself — would rather
beat his breast than thrust it forth. We know also that he
so loathed this sin, and sighed after virtue most zealously,
that he would have resigned his throne, laid down his sceptre,
and betaken himself to holy warfare on the spot where Our
Lord suffered and rose again, had he not been turned back by
the advice of priests and abbots, the tears of the poor, the groans
of the widow, the desolation of the people, and the crying and
wailing of his whole kingdom ; and though he was kept back
in body, he was not in mind and wishes. He trusted altogether
to the advice of monks; and keeping beside him some good
brethren, renowned in warfare for the temple of Jerusalem, he
made them the guardians of his morals by day and night. I
pass over his almsgiving, his frequency in prayer, at mass, and
in psalmody ; for he had been the wonder of all, from childhood
itself, for his observance of these things. Now this is what
cheers me in my sorrow, good Jesus — not to be able to say that
he sinned not, but that he repented, that he wept, that he con-
fessed; that he followed the advice of Daniel, who said to
Nebuchadnezzar, " Eansom thy sins with alms, and thine ini-
quities with mercy to the poor." Moreover, 0 Spring of good-
ness, and Source of pity, didst Thou not bestead him when
Thou didst take vengeance on all his devices ? Thou didst
cliide him, 0 Lord, Thou didst chide him as a father chideth
his son ; yet in mercy, for in Thy wrath Thou didst not with-
hold Thy mercy. For Thou gavest him the affection of a son
amid scourgings, so that he should not murmur nor backslide,
— nay, should give thanks amid scourgings, saying, with the
Prophet, " All Thou hast done unto us, 0 Lord, in righteous
judgment hast Thou done it." These were his words, these his
feelings, when his host was scattered abroad, when he was
driven by his own knights to yield to the force of circumstances.
These were his words when God sent as a foe against him a
certain mock bishop, who lied and said he was the Earl of
Moray's son; wherein was clearly enough seen the power of
God, in whose hand are all the laws of kingdoms, by whose nod
all things are regulated — the Lord Himself, who maketh peace,
and createth evil. Let not the wise, therefore, boast of his
wisdom, nor the strong of his strength ; for the steps of man are
guided by the Lord, who scourged with the lies of a certain monk
that invincible king, who had subdued unto himself so many
barbarous nations, and had, without great trouble, triumphed
over the men of Moray and of the Islands. Yet, though that
monk straightway reaped a reward worthy of his works, this
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK V. 235
most Christian king acknowledged the hand of the Lord in all
these things.
CHAPTER XLIL
Lament continued — God scourged him in his Son's death — His
God and Lord found him watching.
Lastly, 0 God of vengeance, that his patience might be
made known unto all, Thou didst pour upon him Thy wrath,
and all the wrath of Thy fury, chastening him with sore chas-
tisement, when Thou didst take from him his only son. And
such a son ! For he was a most comely lad, amiable and sweet
towards all men, beloved by all who saw him, and inclined to
all goodness. 0 Lord my God, with what stripes of sorrow
didst Thou grieve his heart, when he himself bore to the grave
his only-begotten, whom he had found most loving and like
himself, and who, he hoped, would have done such a service
unto him. Nevertheless, while the rest were weeping and
wailing, this man, in whom nothing was wanting for virtue, bore
with so much patience the rod of his Father Most High, that
he both refrained from tears, and, forgetful of himself, took his
meals with his household, that day, after his royal custom. Far
be it from us, therefore, to lay this sin at his door ; seeing that
God's justice punished it in this life — that he himself condemned
it by the confession of his own mouth — that he washed it with
his tears — that he atoned for it by his alms — that he cleansed
it by daily contrition of heart ; himself his own accuser, him-
self judge against himself, himself his own executioner. " For
if we judged our own selves," says Paul, " verily we should not
be judged." Lay down, then, 0 my soul, lay aside thy sadness
for a while, and muse in gladness of mind on the spirit of the
end of his life, which he spent so religiously — the spirit where-
in, being turned unto God with his whole heart, and watching
with loins girded and lamps burning, he awaited the coming of
the Lord. He watched — a man who took upon himself to
judge nothing, to decree nothing, to appoint nothing, without
the advice of monks and men most upright. He watched — a
man who gave praise to the Lord seven times a day, and rose
at midnight to shrive himself unto Him. He watched — a man
who, with his own hands, this year, daily laid out upon the poor
quite twice his wonted alms, after the sacred solemnities of the
mass, and of prayers; and thus, lingering, the rest of the
236 JOHJ^ OF fohdun's chronicle
day-time, among clerks and religious brethren, listened, with
lowly ear, to such things as were unto edification. He watched
— a man who most wisely made his will a year before he departed
this life ; and, handing over what treasure he had into the hands
of monks, intrusted it to their good faith to mete out as he him-
self had prescribed. He watched — a man who, every Lord's
day, shrived himself of his sins, and partook of Christ's body
and blood ; and thus, with ears ever listening for the voice of
the bridegroom calling, anxiously looked for his coming.
CHAPTEK XLIII.
Lament continued — His Time was all taken up with Prayer,
Alms, or some seemly task
In short, when, on account of something our house needed,
I came into his presence in these holy days of Lent, I own I
found, in the king, a monk — in the court, a cloister — in a palace,
the discipline of a monastery. For, certain hours he spent in
religious duties, intent on psalms and prayers ; and a certain
time, likewise, he set apart for ministering to the poor. And
that nothing might be wanting in him for a seemly life, he even,
at a meet hour, busied himself in some seemly task, such as
planting herbs, or grafting upon another stock slips cut off from
their own roots. Finally, after he had taken his meal at the
right hour, he unbent his mind a little in some sort of religious
ease, with religious brethren, and a few of the more distin-
guished men ; and thus, after he had, while the sun was still
up, gone through the usual service for the dead, when the hour
of dusk was over, he sought his chaste bed without a word, and
spoke no more to any one until sunrise. Oh ! happy soul,
which the Lord, when He came, found thus watching; and
which, therefore, thus prepared, happily entered into wedlock
with Him. But lo ! the thought of our unhappiness breaks in
upon the exultation of my spirit, and the fruit of tears, which
sympathy brings forth, furrows with renewed grief a face which
Christian faith and piety had dried. What, therefore, shalt
thou do, 0 desolate Scotland ! Who shall cheer thee ? Who
shall take pity on thee ? Thy harp is turned into mourning ;
and thy pipes into the voice of weeping. Thy lamp is
quenched; thy heart fainteth; thy manhood droopeth; the
brightness of thy glory waneth — for he is no more who shed
his light upon thee, and, of an untiUed and barren land, made
r
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK V. 23'
thee pleasant and plenteous. Thou once, a beggar among lands,
wast wont, with thy hard sod, to bring hunger upon thine in-
dwellers ; but now, softer and more fruitful, thou dost, of thy
fulness, relieve the wants of neighbouring lands. He it is that
has decked thee with castles and towns, and with lofty towers.
He it is that has enriched thy harbours with outlandish wares,
and gathered together the wealth of other countries for thine
enjoyment. He it is that has turned thy hairy cloaks into
costly garments, and has covered thy nakedness of old with
purple and fine linen. He it is that has quelled thy savage
ways by Christian piety. He it is that has enjoined thee
wedded chastity, which thou scarcely knewest — nay, even
wouldst not keep inviolate when once entered upon ; and has
given a more seemly life unto thy priests. He it is that, by
word as well as example, has prevailed upon thee to go often to
church, and to be present at the divine sacrifices ; and has
made it known that due offerings and tithes should be paid to
the priests. What then shalt thou bestow in return for all lie has
bestowed upon thee ? Thou hast, in sooth, some in whom thou
mayest requite him. Thou hast some to whom thou mayest
give thanks for the good he did — to whom thou mayest pay the
good turn which he earned. Thou hast them in his grandsons
— from whom, haply, God's providence withdrew their grand-
father's help so soon for nothing else but that thy loyalty
might be put to the proof, and thy gratitude tested. They are,
indeed, under age ; but the king's age is reckoned according to
the loyalty of his knights. Pay ye to the sons what ye owe
to the father; let them find you thankful for the benefits ye
have received.
CHAPTEE XLIY.
Lament continued — The trials of the English taught the Scots to
he faithful to their kings, and preserve mutual harmony
among themselves.
Moreover, let the trials of the English teach you to be faith-
ful to kings, and preserve mutual harmony amongst you ; lest
strangers eat up your country before your eyes, and the land
be made desolate as by the ravages of the foe. For, as we read
in Holy Writ, Joash was seven years old when he began to
reign in Jerusalem, having been raised to the throne by the high
priest Jehoiada, with the consent of the priesthood and people ;
and he reigned better during his more helpless years, under
238 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
the advice of the high priest and the lords, than in his more
stalwart age, in his own wisdom and power. Even as every
kingdom divided against itself shall be made desolate, so a
good understanding between the chiefs is the kingdom's stay.
The king indeed is dead ; but have ye, in the king's stead, the
love he earned from you. Let that love dictate laws to you,
fill up your concord to the brim, and constrain you to keep
loyalty towards his boys, and friendship towards his allies : else
heaven and earth will be witnesses against you ; — the angels
who were guardians of his chastity will be witnesses against
you ; — the saints ye gave as hostages of your fealty, by swear-
ing on their relics, will be witnesses against you ; — the king
himself, who, through love for the boys, looks from that bright
tract of heaven upon this earthly region, and is worthy of the
loyalty and constancy of each, he himself will be a witness against
you. But thou. Lord, King of Sabaoth, who judgest righteously
and triest the reins and the heart, remember David and all his
meekness, remember him in the boys he has left behind ; for
they are bequeathed unto Thee fatherless, and Thou shalt be
the Helper of the orphans. And thou, sweetest king, be turned
again unto thy rest ; for the Lord hath dealt well with thee,
seeing that he snatched thy soul from death, thine eyes from
tears, and thy feet from slipping. This we take for granted
from thy pity, good Jesus — of whom it was given him both to
believe aright, and to live godly, and to die holily. For, as
will be shown in what follows, a precious death closed his
praiseworthy life, which, by Thy grace working in him, was
moulded by the Christian faith.
CHAPTER XLV.
Lament continued — On Wednesday y (he 20th of May, he perceived
thai his dissolution was at hand; and having taken the
Sacrament of the Lord's Body, he hade them bring forward
tJie Lord's Cross.
But when smitten with the sickness whereby he was to be
released from the flesh, on Wednesday, the 20th of May, per-
ceiving that his dissolution was at hand, he called his attendants,
and without hesitation explained to them what he felt was the
matter with him. But they, in the way men do, fell to com-
forting the sick man, and went as far as to promise him life
and health. This most wise king, however, taking no comfort
at all in the promise of a longer life, begged that such things.
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK V. 239
rather, should be told and advised him, as the exigency of this
last hour called for. And, as this hour came not upon him
while he was unprepared, he renewed the will which he had
made a year before ; correcting certain things that had to be
corrected, and by the advice of the monks, setting in order, in a
few words, such state matters as seemed to need setting in order.
Then turning to himself with his whole heart, he kept earnestly
commending his last hours to God. And though all his limbs
were heavy with the weight of illness, nevertheless he walked
into the oratory, as he was wont, both for mass and for the
canonical hours. But when, on Friday, his malady began to
grow worse, and the violence of the disease had robbed him of the
power of standing as of walking, he summoned the clerks and
monks, and asked that the sacrament of the Lord's body should
be given him ; and on their making ready to bring him what
he had ordered, he forbade them, saying that he would partake
of those most holy mysteries before the most holy altar. When,
therefore, he had been carried down into the oratory by the
hands of the clerks and knights, and the mass had been cele-
brated, he begged that a cross he reverenced, which they call
the black cross, should be brought forward for him to worship.
Now that cross is an hand's breadth in length, wrought out of
purest gold with marvellous workmanship, and opens and shuts
like a case. Within it is seen a piece of the Lord's Cross (as
has often been proved by the evidence of many miracles), with
Our Saviour's likeness upon it, most handsomely carved out of
ivory, and wondrously decked with golden ornaments. This
cross, the pious Queen Margaret, this king's mother, who was
sprung from the seed of the emperors and kings of Hungary and
England, had brought to Scotland, and handed down as an heir-
loom to her sons. So when the king had most devoutly wor-
shipped this cross, which was no less feared than loved by all
Scottish folk, and had first, with many tears, shrived himself of
his sins, he fortified himself for his departure by partaking of
the heavenly mysteries.
CHAPTEE XLVL
Lament continued — His Extreme Unction — He threvj himself off
the bed upon the ground, and took that Sacrament with great
devoutness.
At last he was brought back into his chamber ; and when
the priests came to go through the sacrament of Holy Unction,
240 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHROXICLE
he rose up, as best he could, and throwing himself off the pallet
upon the ground, he received that healing rite with so much
devoutness that, whenever the clerks chanted a little too
hurriedly, he checked them by both hand and word, and him-
self followed every single word, and responded to every single
prayer. When, therefore, everything had been duly fulfilled,
he awaited the last day with the greatest quietness of body and
mind, earnestly entreating his attendants to publish his death
unto all as soon as he should be gone. " The sooner," said he,
"my death becomes known, the sooner will God's pity hold
out some comfort to me, through the good offices of my friends."
Thus, from that time forth, rapt in God's praises, he subdued
his drooping limbs to his spirit, which he was, all that day, by
psalms and prayers, preparing for its departure. But on the
Saturday — that is, the day before he departed this life — when he
was reading over the one hundred and eighteenth Psalm, with
great contrition of heart, and had, in the course of his psalm-
singing, reached the sixteenth chapter of this Psalm, he groaned
aloud, as the force of those words sank deep into his soul ; and
after repeating that chapter seven times, he cried out with in-
ward emotion, " I have done judgment and justice ; give me
not over unto mine accusers." For he felt, through the teaching
of the Spirit, if I mistake not, how he might most safely
answer the accuser who treads close upon our heel (that is to
say, our end), what prayers he might offer up to the Judge in
his own defence ; so he said, " I have done judgment," — and so
forth. In sooth, he who fulfils the judge's duty against himself,
softens the stern judge's sentence ; and he who, before death,
does judgment in truth, fearlessly awaits God's judgment
after death : wherefore he cried out devoutly, " I have done
judgment," and so forth. The old accuser came unto Our
Saviour ; but finding nothing of his own in Him, who has done
no sin, he departed abashed. What, therefore, shall he do, in
whom the accuser, when he comes unto him, recognises some-
thing of his own — that is to say, a sin ? Why, let him, of
course, cry unto Him in whom the accuser shall find nothing,
and say, " I have done judgment," and so forth. For there is a
judgment of the heart, and there is a judgment of the lips, and
there is a judgment in deed. That most Christian king did
judgment in his heart, when his conscience pricked him in-
wardly for his shortcomings. He did it with his lips, when he
confessed his sins against himself. He did it also in deed,
when he punished himself with self-imposed smart. He has
done judgment therefore, by accusing himself; and he has done
justice by pitying the woes of others.
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK V. 241
CHAPTEK XLVII.
Lament continued — In his very sickness, when his life was at
stake, he remembered the poor, and asked the Cleric, his secre-
tary, whether he had dispensed the usual Alms that day.
For what is more just than that he who asks for mercy him-
self, should show mercy unto the needy ? Now, how lavish that
man was in showing mercy and lending to the poor, was clearly
enough shown on that very day, wherein, though he had shut
out from his breast all worldly anxiety, all cares of state, even
all feeling for his sons, yet he laid not aside, in such a pass,
that care which he was wont to take of the poor. In fact, in
the middle of his psalm-singing, looking round at his cleric
Nicholas, whom he had found most faithful in keeping his
treasure and bestowing alms, he stretched forth his arm, and put
it round the neck of the latter, so that he leant over the pallet ;
then the king asked him whether the alms he himself was wont
to give out daily, with his own hands, among Christ's poor, had
been dispensed that day. And when the latter had told him
that everything had been done in the usual way, he gave thanks
unto God, and repeated the psalm he had interrupted. Since,
therefore, he has done judgment by punishing himself for his
shortcomings, and has done justice by pitying others, trusting
in the hope of God's mercy cried he out, " I have done judgment
and justice ; give me not over unto mine accusers ; " and as
the remaining verses of this chapter agree with this opening,
no wonder he dwelt upon these with the most willingness and
delight. And when he came to the one hundred and nineteenth
psalm, feeling a something of sweetness and healthfulness
therein, he repeated that also, like the former, seven times.
Calling to mind, it may be, what distress he had endured, a
little before, in the recollection of his sins — what comfort he
had found in the hope of Christ's mercy, when he thought over
the judgment and justice which he had done, he cried out, in
great devoutness of mind, " In my distress I cried unto the
Lord, and he heard me." But lest that cunning accuser should
again trump up some guileful tale against him, he added
what that psalm goes on to say : — " Deliver my soul, 0 Lord,
from unrighteous lips, and from a deceitful tongue." But what
shall be given thee, 0 Christian soul, or what shall be added
unto thee, against a deceitful tongue ? What but the sharp
arrows of the Mighty One, and coals to spread desolation !
VOL. II. Q
242 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
Therefore cry thou : — " Take hold, 0 Lord, of weapons and
shield ; and stand up for my help."
CHAPTER XLVIIL
LaTnent continued — He went on praying while singing Psalms.
Let God himself hurl back against the enemy his sharp
arrows, — the spear and the nails wherewith he was pierced upon
the cross, and stabbed with five wounds, as it were by sharp
arrows, — ^wounds whereby He, of His freely- vouchsafed goodness,
healed our wounds, which the enemy had inflicted upon us by
the gratification of our five senses. What, then, will the deceit-
ful tongue of the wily serpent cast in my teeth, seeing that He
who did no sin has borne the penalty of my sin, being wounded
for our iniquities, and bruised for our misdeeds ? If, therefore,
to the sharp arrows (that is, faith in Thy suffering, good Jesus)
be added the coals (that is, the fire of Thy love), the accusing
enemy is quickly driven back, as is the blight of the sin clean
swept away. — Then, with a lighter heart, and with many a sigh
for things above, loathing this earthly estate through contempla-
tion of the heavenly, he went on to say : " Woe is me, that my
sojourn is prolonged ! I have dwelt with the dwellers in Cedar;
my soul hath long dwelt there." But I consider that what
follows is also very appropriate to him :— " With those that hate
peace, I am for peace ; when I spake unto them, they fought
against me without a cause," — inasmuch as he so often spared
those who betrayed him, and often denied a hearing to such as
would pledge themselves to prove, by the ordeal of battle, others
guilty of treason ; and when his friends would say unto him,
" If thou send these away thus, others will attempt a like mis-
deed against thee more fearlessly," he would answer that his
life was not at the mercy of man, but rather was in God's
power. Accordingly they often returned him evil for good ; and
while his care was for such things as would bring them peace,
they would fight against him, — yea, without a cause. Moreover,
from his repeating these verses seven times — which number, as
we read, is hallowed by the Holy Ghost — we are plainly
given to understand that Christ's Spirit itself was there, and
poured into him the mood of those verses, fostering his drooping
soul with its power. When, therefore, he was, by those who
were there, besought to give his spirit rest from the labour of
singing psalms, " Let me rather," said he, " muse on those things
which are God's ; that my spirit, about to set out homewards
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK V. 243
from this banishment, may be refreshed by a travelling-store of
God's Word, For when I shall have been brought up for God's
judgment, and shall stand trembling, none of you will answer
for me, none of you will watch over me, nor is there any one
who can pluck me out of His hand." In such devoutness did he
reach the close of the day ; and until the night which followed
it did he linger in great tranquillity.
CHAPTEK XLIX.
Lament continued — On Sunday the 2ith of May, when the sun
had dispelled the darkness, the King, taking leave of the
darkness of the body, passed into the joys of the true light.
Now, on the Sunday which preceded Christ's Ascension — that
is to say, on the 24th of May — at daybreak, while the sun was,
with the rays of his light, dispelling the darkness of night, the
king, emerging from the darkness of the body, passed into the
joys of the true light, with tranquillity so great that he seemed
not to have died, and with devoutness so great that he was
found to have raised towards heaven his two hands joined
together upon his breast. Come ye and help him, ye saints of
God ! Come ye and meet him, ye angels of the Lord ! Take ye
up his soul, worthy of fellowship, with you, and lay it in Abra-
ham's bosom, with Lazarus, whom he despised not, but cherished
— with the holy apostles and martyrs, whose remembrance he
furthered and upheld — with Christ's priests and confessors,
whom he reverenced in their successors and their churches
— with the holy virgins, with whom he vied in purity
— with despisers of the world, of whom he made unto himself
friends, of the mammon of unrighteousness, and to whom, in
Christ's name, he humbled himself in all lowliness. Let the
mother of mercies stand by him — she whose pity is of the most
avail to him, even as she is more powerful than the rest. But
I, though a sinner, and unworthy, yet remembering the benefits,
my sweetest lord and friend, which thou hast lavished upon me
from my earliest years — ^remembering the favour wherein thou
didst now, at the last, receive me — remembering the kindliness
wherewith thou didst hearken unto all my petitions — remem-
bering the munificence thou hast shown towards me — remem-
bering the embraces and kisses wherewith, not without tears,
thou didst send me away, while those who stood by mar-
velled— for thee do I shed my tears, give loose to my feelings,
and pour out all my soul. This sacrifice do I offer for thee.
244 JOHN OF fordun's chronicle
thus do I requite thy kindness ; and since this is too little, my
mind shall, from its inmost marrow, always think of thee in
that place where the Son is daily offered up to the Father, for
the salvation of all men — the Son, who with the same God the
Father and the Holy Ghost liveth and reigneth God, ever world
without end. Amen.
CHAPTEK L.
His Pedigree traced on the Father's side up to Jajphet, son of Noah.
I THINK it meet in these writings to bring in this glorious
King David's pedigree on the father's side, which I got long
ago from the Lord Cardinal of Scotland, the noble Doctor Walter
of Wardlaw, Bishop of Glasgow ; that it may be known unto
you, kings of these days, and to all readers, of how old, how
noble, how strong and invincible a stock of kings he came
(whereof ye also are come) — ^kings who have, until now, through
the blessed King Most High, been keeping the kingly dignity
unspotted for a longer time, with freer service, and, what is
more glorious, with a stronger hold of the Catholic faith than
all other kings, save only a few, if any. For that blessed
King David was the son of the most noble Malcolm, king of
Scots, the husband of the blessed Queen Margaret, and
Son of Duncan,
Son of Beatrice,
Daughter of Malcolm the Most Victorious,
Son of Kenneth,
Son of Malcolm,
Son of Dovenald,
Son of Constantine,
Son of Kenneth, the first sole sovereign ; from whom, as was
seen in Book iv.. Chapter viii., the royal line is traced to that
most vigorous king, Fergus son of Erth, who nobly wrested
the kingdom from the Romans and Picts, after these had usurped
it, and held it three-and-forty years.
And that Erth was the son of Euchadius, brother to King
Eugenius, who was slain by the Romans and Picts.
Eugenius was the son of Angusafith,
Son of Fechelmech,
Son of Angusa,
Son of Fechelmech Romach,
Son of Sencormach,
Son of Crucluith,
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK V. 245
Son of Findacli,
Son of Akirkirre,
Son of Echadius,
Son of Fechrach,
Son of Euchodius Eeid,
Son of Conere,
Son of Mogal,
Son of Lugtach,
Son of Corbre,
Son of Dordremore,
Son of Corbrefynmore,
Son of Coneremore,
Son of Etherskeol,
Son of Ewin,
Son of Ellela,
Son of laire,
Son of Detach,
Son of Syn,
Son of Rosyn,
Son of Ther,
Son of Eether,
Son of Rwen,
Son of Arindil,
Son of Manre,
Son of Fergus, who brought the Scots out of Ireland, and
first reigned over them in British Scotia ; and the chain of
whose royal lineage stretches up, as was seen above in Book i..
Chapter xxvi., as far as Simon Brek, who brought over with
him to Ireland, from Spain, the Coronation stone of the kings.
This Simon Brek was the son of Fonduf,
Son of Etheon,
Son of Glathus,
Son of Nothachus,
Son of Elchatha,
Son of Syrne,
Son of Deyne,
. Son of Demal,
Son of Eothach, the first who dwelt in the Scottish islands.
He was the son of Ogmayn,
Son of Anegus,
Son of Fiathath,
Son of Smyrnay,
Son of Synretha,
Son of Embatha,
Son of Thyema,
246 JOHN OF fordun's chronicle
Son of Faleng,
Son of Etheor,
Son of Jair,
Son of Ermon,
Son of Michael Espayn,
Son of Bile,
Son of Neande,
Son of Bregayn,
Son of Bratha,
Son of Deatlia,
Son of Erchatha,
Son of Aldoch,
Son of Node,
Son of Nonael,
Son of Iber Scot,
Son of King Gaythelos and Scota, first king and queen of the
Scottish nation. Whence this line : —
" Iber, their son, first bore the name of Scot."
This Gaythelos was the son of Neolos, king of Athens,
Son of Fenyas,
Son of Ewan,
Son of Glonyn,
Son of Lamy,
Son of Etheor,
Son of Achnemane,
Son of Choe,
Son of Boib,
Son of Jeyn,
Son of Mayr,
Son of Hethech,
Son of Abyur,
Son of Arthech,
Son of Aroth,
Son of Jara,
Son of Esralb,
Son of Richaith,
Son of Scot,
Son of Gomer,
Son of Japhet,
Son of Noah.
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. BOOK V. 247
CHAPTEK LI.
Prologue to his Pedigree on his Mother's side.
Since, says Baldredy we have, in this lament, given a short
description of the excellent character of David, the pious king
of Scots, I have thought it worth while to subjoin, briefly and
truthfully, his pedigree on the mother's side; so that, when
ye have seen, 0 successors of his, how great was the prowess
of your forebears of the same lineage, how in them manhood
glowed and godliness shone forth, ye may even acknowledge
that it is but natural for you to abound in wealth, to blossom
with virtues, to be famous for your victories, and, — what
is more than all this, — to shine with Christian piety and
the prerogative of justice. For it is the greatest spur to-
wards keeping one's character at its best, to know that one
has gotten nobility of blood from such as were all of the
best of men ; as a noble mind is always ashamed to be
found degenerate in a glorious race, and it is against nature
that bad fruit should grow from a good root. Let me, then,
starting from King David himself, the most renowned of men,
and, even as was written above of his father's pedigree, ascend-
ing, through his most glorious mother, to Adam, the father of
all mortals, show you the line of our English kinship, as I
have been able to find it in the truest and oldest histories or
chronicles ; so that afterwards, passing over the oldest kings of
England, whose history sheer length of time has swept away,
we may, on our way back, take the more prominent kings, and
succinctly touch upon their more lofty deeds. And, when ye
have seen that their great glory has passed away through death
and time, while they, through the merits of their lives, have
earned the heavenly guerdon, which could not perish, ye shall
learn always to set justice above wealth and worldly glory, that
after the life which lasts for a time ye may reach the life
everlasting.
CHAPTEE LIL
His Pedigree on the Mother's side traced, according to Baldred,
as far as Shem, son of Noah; and from him to Seth, the son
of Adam, who is the father of all.
This most excellent King David, therefore, was the son of
Margaret, the glorious queen of Scots, who enhanced the splen-
dour of her name by the holiness of her character.
248 JOHN OF fordun's chronicle
Her father was Edward,
Who was the son of the invincible King Edmund Ironside,
Whose father was Ethelred,
Whose father was Edgar the Peaceful,
Whose father was Edmund,
Whose father was Edward the Elder,
Whose father was the noble Alfred,
Who was the son of King Ethel wlf.
Who was the son of King Egbert,
Whose father was Alchmund,
Whose father was Eafifa,
Whose father was Aeppa, ^
Whose father was Ingels,
Whose brother was a most famous king, named Ine,
Whose father was Ceonred,
Who was the son of Ceowald,
Son of Cutha,
Son of Cuthwine,
Son of Ceaulin,
Son of Chinrik,
Son of Creodda,
Son of Ceordik. This king, after the lapse of forty-six years
from the first coming of the Saxons into Britain, won a king-
dom in Wessex ; and, in course of time, his successors conquered
the other kingdoms of the English.
Ceordik was the son of Elesa,
Son of Eda,
Son of Gewise,
Whose father was Wige,
Whose father was Freawine,
Whose father was Freodegare,
Whose father was Brand,
Whose father was Baldege,
Whose father was Woden, among some called Mercury. He
had so much weight among his people that they dedicated to
his name the fourth day of the week, and called it Woden's day.
This custom is, to this day, still kept up among the English ;
for they call that day Wednesday. The Koman heathens, in-
deed, used to call it Mercury's day.
This pedigree of Baldred's differs in some wise, though
little, from that which William has given in his Chronicle.
Now, as the above passage will do for my purpose, I forbear to .
foUow up the matter any further ; for I have read none but
the books of these writers upon this genealogy. If, indeed, I
had seen a third, I should have wished to leave out the odd
one, and, in the end, follow the two which agreed.
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 249
ANNALS.
Coronation of King Malcolm the younger ^ Prince Henry's
son, called " the Maiden."
Now all the people took Malcolm, a boy of thirteen — a
son of Henry, earl of Northumberland and Huntingdon, who
was the son of King David himself — and made him king
at Scone, in the room of his grandfather David ; of whom it
may truly be said : " Prosperity abideth with their seed ;
their grandchildren are an holy heritage." His brother Wil-
liam had the earldom of Northumberland in possession, while
the earldom of Huntingdon was subject unto his youngest
brother David, as will be seen below. No unworthy successor
of David, king of Scots, was Malcolm, the eldest of his grand-
sons. For, treading in that king's steps in many good points,
and even gloriously outdoing him in some, he shone like a
heavenly star in the midst of his people. In the first year of
his reign, Sumerled, kinglet of Argyll, and his nephews —
the sons of Malcolm Macbeth, to wit — being joined by a great
many, rose against their king, Malcolm, and disturbed and
troubled great part of Scotland. Now that Malcolm was the
son of Macbeth ; but he lied and said he was the son of Angus,
earl of Moray, who, in the time of King David of happy
memory, was, with all his men, slain by the Scots at Struca-
throch (Strickathrow in Forfar), while he was plundering the
country. Upon his death, this Malcolm Macbeth rose against
King David, as it were a son who would avenge his father's
death ; and while plundering and spoiling the surrounding dis-
tricts of Scotland, he was at length taken, and thrust, by that
same King David, into close confinement in the keep of March-
mont Castle. So Sumerled kept up the civil war; but his
nephew, Donald, one of Malcolm Macheth's sons, was taken
prisoner, at Withterne (Whithorn), by some of King Malcolm's
friends, and imprisoned in that same keep of Marchmont, with
250 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
his father. The year after this Donald was taken, his father
Malcolm made peace with the king, while Sumerled still
wickedly wrought his wickedness among the people.
II.
On the death of the English king, Stephen, Henry, duke of
Normandy, and son of the empress, was anointed king, in the
second year of Malcolm, king of Scotland. As soon as he was
raised to the throne, unmindful of his promise and oath, which
he had formerly sealed with a vow to King David, his mother's
uncle, he laid claim to Northumberland and Cumberland, which
had now many years yielded obedience to the king of Scots,
and was making great ado about invading them ; and he
also declared that the earldom of Huntingdon was his own
property. A peace, though a hollow one, was, however, made
for a time, between those kings ; and, in the meantime. King
Malcolm came to King Henry at Chester — at whose instiga-
tion I know not — and did homage to him, without prejudice,
however, to all his dignities, in the same way as his grand-
father. King David, had been the old King Henry's man ;
hoping, some suppose, by so doing, to be left in peaceful pos-
session of his property. At that place, however, accursed
covetousness gained over some of his councillors, who were
bribed, it is said, by English money ; and the king was soon so
far misled by their clever trickery as, in that same year, to sur-
render Northumberland and Cumberland to the lang of Eng-
land, after having consulted with only a few of his lords. The
king of England, however, restored to him the earldom of Hun-
tingdon. Now, on account of this, the estates {communitas) of
all Scotland were, with one accord, roused to stifled murmuring,
and hatred against their lord the king, and his councillors.
Meanwhile, these same kings met together, the following year,
at Carlisle, on some business ; but they took leave of each other 1
without having come to a good understanding, as most men ;
could see. Afterwards, however, when a few years had slipped :
by — that is, in the seventh year of the reign of the king of
Scots — King Henry led a strong army against Toulouse ; but as
Louis, king of France, defended the town, Henry was baffled in
the chief aim he was striving after, and retraced his steps ; and
thus, out of the most profound peace sprang up the most deep-
rooted feud. King Malcolm, though against the wiU of many
of his great men, was with Henry in this expedition ; and, on
their way back thence, was by him girded with the sword of
knighthood, in the city of Tours.
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 251
III.
At length the Scottish lords, seeing their king's too great
intimacy and friendship with Henry, king of England, were
sore troubled, and all Scotland with them. For they feared
this intimacy had shame and disgrace in store for them;
and they strove in all earnestness to guard against this. So
they sent an embassy after him, saying (or, rather, they thought
and said within themselves) : — " We will not have this man reign
over us." Thereupon, he returned from the army at Toulouse,
and came to Scotland, on account of divers pressing matters ; and
by his authority as king, he bade the prelates and nobles meet
together at his borough of Perth. Meanwhile the chief men of
the country were roused. Six earls — Ferchard, earl of Stratherne,
to wit, and five other earls — being stirred up against the king,
not to compass any selfish end, or through treason, but rather
to guard the common weal, sought to take him, and laid siege
to the keep of that town. God so ordering it, however, their
undertaking was brought to naught for the nonce ; and after
not many days had rolled by, he was, by the advice of the
clergy, brought back to a good understanding with his nobles.
He then, thrice in the same year, mustered an army, and
marched into Galloway against the rebels. At last, when he
had vanquished these, made them his allies, and subdued them,
he hied him back in peace, without loss to his men ; and after-
wards, when he had thus subdued them, he pressed them so
sore, that their chieftain, who was called Fergus, gave up the
calling of arms, and sending off his son and heir, Vithred, to the
king, as a hostage, donned the canonical garb at the monastery of
Holyrood, in Edinburgh. Meanwhile the king, by the help and
advice of his friends, gave his sister Margaret in marriage to
Conan, duke of Brittany, and his sister Ada to Florence, count
of Holland. Peace, also, was restored between the kings of
France and England ; and the English king Henry's son, Henry,
not yet six years old, took to wife the French king Louis's
daughter, not yet two.
IV.
At this time, the rebel nation of the Moravienses, whose former
lord, namely, the Earl Angus, had been killed by the Scots,
would, for neither prayers nor bribes, neither treaties nor
oaths, leave off their disloyal ways, or their ravages among
their fellow-countrymen. So having gathered together a large
252 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
army, the king removed them all from the land of their birth,
as of old Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, had dealt with the
Jews, and scattered them throughout the other districts of Scot-
land, both beyond the hills and this side thereof, so that not even
one native of that land abode there ; and he installed therein his
own peaceful people. Sumerled, likewise, king of Argyll, of
whom we have spoken above, impiously fought, for twelve years,
against King Malcolm, his lord. At length, bent on plunder, he
brought up at Renfrew with a strong army and very large fleet,
which he had levied out of Ireland and sundry other places,
but, through God's vengeance, he was, with his son Gelli-
colan, and a countless multitude of traitors, slain there by a
few countrymen. Now, when this King Malcolm grew up,
and reached the years of youth, he refused to marry, although
besought to do so by the earls and all the people of his
kingdom, with all manner of entreaties, and, as far as respect
for the king's rank would allow, urged to do so ; and, before
God, he vowed chastity, abiding his whole time in the spotless
purity of maidenhood. For though, on the strength of his
kingly rank, he could often have transgressed, yet he never
did transgress. He harmed none, but wished men well ; was
pleasant to all, and displeased none; and was very devout
towards God : for with the whole straining of his mind, and
all the longing of his inmost heart, did he yearn to reign with
Christ for ever. Nevertheless, he had many trials and re-
proaches to bear at the hands of the dwellers in his kingdom,
according to that saying of Solomon's : " Son, when thou under-
takest God's service, stand in righteousness and fear, and make
ready thy soul to the trial." He, indeed, having conceived the
warmth of the love of God, had set his heart upon heavenly
things; so that, looking down upon all earthly things, he
quite neglected the care, as well as governance, of his king-
dom. Wherefore he was so hated by all the common people
that William, the elder of his brothers — who had always
been on bad terms with the English, and their lasting foe,
forasmuch as they had taken away his patrimony, the earl-
dom of Northumberland, to wit — was by them appointed
warden of the whole kingdom, against the king's will ; while
his younger brother, Earl David of Huntingdon, abode in
England.
In the year 1165, the thirteenth of King Malcolm's reign,
at the end of the month of August, two comets appeared
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 253
— one to the south, and the other to the north — which, accord-
ing to some, foreboded the king's death. A comet is a star
which appears, not at all times, but chiefly against a king's
death, or a country's downfall. When it appears with a shin-
ing diadem of hair, it heralds a king's death ; but if with scat-
tered tresses glowing red, it forebodes a country's downfall.
And sometimes it betokens storms or wars, as in these lines : —
" There is a star bodes storm or war.
On high when it has crept ;
And if thou seek its name to speak,
Boetes 'tis yclept."
Now Malcolm, being guided by God in the blessings of sweet-
ness, so that his heart was kindled with the love of the Most
High, wherewith he was upheld, all his life excelled in bright-
ness of chastity, in the glory of lowliness and innocence, in
purity of conscience, and holiness, as well as staidness of
character ; so that, among laymen, with whom he had nothing
in common but his dress, he was as a monk ; and among men,
whom he ruled, he seemed, indeed, an angel upon earth. He
founded the monastery of Cupar, to the praise of God. But
when he had completed twelve years, seven months, and three
days, on the throne, Christ called him away on Thursday the
9th of December ; so he put off manhood for the fellowship of
angels, and lost not, but exchanged, his kingdom. And thus
this man of angelic holiness among men, and like some angel
upon earth, of whom the world was not worthy, was snatched
away from the world by the heavenly angels, in the bloom of
his lily-youth, — the twenty-sixth year of his age.
VI.
This is the vision of a certain cleric, devout towards God,
and formerly a familiar friend of the king's, about the glory
of this same King Malcolm, of holy memory. While this
cleric was devoutly watching at the king's grave, sleep stole
upon him amid his psalm-singing ; and the king seemed to him
to be standing by, clad in snow-white robes, with a glad but
speechless countenance, and not sorrowful; and ever as he
asked him^ in verse, with one half of each couplet, somewhat of
his plight, the king would answer each question in verse, with
the other half of every couplet, to the following effect : —
Cleric. A king thou wast ; what art thou now ?
King. A servant once, lo ! now I reign.
254 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
C. Why lingers still thy flesh below ?
K, My spirit seeks the heavenly plain.
C. Art thou in torment, or content ?
K. Nay, not in pain. I rest in peace.
C. Then what hath been thy punishment ?
K. A bitter lot ere my decease.
G. Where art thou, friend ? Where dwells thy sprite ?
K. In paradise that knows not woe.
G. Why does thy raiment gleam so white ?
K. A maid I to my grave did go.
C. Why answerest so shortly, friend ?
K. My life is eloquent for me.
(7. Thy days thou didst in sickness spend,
K. But now from sickness am I free !
G. Why lost we thee ? Why did we part ?
K. That I might find the saints on high.
G. What was it grieved thy gentle heart ?
K. This wicked world is all a lie.
G. Tell me, when shalt thou come again ?
K. When the great Judge shall judge at last.
G. Will Scotia for thy loss complain ?
K. Not now, but when this time is past.
G. Wilt leave me now ? What dost thou fear ?
K. The burden of the life I bore.
G. Hast thou no word thy friends to cheer ?
K. Bid them farewell for evermore.
This most godly King Malcolm fell asleep in the Lord at Jed-
worth (Jedburgh) ; and his body was brought, by nearly all the
prominent persons of the kingdom, in great state, to Dunferm-
line, a famous burial-place of the Scottish kings; — where are
entombed Malcolm the Great and his consort the blessed Mar-
garet (his great-grandfather and great-grandmother), and their
holy offspring. It rests interred in the middle of the floor,
in front of the high altar, on the right of his grandfather
David.
vn.
Coronation of King William.
To proceed — after King Malcolm*s death, the prelates and
all the lords of Scotland met at Scone, at the command of
his brother William, then warden of the kingdom, and there,
^ OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 255
with one accord, set up the latter as king. So, on Christmas
Eve, that is, the fifteenth day after the king's death, this Wil-
liam, the friend of God, the lion of justice, the prince of
peace, was consecrated king by Eichard, bishop of Saint
Andrews, with other bishops to help him, and raised to
the king's throne. In the autumn before the king's death,
King Henry had led a large army into Wales, which had re-
belled against him ; but meeting with no success, he put out
the eyes of King Richard's sons, who had previously been put
into his hands as hostages, and lopped off the noses and ears of
his daughters. For he had formerly — eight years before — made
himself master of that country, as it was thought ; seeing that
he had then, with great slaughter of his own men, taken host-
ages of the king and the barons. When, however, he had re-
turned thence, seeing himself threatened by grievous wars there
and everywhere, he bethought him of making sure of the steady
friendship of the Scottish nation ; so he sent word to his War-
dens of the Marches to bespeak peace rather than war from the
Scots, and to sound them as to a peaceful understanding.
Finally, at this juncture, Matthew, count of Bouillon, the con-
sort of King Stephen's daughter, gathering together a fleet from
all sides, made ready — it was rumoured — six hundred vessels,
to man with Flemings, and lead to the invasion of England the
following year. Therefore there was a great stir made through-
out England, and everywhere an earnest endeavour to secure
friends.
VIII.
Now at this time, and even from the time ISTorthumber-
land was given back to King Henry, there reigned between the
kingdoms no steady peace, but rather some frail truce, many a
time broken, and many a time patched up again ; whereby
the borders of the countries, where they touched each other, were
sadly crippled. Wherefore, on these and other grounds, an
agreement was drawn up by commissioners from either country,
and confirmed by the warrant of each king and of all the lords,
that, in order to get back Northumberland, and to secure an in-
dissoluble bond of everlasting peace, William, king of Scots,
should go to his cousin. King Henry, then at Windsor, awaiting
his coming thither. This was, accordingly, done. So, on his
arrival at Windsor, William was welcomed with great re-
joicings. But just as the kings were talking over their affairs,
all of a sudden, untoward news from parts beyond the sea burst
upon King Henry's ears; and when he had got a connected
256 JOHN OF fordun's chronicle
account thereof, he put all business aside, and crossed the sea at
the head of a huge army. William, king of Scots, however,
cou]d, by no contrivance of his nobles "who were with him, or of
any one else, be restrained from setting out with him, against
the will of all, so that he might witness the shock of brave
warriors; and in those parts he distinguished himself with
splendid knightly renown, giving to all men hope of uncommon
prowess. And thus, having first ratified the truce, he came
back to his own kingdom with honour, while the treaty of
peace which was to have been arranged was put off to an ap-
pointed time of fitting leisure. Afterwards, war broke out
again between the kings of France and England, about the city
of Toulouse, and for sundry reasons on both sides ; so that,
besides many other evils, the earldom of Anjou and the district
of the Vexin were fearfully ravaged by fire and pillage, while the
French king, with his army, tarried four days in the Vexin. The
second year after this, however, peace was again made between
them, when both kings had undergone many a risk. As a pledge
of this peace, the French king's other daughter, begotten of the
daughter of the king of Spain, was given to Eichard, a son of
the king of England. Richard, moreover, got the dukedom of
Aquitaine from the king of France ; and did him homage, and
swore faithful allegiance to him for the honour of the duchy.
Henry, also, the firstborn of the king of England, got from the
king of France, the lordship of Brittany, together with the
districts of Anjou and Cenoman (Maine) — doing homage for
these, as he had already done for the duchy of Normandy.
DC.
The following year, having done what he had to do across
the water, this king came back from Normandy; and, in
this voyage back, many perished by shipwreck, while he
himself barely escaped. King William, however, in order to
settle that same matter they had before been engaged in —
namely, to come to an understanding about arranging a peace —
came to him at Windsor, on Easter Eve, the day appointed by
their agents, and was welcomed by him with great honours.
After the feast, they were closeted together ; and when they
came to talk the matter over, William asked that Northumber-
land should be restored to him upon the same terms as the king
of England had promised it him upon, in their former negotia-
tion. But, seeing that, as already said, the latter had yielded
this through fear of wars assailing him, now that these were
smothered and quieted he felt safer, and refused to give it back.
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 257
Wherefore King 'William went off unappeased, with none of
his business settled ; and, by hurried and unbroken stages,
safely came home to Scotland. In that same year, namely, 1170,
that king had his son Henry, then twenty years old, crowned,
and consecrated king at Westminster ; overlooking the advice of
Solomon, who says : — " Lest thou give thine honour unto others,
and thy years unto the cruel ; lest haply strangers be filled with
thy strength, and thou mourn at the last." 'Now his crowning
was the occasion of many afterwards losing their earthly lives.
For, after an interval of three years, an accursed feud sprang
up between them. When invested with the royal diadem of
his father, who was now of his own accord deposed from the
height of kingship, this new king Henry brooked ill any govern-
ance or sovereignty of the kingdom above himself ; since, as was
being said by some, he ought rightfully to reign alone, as though,
when the son was crowned, the father's reign had ended. So,
on these and other grounds, he swelled with indignation against
his father. Then, accompanied by his two brothers, Geoffroy
and Eichard, he went to his father-in-law, Louis, king of France,
to brew troubles for his father. And soon, by the advice of Louis,
he was trying everywhere, like a second Absalom, to bring evil
upon his father, and, with the most idle promises, kept urging
William, king of Scots, Philip, count of Flanders, and many
other powerful men, both in these parts and across the sea, to
fall away, little by little, from the father to the son, and by
every means make ready for warlike operations. English and
Norman noblemen followed them, and, with right hands clasped,
pledged themselves to do battle.
The younger King Henry, as already said, trusting in
the advice, and upheld by the support, of the French, and with
Philip, count of Flanders, for his ally and companion, led his
army into Normandy, against his father, and took a castle,
called Albemarle,, and the Earl of Albemarle himself, as well as
Earl Simon, whom the elder King Henry had sent to help him ;
and these earls he kept in a dungeon. He also took a great
many other towns by storm. In this army, Matthew, count of
Boulogne, received a deadly wound, and died. King William,
also, putting faith in the pledges of that new king, who pro-
mised him Northumberland and Cumberland, levied an army
for the war, and besieged Wark Castle for some time ; but with
no success. So he set out thence, and, with the highland Scots,
whom they caU hruti, and the Gallwegians, who knew not
VOL, II. R
258 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
how to spare either place or person, but raged after the manner
of beasts, he laid Northumberland waste, and stripped, in part,
the land this side of the river Humber, slaughtering the inhabi-
tants in more than one spot. He then bent his steps towards
Carlisle, and made every effort to take the city by storm. It
so happened, however, that at this time Eobert earl of Leicester,
having summoned a great many knights, and no small num-
ber of Flemish foot, was, with his consort also in mail, sent
into England by the younger King Henry. But when, on the
16th of October, he encountered the English host, who were
hastening to meet him, a good many of his foot were slain, and
the rest put to flight ; while he himself was taken, and con-
signed to bonds at Porchester. Upon hearing this, the king of
Scots, who had settled down to the siege, raised it, and led his
troops back to his own kingdom. At the beginning of this year,
there was seen a meteor of a very deep red, flashing with won-
drous brightness in a sky clear and free from any overshadowing
clouds ; so that those who saw it were aghast, for it was deemed
by some to have foreboded bloodshed.
XI.
King William taken.
The second year after — that is, in 1174 — King William
led an array into England, and besieged and took Appleby
and Wayniland. Thereupon the Northumbrians, for a sum
of money, obtained peace until the eighth day after Whit-
sunday ; and William, having thus made his raid successfully,
went back without loss. Meanwhile, when he had returned to
Scotland from Appleby, he rested not; but, again mustering
his army, he led it into England, and took Borough-under-
Moor. So, after having wasted Cumberland, as he was
going back through Northumberland, ravaging and plundering,
he came before Alnwick ; and, when at watch there, with a few
knights he had kept beside him, while all his army was scattered
about pillaging the country, lo ! he was taken by the enemy,
who, passing themselves off for Scotsmen, suddenly came upon
him unawares ; and he was carried off, with hardly any of his
men knowing anything about it. Nor was this done without
the deliberate will of God, Who, in His loving-kindness, be-
thought him of William's fierceness, and contrived, in his fore-
sight, both that the king himself might be rescued from the
perpetration of evils so great, and that, by a bridle being put
into his jaws, the British realms might be restored to peace, as
OF THE SCOTTISH NATIOX. ANNALS. 259
Merlin foretold ; — and not only that this country's turmoil might
be lulled, but also that peace might be renewed in all the parts
of France beyond the sea. On the 13th of July, therefore,
having been taken prisoner — or rather, by the ordering of God's
loving-kindness, rescued from the shedding of Christian blood,
he was brought to the king of England, the elder Henry,
Matilda's son, who commanded that he should be at once taken
across to Normandy, and kept in custody in the castle of
Falaise. When this became known. King William's brother,
David, speedily left Leicester, for which he fought, and
betook himself over to Scotland as fast as he could. At this
time, also, the Scots and men of Galloway, on their king being
taken, wickedly and ruthlessly slew their French and English
neighbours, in frequent invasions, with mutual slaughter ; and
there was then a most woeful and exceeding great persecution
of the English, both in Scotland and Galloway, so that neither
sex was spared ; but in most places, and wherever they could
be caught, all ransom was scouted, and they were cruelly slain.
XII.
Meanwhile Eouen was besieged by Henry's son, the
young King Henry, Louis, king of France, and Philip, count
of Flanders. But when the old King Henry found this out,
seeing that the whole English kingdom was tranquillized to his
heart's content, and was fast under his sovereignty again, by a
most binding treaty of peace, he hastened to the sea, and crossed
over without delay, to his people's support ; and, that he might
be the more sure of being upheld by the obedience of his men,
and strike the greater terror and dismay into his foes, he
dragged the Scottish king from the keep of Falaise, brought
him with him, and put him under arrest, locked up in Caen.
When, however, the Scottish king, as already said, had been
betrayed into the hands of his foes, all the old king's enemies
— those, even, who had been the chief instigators of the quarrel
— began, frightened and humbled, to treat for peace ; and, at
the instance of some good men, the father and son came to an
understanding, while peace was wholly restored and renewed
in the parts beyond, as well as this side of, the water. King
Henry, the father, likewise, at the intercession of the king of
France, unconditionally released all the prisoners but the king
of Scotland, and gave them back, when released, their honours
and goods. Lo how they loved him ! May he not say with
the prophet : — " All my friends have forsaken me " — allies who,
at any rate, feigned true friendship for him — to wit, that they
260 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
would be partakers with him in the subsequent events of the
war, and be in fast fellowship with him in peace ? Hence they
had, although with clashing aims, promised that the war and
peace of one should hold good with another and with all;
and though they were bound by the straitest treaty, yet the
noising abroad of his capture damped the courage of all these
friends of his. All the Philistines, likewise, fled away together
when Goliath was slain. But he justly suffered this for holding
out help to an undutiful son, who, under colour of right, but
without zeal for it, was carrying on an unrighteous war against
his father. He did, moreover, forego a most righteous ground
for war, as the chiefship and crown of all England ought, by ac-
knowledged right, to have been his. Indeed, if he were cunningly
doing this for his own sake, to weaken his enemies, he craftily
tricked such as were knit in fellowship with him, and thus
waged a righteous war unrighteously. For, not only from an
unrighteous deed or cause, but many a time from an unrighteous
aim, has it chanced that a combatant who has carried on a
righteous war unrighteously has been worsted or slain.
XIII.
Unlike Octavianus Augustus Caesar are those princes
who are easily roused to war. Of this successful warrior,
Uutropiios relates that he so loathed war, strife, and uproar, that
he never, without just cause, declared war against any nation.
He used to say that it showed a boastful and shallow disposi-
tion to hurry the safety of the citizens into danger from the un-
certain upshot of a struggle, for the burning love of triumphing,
and for a laurel crown — fruitless leaves ; that nothing befitted a
good prince less than rashness ; that whatever could be brought
forth by fair means would be done soon enough, and that one
should by no means take up arms, save with the hope of some-
thing to gain ; that a victory won with heavy loss, for slight
reward, was like fishing with a golden hook, the loss whereof,
when broken off and gone, no profit of catching can make up
for. So far Eutropius. When, however, the other magnates
were released, as already stated, Kichard, bishop of Saint
Andrews, and Richard, bishop of Dunkeld, and many of the
prelates, earls, and barons of the kingdom of Scotland, went
across the sea to King Henry, in Normandy, about setting their
king free. He was accordingly set free, and allowed to go
home, about the next Purification of the Blessed Virgin after he
was taken ; and he was thus restored to the governance of his
kingdom. But William, king of Scots, gave up his castles of
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 261
Roxburgh, Berwick, and the Castle of Maidens (Edinburgh) to
wardens appointed thereto, under the sovereignty of the English
king, and was given hostages by the king of England, for the
maintenance of peace ; and so there was made between them a
covenant which should last unshaken. Then, on the 15th of
August, all the bishops and prelates of Scotland, at their lord
the king's command, met together at York, and were fast bound
to Henry, king of England, under the sanction of an oath, and
the plighting of their troth. To whom all the earls and barons
of that kingdom, their lord the king so bidding them, even as it
then behoved him to do, submitted by the tie of homage, and
were bound to him by an oath of fealty.
I xrv.
But while this was going on, the Gallwegians, led by Gilbert,
son of Fergus, treacherously made a conspiracy, just after their
king's capture ; and, separating themselves from the kingdom
of Scotland, that same year, they disturbed the adjacent lands.
Ochtred, moreover, son of Fergus, w^ho was a true Scot, and
could not be shaken, was taken prisoner by his brother Gilbert,
on the 2 2d of September, and given over unto bonds ; and, at
length, his tongue was cut off and his eyes were torn out, and
he was ruthlessly murdered. Upon learning this, the king,
now released, led an army against them, into Galloway ; but
when these came to meet him, some Scottish bishops and earls
stepped in between them, and, through their mediation, they
were reconciled, by a money settlement, and by giving hostages.
The winter after this, on the 29th of January, the king of
England held a general council at Northampton, whereat the
king of Scotland was present ; and, at the command of both
kings, all the bishops and prelates of the kingdom of Scot-
land were there met together. These were warned, on one
side, under the threat of banishment, and, on the other, it was
hinted to them, in wrong-headed exhortations, under the pretext
of advice, that they should submit to the metropolitan bishop
They all, however, strove hard to avert the threatened danger ;
and, better counsels prevailing, the proposal was unanimously,
rejected by them — by having, however, had recourse to delays.
Thereupon, through their efforts, the olden dignity of their
Church was secured by apostolic authority, and its liberty
strengthened, by Pope Alexander, with the protection of privi-
leges. Before the aforesaid council, also, Vivian, cardinal
priest of Saint Stephen in Mount Cselius, came to Scotland
as legate, armed with the warrant of great authority, crushing
262 JOHN OF FOIIDUN'S CHRONICLE
and trampling upon everything lie came across, ready to clutch,
and not slow to snatch. Thence he crossed over to Ireland to
fulfil his errand ; and, after holding a council there, he came
back to the Scots country, and, on the 1st of August, held a
solemn council at the monastery of Holyrood, at the Castle
of Maidens (Edinburgh), renewing, upon apostolic authority,
many decrees of the ancients, and establishing some new
ordinances.
XV.
Now, in that aforesaid council at Northampton, whereat
were present Kichard, archbishop of Canterbury, and Eoger,
archbishop of York, together with the clergy of both kingdoms,
a certain Scottish cleric, named Gilbert, perceiving their attempt
to enthral the Scottish Church, was almost maddened; and, when
warned by the archbishops to say out whatever he liked, he
lifted up his voice, though against the will of all his own prelates
and clergy, and, glowing like red-hot iron, poured forth these
or such like passionate words : " Ye would indeed," said he,
" men of England, have been noble — yea, nobler than the men
of well-nigh any country — had ye not craftily changed the
might of your nobleness, and the strength of your dreaded
courage, into the insolence of tyranny ; and your enlightened
wisdom and knowledge into the wily quibbles of sophistry. For
ye trust not yourselves to order your actions aright under the
guidance of reason ; but, both puffed up by your teeming
hosts of knights, and trusting in the delights of wealth and all
manner of substance, ye, through some wrongful lust or greed
of mastery, aim at subduing to your sway all the bordering
provinces and nations; nations nobler than you — I will not
say in numbers, or in might — but in blood, and in antiquity ;
nations whom, if ye look into the writings of old, ye ought
rather humbly to obey, or, at least, quenching the touchwood of
all ill-will, hereafter maintain brotherly love with, and reign
with, for aye. And now, moreover, priding yourselves in
all the wickedness ye have wrought, ye are striving, with-
out putting forward any plea of right, but by brute force, to
crush the Scottish Catholic Church, your mother, which was
free from the beginning, and which, while ye were wander-
ing through the pathless wilds of heathendom, set you upon
the bulwark of faith, and brought you into the way of truth
and life — Christ, the home of everlasting rest ; washed your
kings and princes, and their peoples, with the water of holy
baptism ; taught and instructed you in the precepts of God ;
I OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 263
and gladly welcoming many of your nobles and common folk,
who took delight in giving themselves up to reading, saw that
their daily food was given them free of cost, as well as books
to read, and masters, for nothing. She likewise consecrated,
appointed, and ordained your bishops and priests; and Bede
bears witness that, for the space of thirty years or more, she
held the primacy and chief episcopal dignity north of the river
Thames. What return, pray, are ye making to a Church which
has lavished so many benefits upon you ? Is it not bondage,
or such like, — giving evil for good, as the Jews with Christ ?
I, indeed, look not for anything else, should your wish be fol-
lowed by deeds, than that ye should bring down to the utmost
wretchedness of bondage Her whom it beseems you to treat with
all worship and reverence." At these words, some of the English
praised him highly, in that he had fearlessly, for his country's
sake, vented the feelings of his heart, truckling to none, and
undaunted by the sternness of his hearers ; others, again, be-
cause he had put forward what went against their wishes, of
course thought him a vapouring and fiery Scot. But Koger,
archbishop of York, broke up the council ; and, rising with a
smile on his face, patted Gilbert on the head with his hand,
and said to the bystanders :
" 'Twas not from his own quiver came that shaft."
XVI.
After this, in the year 1179, William, king of Scotland,
with his brother Earl David, and a large army, advanced into
Eoss against Macwilliam, whose real name was Donald Bane,
and fortified two castles there — namely, Dunschath and Eder-
done ; and when he had fortified these, he hied him back to the
southern tracts of his kingdom. But after seven years were
overpast, seeing that this man went on in his wonted wickedness,
the king, with a numerous army, and in very strong force, set out
for Moray against this same enemy of his, Donald Bane, who
said he was sprung of royal seed, and was the son of William,
son of Duncan the Bastard, who was the son of the great Mal-
colm, king of Scotland, called Canmore. This man, relying
upon the treachery of some disloyal men, had first, indeed,
wrested from his king the whole of Eoss, by his tyrannous in-
solence ; and then, having for no little time held the whole of
Moray, he had seized upon the greater part of the kingdom,
with fire and slaughter, and aimed at the whole thereof. Now,
while the king was making some stay, with his army, at the
264 JOHN OF fordun's chronicle
town of Inverness, and had been harassing Donald Bane and
his adherents by daily plundering and spoiling, it fell out, one
day, that some of his men, whom he had as usual sent out, to
the number of two thousand, throughout the woods and country
to plimder and to reconnoitre, lo ! all of a sudden, stumbled
unawares upon Macwilliam and his troops lurking in a moor
which is called Macgarvy, near Moray. Macwilliam, seeing
that those of the king's army were few in comparison with his
own men, engaged them at once, and charged them. But they
manfully and fearlessly withstood him with all their might,
and, by God's help, slew him, with five hundred of his men, and
routed the rest, on Friday the 31st of July — thus giving him
the meet reward he had earned. They then brought away his
head to the king, as a gazing-stock for the whole army.
xvn.
But, for the whole time from the king of Scots being taken
until the time he regained his former liberty, the dwellers in the
southern and northern belts of the country were at odds, and
were engaged in civil war with each other, with fiendish slaughter.
At that time, also, in the year 1185, died that lover and wager of
civil war, Gilbert, son of Fergus, and lord of Galloway — he who
had wickedly killed his brother Ochtred, after he had cut out
his tongue and put out his eyes. Now this was sure to happen,
by the will of God, who, in His loving-kindness, hearkeneth
unto the constant crying of the poor and needy, and gladly
snatcheth them from the hands of the stronger. Upon his
death, Ochtred's son, Rotholand, upheld by the king's help,
gathered his army together, and, on Thursday the 4th of July,
fought a battle with Gilpatrick, and Henry Kennedy, and
Samuel, and a great many other Gallwegians, who, in Gilbert's
time, had been the instigators and whole cause of all the hostile
feeling and war. In this struggle, the aforesaid fosterers of
wickedness, with their abettors, and others not a few, perished
by the avenger's sword ; and the Lord requited them worthily
after their deserts. That same year, this Rotholand, at the
king's command, hunted down a certain Gillicolin, a tp'ant and
robber chief, and drew up his army in battle array against
him, on the 30th of September. This Gillir.nlin h^^d been in-
festing all Lothian, by frequent spoiling and giving way to
robbery, and many nobles had he bereft of life and property ;
and, at length, making a hostile attack upon Galloway, was
tyrannously usurping to himself the lands of Gilbert — though
there was no great injustice in this — and the sovereignty of
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 265
those parts of Galloway. But, on tlieir coming to blows, Gilli-
coHn perished, with many of his men ; and thus his tyranny
came to a' shameful end. In this struggle, Eotholand's brother,
and a few of those who sided with him, fell slain.
XVIII.
Henry, king of England, was very bitter against Eotholand,
for the death of the Galloway traitors, whom, in defending him-
self and his rights, the latter had, the year before, overthrown in
battle; and, through the promptings of certain evil-minded
persons, feeling a deep hatred towards him, he levied an
army against him, from all parts of England, and advanced as
far as Carlisle. Eotholand, however, at the bidding and advice
of his lord the king of Scotland, came thither to him, and they
arrived at an honourable understanding. King William after-
wards, on account of this Eotholand's faithfulness, and the
many times he had so well bestead both him and the kingdom,
gave him the whole land of Galloway — that is to say, Gilbert's
lands, besides the lands he had himself formerly held by right
of inheritance. He also restored peace and harmony between
Eotholand and Gilbert's son. To this son of Gilbert's, likewise,
who did forego his father's lands, and quietly agreed that
Eotholand should enjoy them for ever, the king granted the
whole of Carrick in possession for all time. In the afore-
said year — that is, 1186 — on the 21st of April, about the first
hour of day, the sun looked the colour of fire, so red that the
whole face of the earth, when touched by his rays, seemed to
beholders to be drenched with blood. This, some declared,
was a partial eclipse. It had, indeed, been preceded, that
same month, on the 6th of April, at night, about dusk, by a
total eclipse of the moon, which many had beheld. But the
astrologers had foretold that these two tokens should be of
those very kinds, and at those very times, hours, and moments ;
and had publicly foreshown that they boded bloodshed, dis-
asters, and storms, and disturbance of kingdoms in many parts
of the world. And this, in fact, came true the following year.
Eor Saladin, prince of Babylon and Damascus, with a num-
berless multitude of his men, marched into the borders of the
land of Jerusalem, and, at the outset, killed the Master of
the Hospital of Jerusalem, together with nearly two hundred
Templars and other knights. Then he so smote the whole
Christian host, that but a small number escaped. In this
deadly fight, two thousand Christian knights were slain, and
thirty thousand foot; while the Turks and other heathen
266 JOHN OF fordun's chronicle
triumphed over them to their heart's content — woe worth the
day ! Now this pitiful defeat of the Christians who dwelt
at Jerusalem took place on the 4th day of the month of July,
through the sufferance of God, who now, because they ^vTonged
His divine Majesty, enthralled the Christian people to strangers,
stirred up at His nod ; even as, under the old law, He had,
as we read, dealt with the people of the Jews. They fiercely
invaded every city, town, and castle ; and then, at length, be-
sieged, took, defiled, and fortified the workshop of our salva-
tion— to wit, the holy Jerusalem and our Lord's sepulchre.
XIX.
The empress's son, Henry, king of England, fleeing before
his son Eichard's pursuit, came by the end of his life and reign
at the town of Chinon, in the year 1189, the thirty-fifth of his
reign ; and was buried at Fonteurault. It came to pass that
while this king was being taken to be buried, clad in kingly
apparel, with a golden crown on his head, gilt gloves and a
ring on his hands, and with shoes embroidered with gold ; begirt
with a sword; lying upon the bier with uncovered face; and
holding a golden rod in his hand, his son Eichard Eufus,
Count of Poitou, suddenly came to meet him, and do obeisance
to his corpse. As soon as he was thus come, blood trickled from
the dead king's nostrils, as if he were deeply indignant at his
son's arrival. Weeping and wailing, however, Eichard went
with his father's body to the burial-ground ; and it was there
consigned to earth with solemn obsequies worthy of a kingly
corpse. So Eichard succeeded him in the kingship, by the wish
of all alike ; and, by the consent equally of the clergy and of
the people, he was raised to the throne, and invested with the
king's diadem at Westminster ; — Baldwin, archbishop of Can-
terbury, with the rest of the bishops and prelates of England,
placing the crown upon his head, on the 3d of September.
For his brother Henry, the young king — of whom we spoke
above — had departed this life six years before the death of his
father, the aforesaid Henry, and in the thirteenth year after
his own crowning. And thus the hopes of all those who had
fought for him, which had nearly been blighted by his death,
suddenly began to live anew in the crowning of his brother
Eichard, who had been a partaker with his brother, as long as
he had lived, in the whole of the quarrel with their father, and,
after his death, had unweariedly carried on the war in like
manner. •
r
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 267
XX.
King William released from fealty to England.
As soon, therefore, as his coronation was over, he, by a general
decree, in full Parliament constituted by the advice of his pre-
lates and lords, freed and released all his friends and allies, both
English and French, who had cleaved to him and to his brother
Henry, formerly the young king, at the time of the war against
their father (which we have already gone into), and from whom
his father had, for that reason, wrung any taxes, bonds, or
bargains whatsoever. He also freely gave back, with usury, the
lands, property, and ransoms, and all other goods whatsoever,
that had been taken from them. To "William, king of Scots,
he restored his castles of Eoxburgh and Berwick. The Castle
of Maidens (Edinburgh), likewise, had been given back to him
before, by King Henry, the father. Eichard also released the
king and kingdom of Scots from all thraldom and bond of
allegiance, oaths and pledge of fealty, and even from the
terms of the old covenant — whereto the aforesaid king had,
that his body might be set free, bound himself and his king-
dom to the king and kingdom of England. He, likewise, freed
and sent back to the Scottish kingdom the hostages whom
William had given King Henry, for the keeping unshaken the
covenant made between them. He also, on receiving from
William ten thousand merks, granted that the Scots kingdom
should be for ever free, quit, and exempt, from the jurisdiction
and dominion of the English kingdom. The writs and charters,
moreover, wherein those old covenants and extorted bonds had
been set out, were cancelled and annulled, and given back to
King William ; while Eichard drew up writs and charters
wherein were contained that immunity and the recovered free-
dom and exemption of the Scots ; and having given them force,
by signatures of witnesses and the warrant of their seals, handed
them over to the keeping of the king and kingdom of Scots
for ever, in witness and warrant of the exemption made and
their recovered freedom. The purport of one of these is in the
following words : —
" Eichard, by the grace of God, king of England, duke of
Normandy and Aquitaine, earl of Anjou and Poitou ; to the
archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, earls, barons, justiciaries,
sheriffs, and all his ministers and lieges of the whole of Eng-
land— Greeting : Know ye that we have given back to our
cousin William, by the grace of God, king of Scots, his castles
of Berwick and Eoxburgh, with all their pertinents, as his by
268 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
right of inheritance, and to be held for ever by him and his
heirs in the said kingdom. Furthermore, we have remitted
Tinto him all customs and bargains which our father Henry,
king of England, of happy memory, extorted by fresh escheats,
through his capture. Provided, of course, that the said king
do wholly and fully unto us, for his lands in England, what
his brother Malcolm, king of Scots, did unto Our ancestors, as
he was bound by law to do. And we shall do unto him and
his successors, whatever Our ancestors were bound by law to
do : to wit, in safe-conduct in coming to court, and returning
from court, and, while tarrying at court, in procurations, and
dignities, and honours, and all the privileges of the same,
due, by law, from old time (according as it shall be ascer-
tained by four of our lords, elected by the said King Wil-
liam, and four lords of the kingdom of Scotland, elected
by us), after William the Bastard, the conqueror of the said
kingdom of England, and his heirs, obtained the said king-
dom of England. But if any of Our men, after William,
king of Scotland, was taken by Our father, has seized the bor-
ders or marches of the kingdom of Scotland, and has unlaw-
fully retained them without a judgment. We will that they
be wholly restored, and brought back to the former state in
which they were before his capture. Furthermore, touching his
lands, which he has in England, whether demesnes, or fees — in
the earldom of Huntingdon, to wit, and in all other places — he
and his heirs for ever may hold them with that freedom and
fulness wherewith his brother Malcolm, king of Scotland, held
them, and was entitled to hold them by right of inheritance ;
unless the aforesaid King Malcolm has feued any of the said
lands to any one : Provided, however, that if any land was
afterwards feued, the services of these feus belong to him and
his heirs. And whatever Our father gave to the aforesaid Mal-
colm or the aforesaid William, we hold it valid, and for Us and
Our heirs confirm it for ever, and will hold it fast. We also
give back to the same William, king of Scotland, the allegiance
of his men, and all the charters which Our said father had of
him, by reason of his capture. And if any others are by chance
kept back through forgetfulness, or shall hereafter be found,
We command that they be of none effect whatsoever. But this
William has become Our liegeman for all his lands in England
(for which his ancestors were the liegemen of Our ancestors),
and has sworn fealty unto Us. Witness myself, in the year of
Our Lord one thousand one hundred and ninety, and the first
year of Our reign."
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 269
XXI.
Now the prelates and rectors of churches, the earls, also, and
lords of the whole kingdom of Scotland, assembled at Holyrood
Church at Edinburgh, and undertook to pay off the sum of
money which the king had agreed upon, for his honours and
the freedom of his kingdom, with the king of England. And
having shared the payment among them — though this was done
not without loss and damage to their substance —they cheer-
fully paid it, at regular terms and times, settled beforehand,
to Kichard, king of England, about to set out to the rescue of
the Holy Land. But King Eichard, before starting, gave his
chancellorship to William of Longchamp, bishop of Ely ; and he
also set him over the whole of England as judge and justice,
and intrusted to him the guardianship of the whole kingdom.
Afterwards, King Eichard, having carried out the vow he had
laid himself under, was minded to come back secretly through
Germany ; but, being caught by some who lay in wait for him,
and sent to the emperor Henry, he was by him kept in close
ward. Meanwhile John, called " Lackland," King Eichard's
brother, hankering after the throne of England, fortified the
castles he could get in any way whatever throughout England,
and handed them over to his men to guard, thus unsettling the
whole country. At length King Eichard, having stated a sum
for his ransom, and left hostages with the emperor, brought up
at Sandwich in England, on the 1 3th of March, in the fourth
year after his setting out. But William, king of Scotland, on
hearing from messengers of his cousin King Eichard's arrival,
straightway came to him with no mean force ; and in a short
time, by his advice as well as help, Eichard tranquillized the
kingdom, well-nigh split up. So they were together until the
1 5th of May, — that is, Whitsunday. Now an aid was imposed
on England for the king's ransom, such that one penny in
thirteen was levied ; and silver chalices, also, were taken from
the churches for that purpose. William, king of Scotland, of his
own accord, freely sent two thousand merks from Scotland, out
of the king's treasury. Moreover, there was thenceforth, for
the whole of the time of King Eichard, so hearty a union
between the countries, and so great a friendship of real affec-
tion knit the kings together, like David and Jonathan, that the
one in all things faithfully carried out what the other wished ;
and even the two peoples were reckoned as one and the same.
The English could roam scathless through Scotland as they
pleased, on foot or on horseback, this side of the hills and
270 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
beyond them ; and the Scots could do so throughout England, ]
though laden with gold or any wares whatever. |
XXII.
In the year 1196 there was so grievous a famine that men
were starving everywhere. That same year King AVilliam led
an army into Caithness. Crossing the river Oikel, he killed
some of the disturbers of the peace, and bowed to his will
both provinces of the Caithness men, routing Harald, the earl
thereof, until then a good and trusty man — but at that time,
goaded on by his wife, the daughter of Mached, he had basely
deceived his lord the king, and risen against him. Then, leav-
ing there a garrison for the country, the king hurried back into
Scotland. The following year, again, a battle was fought in
Moray, hard by the castle of Inverness, between the king's men
and Kodoric and Torphin, Earl Harald's son ; but the king's
enemies were put to flight. Eodoric, also, with many others, fell
slain. Wlien the king heard of this, he was highly indignant
against Harald, and led an army into Moray ; and, scouring all
those highland districts — namely, Sutherland, Caithness, and
Eoss — he at last was so lucky as to get hold of Harald, whom
he brought across the Scottish sea as far as Roxburgh Castle,
and threw him into a dungeon there until peace should be made.
At length, however, Harald made his peace with his lord the
king, and, leaving there his son as a hostage, went back to his
own land. But, not long after, on account of the father's bad
faith, and because the peace established between him and the
king was afterwards wickedly broken through, the son was
deprived of his eyes and genitals, and died in the aforesaid
dungeon.
XXIII.
Now this most fortunate king of Scotland, William, had,
nearly twelve years ago, with great splendour and rejoicings,
taken to wife Ermyngarde, daughter of the Viscount of Beau-
mont, who was the son of the daughter of William the Bastard's
eldest son, Robert Curthose. By her he had a son, named
Alexander, — to the great gladness of his people, and the refresh-
ment of the whole kingdom of the Scots, as the after course of
these annals will show forth. He was born at Haddington, on
Saint Bartholomew's Day, in the year 1198. In every place in
the whole country, the common folk used to forsake their menial
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 271
work on this day, wherein they first heard tidings of his birth,
and spend it in joy ; while priests and churchmen donned the
alb, and walked in procession, with loud voice glorifying God
in hymns and canticles, and humbly praising Him. The fol-
lowing year, Eichard, that noble king of England, so friendly to
the Scots, was, while storming a castle named Chaluz, situated
in Poitou, mortally hit by a shot from a crossbow, under the
shield of Marchederius, prince of the Brabanters, on the 1 2th of
April ; and he died at Longtronc, on the 1 6th of April, — that
is, Friday before Palm Sunday. He was succeeded by his
brother John, who was crowned at Westminster on Ascension
Day ; and, crossing the sea some time afterwards, John made,
by terms unmeet and unseemly for him and his kingdom, some
sort of shameful peace with Louis's son, Philip, king of Prance.
On King John's return. King William, under his safe-conduct
and that of the nobles of England, came to meet him in Eng-
land, about the Feast of Saint Martin ; and, at a great council
which was brought together at Lincoln, did homage (without
prejudice to all his dignities) for all his lands and honours,
which he had a right to in England, and which his predecessors
had formerly held.
XXIV.
Sundry ambassadors went and came between William, king
of Scotland, and John, king of England, who had made his way
like a wild-cat into Northumberland as far as the Tweed, and
thence as far as Carlisle, levying a tax of fifteen merks of forest
dues from the barons. But in Lent, having done nothing in the
matter of the king of Scotland, and putting him off with lying
promises, John sailed across into Normandy, because of a serious
war which had broken out, over the water, between himself and
Philip, king of France ; and he remained there the whole of the
following year, in unsuccessful warfare, returning thence only
when he had lost his lands and all his castles beyond the sea.
But William, king of Scotland, about the Feast of Saint Simon
and Saint Jude, made all the nobles of the whole country, at a
general council at Musselburgh, swear fealty to his own son
Alexander, then three years old. Civil wars, however, were not
over at this time ; indeed, at the utmost bounds of Scotland, they
were carried on even more habitually. For the Earl of Orkney,
the oft-mentioned Harald, had formerly sailed on a secret voyage
to Caithness ; and, on the plea that John, bishop of that pro-
vince, was an informer, and the instigator of the misunderstand-
ing between him and the lord king, he had, as he thought, the
272 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CIIIiONICLE
bishop's eyes put out and his tongue lopped off; but it turned
out otherwise, for the use of his tongue and of one eye was, in
some measure, left him. Now when these tidings reached the
king, he lost no time, and, before that very Christmas, he sent
an army into Caithness, against Harald. This army, however,
met with little or no success, and returned ; for Harald had re-
treated to the furthest coast, returning as soon as the army had
gone back. The following spring, therefore — that is, in 1202 —
as the lord king was getting ready to sail towards the Orkneys
against the said Harald, the latter, under the safe-conduct of
Eoger, bishop of Saint Andrews, met him at Perth ; and there, by
the intercession of that bishop and other good men, came to a
good understanding with the king, and swore that he would in^
all things abide by the judgment of the Church. And thus he
was restored to his earldom, on payment of two thousand
pounds of silver to the lord king.
XXV.
On his recovery from a serious illness, whereby he had been
kept back at Traquair, King William set out to meet John,
king of England, who was coming to Norham ; and there they
had an interview. But the king of England was not pacified ;
and, brooking ill the Scottish king's views, went off to the
southern parts of his kingdom. Now the cause of the quarrel
was this : — The king of England had begun to strengthen a castle
at Tweedmouth, in order to destroy the village of Berwick. The
king of Scotland would not stand this ; so he twice pulled it dow^n
to the very ground, after having taken, routed, and put to the
sword all its founders, workmen, and guards. Thereupon King
John, being stirred up in his heart against the king of Scots,
encamped, with a strong and numerous force, about the river
Tweed, near Norham, for the purpose of provoking the before-
mentioned king to battle. The latter, having mustered his
army and fortified his castles, marched forward as far as Eox-
burgh, with no less a force to back him. Many and sundry
messengers, therefore, hurried backwards and forwards between
the kings, and many and sundry were the things commanded
and demanded by the king of England of the king of Scotland, —
things out of keeping with his kingship and freedom. When all
these things had been flatly refused, they at length hit it off in
this decision : to wit, that the Scottish king's daughters, Mar-
garet and Isabella, should be handed over to the king of Eng-
land, to be given in marriage, after nine years next following
were over, to his sons, Henry and Eichard, who were infants as
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 273
yet. Provided, indeed, that one of the former were betrothed to
the one of the latter to whom the heirship of the throne might
fall. This was sworn by King John. Moreover, the castle
which was being reared at Tweedmouth, for the destruction of
Berwick, was broken down ; and at no time hereafter shall it
be reared. All his old honours shall be left entire to the king
of Scotland. And, for all this to be wholly and fully observed,
15,000 merks must be paid to John, king of England, within
two years, at four terms.
XXVI.
It was, likewise, settled and agreed between them, in these
days, that the king of Scotland should absolutely and uncon-
ditionally resign to the king of England all the lands and pos-
sessions he himself had held of him ; and that the said king of
England should give them back to Alexander, the son and
heir of the Scottish king, who was to hold them of the king of
England. This was done, the same year, at Alnwick : where
Alexander swore fealty and did homage to King John for the
whole of his said lands, possessions, and honours — with as much
freedom, to wit, as either his father, or such of his predecessors
as had formerly done so with the most freedom to themselves,
and honour to John, or to any English king. It was also
agreed that, thenceforth, not the king, but the heir to the Scot-
tish throne for the time being, should swear fealty and do
homage to the king of England for the aforesaid lands, honours,
and possessions. Now when these things had been secured by
writings and indentures, the dwellers in both kingdoms began
to treat together for an everlasting peace. So, the third year
after — that is, in 1212 — the aforesaid kings, each having sent
the other word thereof by messenger, had an interview at
Durham, on Candlemas Day, and afterwards came to Norham.
There, in the presence of many of the nobles of either king,
and also of the worshipful lady, the queen of Scotland, the
form of peace and love, to be cherished for ever between the
kingdoms and kings, was renewed, and secured by charters
drawn up on either side. And, for the knitting of a stronger
bond of love, Alexander, the son of the king of Scotland, was
sent with the greatest pomp and state, by his father, to the king
of England, by whom he, together with some noble and high-
born boys of the kingdom, was girded with the sword of
knighthood, in London, on the middle Sunday of Lent — that
is, " The Lsetare, Jerusalem " — the 8th of March, in the four-
VOL. II. s
274 JOHN OF fordun's chronicle
teenth year of his age. Then the king of England sent him
away with gifts, and he went back to his father about Easter.
XXVII.
At this time Alan, lord of Galloway, and constable of the
king of Scotland, did homage to John, king of England, at
Norham, by his lord the king's will and leave, for some broad
lands which the latter had bestowed upon him. Now this is
how he came to be constable. On the death of William of
Morville, long ago, as he had no sons, he was succeeded by
Alan's father, Eotholand, lord of Galloway, as heir, through a
marriage formerly contracted between the latter and the said
William's sister ; and Eotholand gave King William 700 merks
of silver, for the heirship and the honour of the constable-
ship aforesaid. Then Gothred, the son of Macwilliam, being
seized and fettered through his own men's treachery, was
brought before the king's son, the lord Alexander, at the king's
manor and castle of Kincardine, and was there beheaded, and
hung up by the feet. Now this Gothred, son of Macwilliam,
had come, the year before, about the Lord's Epiphany — by the
advice, it was said, of the thanes of Eoss — out of Ireland into
those parts, trampling under foot everything he came across,
and infesting the greater part of the kingdom of Scotland. But
the king's army was suddenly sent against him, so as either to
kill him, or to drive him out of the country ; and King William
himself went after him, and in that same following smnmer
built two towns in those parts. After the king's decease, the
garrison of one of these towns surrendered of their own free
will ; and it was burnt down by Gothred and his men. The
king of England, also, came as far as Norham, to have an inter-
view with the king of Scotland ; but as this king was at that
time lying sick at Haddington, the interview did not come off.
Nor was the Lord Alexander, the king's son — although the
king of England had asked this ver}^ urgently — allowed to go
to him ; for they feared his wiles.
xxvin.
In the autumn, moreover, about the Feast of St. Peter, which
is called ad vincula, in the year 1214, King William set out
for Moray, where he made some stay ; and ha\dng made a treaty
of peace with the Earl of Caithness, and taken his daughter as a
hostage, he came back from Moray into Scotland. From Scot-
land, however, he went to Lothian ; and ou his way back thence.
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 275
he came, by short stages, and in great bodily weakness, to
Striveline (Stirling). He there lingered for some time, failing
in strength from day to day ; and after his son had been ac-
cepted as the future king, by the bishops earls, and barons,
William departed this life, full of goodly days, and at a good old
age, charging his familiar friends and officers about paying back
all debts and services in full, as became a good prince. And fully
armed with thorough devoutness, a clear shrift, true charity,
the viaticum of Christ's body, and the rest of the sacraments,
while his kingdom abode in the deepest peace, breathed he out
his last breath, in a blissful end, and flitted to Christ's presence,
we trust, about the third hour of the night, on Thursday, the
4th of December, in the aforesaid year — the forty-ninth of his
reign, and the seventy-fourth of his age. How great was that
distinguished king's worthiness in God's sight, may be gathered
from a certain miracle, which was on the following wise. Upon
one occasion — namely, in 1206 — between Candlemas and the
1st of March, this king went, under the safe-conduct of some
English nobles, to John, king of England, at York ; and after
a stay of four days there, when his business was over, he
sped safely back. At that time, at York, in the presence of
many nobles of England and Scotland, a boy was, by his
touch and blessing, healed of a grievous sickness, which was
upon him ; while all wondered and stood aghast. But that
he was beloved by worthy men, even as he was by God, is
shown in this case, for instance. Once Jocelin, bishop of
Glasgow, and Arnald and Osbert, abbots of Melrose and Kelso,
with other men of mark, went off to Eome, on the business
of their king and country ; and when they had skilfully trans-
acted it, they came home again, in good health and spirits.
Pope Lucius, however, hearing of the fame of King William —
that he was zealous for God, and took great pains in maintain-
ing the laws of his kingdom — sent over, by them, to his best
beloved son, with his fatherly blessing, a golden rose, set upon
a wand, also of gold. Besides, Pope Innocent and Pope Celes-
tinus had, before this, written to him about the freedom of the
Scottish Church.
XXIX.
Coronation of King Alexander II. at Scone.
The next day after the king's death, very early in the morn-
ing, while Walter, bishop of Glasgow — Kobert, elect of Eoss —
the queen — William of Boscho, the chancellor — and a good many
of his household, abode with the deceased king's body, the Earls
276 JOHN OF fordun's chronicle
of Fife, Stratherne, Atholl, Angus, Menteith, Buchan, and
Lothian, together with William, bishop of St. Andrews, took
the king's son, Alexander, a lad of sixteen years and a half;
and, bringing him as far as Scone, they raised him to the throne,
in honour and peace, with the approval of God and man, and
with more grandeur and glory than any one until then ; while
all wished him joy, and none gainsaid him. So King Alex-
ander, as was meet, held his feast in state, at Scone, on that
day (that is to say, Friday), and the Saturday following
(namely, the Feast of St. Nicholas), as well as the next Sunday.
On the Monday, at the bridge of Perth, he met his father's body,
which was being taken down, in great state, to Abirbroth (Ar-
broath), to be buried, as the king himself, before his death, had
directed. And thus, followed by all the nobility of the whole
kingdom, save a few of the nobles who guarded the uttermost
parts of the kingdom, William, the kindly king of Scots, and
to be had in kindly remembrance for everlasting, was buried on
Wednesday, the 10th of December, in front of the high altar,
in the church of the monastery of Abirbrothoc (Arbroath), which
he had himself caused to be built up from the very foundations,
to the honour of God and Saint Thomas the Martyr, Archbishop
of Canterbuiy ; and which he had, after endowing it with many
estates and possessions, committed to the monks of Kalkhow
(Kelso). May God be gracious unto his soul ! Amen.
XXX.
Earl David, likewise, though neither lively in mind nor
vigorous in body, came as quickly as he could to his nephew.
King Alexander, and kept the aforesaid feast with the king at
Scone, for two days. Thence, however, he set off, with the long,
to meet the body of the king, his brother, at the head of Perth
bridge ; and, getting off his horse, he took upon his shoulder one
handle of the bier, and, with the rest of the earls who were there,
devoutly carried the body as far as the boundary, where a cross
was ordered to be set up ; and afterwards, at the king's burial,
he stood by as chief mourner, as became a brother. To this
David, the late King William, his brother, after he had been
released, and had come back from England, had given the earl-
dom of Huntingdon, to be held of him — likewise the earldom
of Garviach, the town of Dundee, the town of Inverbervie,
and the lordship of Lanforgonde, together with many other
lands. David had, moreover, taken to wife a most noble damsel,
Matilda, daughter of Hugh, the late glorious Earl of Chester,
that most renowned son of Eanulpli, that most renowned earl
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 277
thereof ; and by her he had a son, who, also, was called Henry.
That same noble Earl David had, also by her, had a son before,
named Eobert, who — woe worth the day ! — being overtaken by
an -untimely death, paid the debt of nature, and found a burial-
place at the abbey of Lindores, which his father had newly
founded. Wherefore many in Scotland, as well as in England
and other countries, were filled with tears and grief.
XXXI.
That same Earl David likewise begat, of his said wife Matilda,
one son, named John, who afterwards succeeded him — and
three daughters : Margaret, Isabella, and Ada. Margaret he
gave in wedlock to Alan of Galloway, Eotholand's son, who of
her begat a daughter named Darworgilla ; his second daughter,
Isabella, he gave to Eobert of Bruce, who of her begat a son
named Eobert ; and his third daughter, Ada, he joined in
matrimony to Henry of Hastings — and by her this same Henry
had a son named Henry. Now Earl David, after having lain
sick a long time, at length went the way of all flesh, at Jer-
delay, in England, and breathed his last on Monday, Saint
Botulph's Day, in the year 1219. And though it had been his
will, when he was alive, that his body should be taken down to
his own monastery of Lindores, yet, by the advice of some, it
was taken down to the abbey of Sautreia, and there interred in
state, the day after Saint Botulph's Day — that is on Tuesday.
He was a man of pious memory, and worthy to be always had
in remembrance, God be gracious unto his soul ! Amen. He
was succeeded by his son, who was, by the English, called
" John the Scot," and whom, together with many other nobles,
both of England and Scotland, King Alexander afterwards in-
vested with the arms of knighthood, at Eoxburgh, at his royal
feast on Whitsunday. Afterwards, nearly thirteen years after
Earl David's death, Eanulph, earl of Chester, died childless,
and was succeeded by John the Scot, Earl David's son and his
own nephew, who also died without children.
XXXII.
The five years' interdict came to an end, throughout all
England, about the 1st of July, in the year King William died.
But, for this release from the interdict, John, king of England,
put the kingdom of England, as also himself, under subjection
to our lord the Pope for ever ; and, in witness of this subjec-
278 JOHN OF fordun's chronicle
tion, he himself, and the magnates of his territory, promised,
with their hands on a shrine, that he and all his heirs would fur-
nish to God, and to the sovereign pontiff and all his successors,
an annual rent — of one thousand merks of silver, to wit — from
his own treasury ; and he gave his golden charter thereto.
!N"ow, the year before, a certain English ploughman, named Peter,
who — through what spirit I know not — foretold things to come,
had been, from day to day, rebuking the very king of England,
John himself, for his cruelty towards the Church ; and for ever
shouting out fearlessly before his face that he would shortly
lose the honour of the throne and the name of king, and that he
would reign but for a year. The following year, however, the
king, seeing he had escaped the day appointed for him by Peter,
as stated above, had this Peter hanged upon a gallows-tree.
But Peter asserted that he was unjustly being put to death ; for
that he had foretold the truth, as he maintained that the king
was already not reigning, since he had put under another's
sway the sovereignty of the kingdom. The following year, the
king of Scotland's enemies — namely, Dovenald Bane, son of
Macwilliam, Kennach MacAth, and the son of a certain king
of Ireland — entered Moray, with a numerous crowd of mis-
creants. These foes of the king's were attacked by Maken-
tagart and mightily overthrown ; and the latter, having cut off
their heads, presented them as new gifts to the new king, Alex-
ander, and was therefor graced, by the king, with the honour
of knighthood.
XXXIII.
After the Christmas of the year 1215, which he had kept
merrily at Forfar, Alexander, king of Scots, with our lady the
queen, his mother, and many noblemen of the kingdom, was at
Striveline (Stirling), at the Epiphany ; and thence he went on
to Lothian, and held a parliament at Edinburgh, whereat he
gave back the chancellorship to William of Boscho, the con-
stableship to Alan of Galloway, and the chamberlainship to
Philip of Walloniis — just as it had been before, in his father's
lifetime ; and as for the rest, he gave to each his rights, as their
feus required. Soon after, however, some kind of council was
held, by a few persons, at Haddington ; and some, who had
been contented before, withdrew from Court discontented. The
king then came thence into Scotland, and met the queen, his
mother, at Forfar ; whereupon they set out together for Abbir-
brothoc (Arbroath), to see the grave of King William, of pious
memory. At this time, moreover, the barons and nobles of
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 279
England, who would not brook the burdens and wrongful cus-
toms which King John daily laid upon them, bound themselves
by a common oath to insist, with one mind, upon the king's
granting them the ancient liberties and free customs granted of
old, to the Church and kingdom of England, by Henry, son of
William the Bastard, according to the terms of his charter ; — for
that otherwise they would withdraw themselves from his sway.
But when this king had put them off with false promises and
repeated wrongs, at length their hearts were stirred up, and
they would wait no longer ; but, shunning even an interview,
they set about dealing with the matter by arms. Alexander,
king of Scotland, too, and Llewellyn, king of Wales, being
beset with prayers and promises, allied themselves to the
barons of England; although the king of Wales had taken
king John's daughter to wife.
XXXIV.
As soon as the king of Scotland had gathered his forces
together, he set off into England, and besieged Norham Castle ;
but shortly, by the advice of his friends, he granted a truce to
the besieged, and led his host into Northumberland, which he
brought under his yoke, and received the submission of its people.
When John, king of England, heard of this, taking with him
some freebooters and other hangers-on of his, he went his way
towards Scotland, took Berwick Castle, and then, going across
by the sea-coast, stormed Dunbar. Thence he marched on into
Lothian, wasting and burning everything he could get at within
the kingdom of Scotland. But inasmuch as God was pleased
to withstand him, and, in his loving-kindness, to forbear from
the shedding of blood, John did not push on beyond Hadding-
ton. Eetracing his steps, he burnt down Berwick Castle,
together with the town ; and, breaking down the bridge after
his army, he went back as far as Dover, bringing under his
sway all the country he had passed through, near Berwick.
Now King Alexander, having gathered together the strength of
the whole kingdom all about, longed to come to blows with the
English, and pitched his tents on the river Esk, near Pentland.
But when he saw that the king of England had retreated, he
hastily followed after him ; and burning up Northumberland,
he marched through the bishopric of Durham, and got as far as
Eichmond. Then, bending his steps towards the western parts
of Westmoreland, he ravaged almost all those lands, and went
home again across the Solway water, hard by Carlisle, with
plunder without, end.
280 JOHN OF fordun's chronicle
XXXV.
Meanwhile the lord Louis, the first-born of the king of France,
to the end that he might restore the liberties of the kingdom
and the Church, sided with the barons of England, and took
from them hostages for their fealty and homage ; and having
marshalled his forces, he, at the head of a countless soldiery,
sailed over in a fleet laden with meat and engines of war. He
brought up in England, in the year 1216; while King John,
with his army, tarried at Sandwich — the nearest port, as he
thought ; but, not daring to come to blows, the latter betook
himself to a safer spot. Louis, however, came to London ;
and, to the unspeakable joy of the barons and of his -own fol-
lowers, was welcomed, with great honour, on Whitsunday, —
for, during the course of that time, the barons were tarrying in
London. But Alexander, king of Scots, having got his army
together again, made his way into England, about the 5th of
August, everywhere sparing the churches, and church property,
and the lands of the barons, but wasting the king's lands and
those of his hangers-on, until he came to Louis at Dover. He
was welcomed, with honour, by Louis ; and, having made a stay
there of fifteen days or upwards, after treating of, and secretly
winding up, sundry matters with him, he at length made ready
to cross over to his own country. But on his way back to Scot-
land, after their interview and negotiations, his road was barred
by John, king of England, who had caused the bridges and
boats of the river Trent to be broken down and upset, and the
fords to be cut through, and was besetting all the roads, both
by sea and land, whereby Alexander could get across. But,
God so ordering it, he ended his misdeeds and plottings with
his life, and died on the day of Saint Luke the Evangelist, at
Newark, a town lying hard by the river Trent ; while the king
of Scotland sacked his scattered army's camp, and sped safely
back to Scotland, without loss, and with great glory.
XXXVI.
As soon, then, as the king of Scotland had returned from
England, he called upon all those who were with him to make
haste and give their horses a little rest after the long journey,
and by every means get ready to return to England, — which
they did. Accordingly, having gathered his forces together, he
marched back, with a huge force, into England, carrying off
everything at will ; until at length he wheeled off to besiege
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 281
Carlisle, and strongly blockaded it with his whole force. The
besieged, on the other hand, having constant onslaughts made
upon them, and having lost all hope of being relieved, sur-
rendered the city and castle to the king, on promise that life
and limb would be spared. That same year, moreover, — in
the foregoing summer, to wit — a certain cardinal, named Gualo,
was, by Pope Innocent, sent as legate to England to succour
John, king of England ; for, on the strength of the payment of
the yearly tribute, and the subjection of England, the Pope was
now most friendly towards John. Upon that king's death, how-
ever, as above related, this legate got together the army which
had marched under the king, and set his first-born son Henry,
now in his ninth year, to reign in his father's stead. So Henry
was crowned at Winchester. Hearing, likewise, of the troubles,
oppression, and unbearable evils which were wrought in England
by the king of Scotland, Gualo laid an interdict upon that king,
his army, and the whole kingdom of the Scots. Thereupon
there arose very great distress in the Scottish Church. For, at
the instance of Gualo, the legate in England, a rescript was sent
by Pope Honorius to the priors of Durham, Gysburn, and Tyne-
mouth, who declared all the prelates of Scotland excommuni-
cated, forasmuch as they had given the Communion to the king
of Scotland and his army, who had fallen under the ban pro-
nounced at the Lateran Council, wherein were excommunicated
all King John's enemies, and their abettors : because the king
of Scotland had sided with Louis, the first-born of the king of
France ; because he had fought against John, king of England,
breaking down the castle of Tweedmouth, which had been re-
built by John, in spite of his oath, over against Berwick ; and
especially because he had not yielded to the request of Gualo,
the legate, that he should surrender Carlisle to King Henry.
XXXVII.
Finally, at that time, the castle of the city of Lincoln was
besieged by the barons of England, and the strong army of
Louis, the first-born of the king of France. But on being set
upon by Gualo, the legate, with the army of Henry, king of
England, they raised the siege ; and, in the course of one hour,
all the barons and nobles of England who followed Louis were
taken, and a certain French earl, who had come to the afore-
said siege with the English army, was slain. Thus were the
mighty of England led away captive, while their castles and
estates fell under King Henry's dominion. But the lord Louis,
who had, all this while, been tarrying in London, seeing that
282 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
luck had turned, and that it threatened to go hard with him
in the result of the war, thought better of it, and made peace
with the king of England, after having received a pledge from
him that all who had risen against him would be restored to
the plight they had been in before the war had broken out.
Thereupon Louis went home across the water, under a safe-
conduct, in the year 1217, about Michaelmas. But Gualo, the
legate, sent messengers to Alexander, king of Scotland, to pro-
mise him absolution ; and began to treat for a perpetual treaty
of peace, the surrender of Carlisle, and indemnity for losses —
all which he got. And although Master Walter of Wisebeth
(Wisbeach) came by our lord the Pope's authority, to take off
the interdict in Scotland, nevertheless Gualo, in his wiliness,
craftily made him put off that absolution, until peace should
have been made between the kings — or, according to some, until
he should, in the meanwhile, have slaked the thirst of his money-
bag with draughts of money.
XXXVIII.
So our lord Alexander, king of Scotland, and all the laymen
who followed him, got absolution, at Berwick, from the arch-
bishop of York, and the bishop of Durham. Thence he went
on to Northampton, under the safe-conduct of the king and
barons of England ; and he there did homage for his lands and
honours in England, as had been the English king's right from
old time. And, having surrendered Carlisle, which he had
taken, and secured peace, he went back to his own kingdom ;
though he could not obtain from the said Gualo that the pre-
lates and clergy of his land might be included in the terms of
that peace. But, by the advice of some, led by I know not
what spirit, a general interdict was proclaimed throughout
Scotland, about the Feast of Saint Nicholas, and all the clergy,
both regular and secular, found themselves, as it were, excom-
municated— except William, lord bishop of Saint Andrews,
who, on his way back, a little before, from France, where he
had tarried during the time of warfare, had barely managed to
get the benefit of absolution from Gualo, the legate aforesaid,
— having first, however, sworn upon the Body that he had not
lent advice, help, or favour to the adversaries of John, king of
England.
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 283
XXXIX.
About Candlemas, the prior of Durham and the arch-
deacon of York, being sent by the legate of England, came
to Scotland, and gave absolution to the clergy of Scotland,
in this form : They made all the clergy, both regular and
secular, come together before them, at some borough or city,
and took a sworn pledge from them that they would abide by
the legate's commands, and would make a true and clean shrift
on such matters as they might ask them about; whereupon
they gave them absolution, the latter naked and barefoot be-
fore the doors of the churches where they had come together,
or before the abbeys where the former were baiting. And in
this fashion they went about through Scotland, from Berwick
even unto Abirbrothoc (Arbroath), baiting at place after place,
as they thought fit, and, by the advice of some who wished
to please them, getting everywhere costly procurations, and
money without end, and many offerings. But the bishops of
the kingdom, the king's household clergy, and all the beneficed
clergy of the whole country, who had either taken part in the
war, or had in any way ministered unto the combatants, these
kept back for Gualo, the English legate, to absolve ; while the
abbots and certain other prelates to whom they had given ab-
solution, they kept suspended from their office, until they
should have more fully earned the favour of the legate himself.
Therefore, about the festival of Easter, nearly all the prelates of
Scotland went to Alnertone (Northallerton), to meet the legate
of England, who sent some of them to Eome to get absolution,
while to others he gave absolution there, having been appeased
with large sums of money. Some, again, he utterly deprived of
their benefices, or suspended until his grasping covetousness had
been fully glutted. Thus it happened, by God's righteous judg-
ment, that since, in their trouble, they would not follow sound
counsel, but, fearing for their frock more than for their con-
science, made their judge one who was not their judge, they
felt this man's tyranny, and learnt thenceforth to struggle
willingly to guard their privileges, and the liberties of the king-
dom. But King Alexander sent messengers to the court of Eome,
and renewed the privileges whilom granted to his predecessors.
XL.
Afterwards, in the year 1220, Alexander, king of Scotland,
went, with some of the chief men of the kingdom, under a safe-
conduct, to meet Henry, king of England, at York, about the
284 JOHN OF fordun's chronicle
Feast of the Holy Trinity. There negotiations were busily
carried on between them. The king of Scotland bound himself
to wed the eldest sister of the king of England, while the latter
bound himself to see that the Scottish king's sisters — whom
his own father had formerly taken, as already said, to get them
married — were worthily mated ; and they both took an oath on
the Body to that effect, before a certain Pandulph, the English
legate, and a good many other lords of either kingdom. Thus
a peace was established, which was to last time without end ;
and they returned home in peace. But, the following year,
after Whitsunday, Alexander, king of Scotland, in great state,
and with a great bevy of knights, proceeded, again under a safe-
conduct, to York, as had been agreed between those kings the
year before ; and, on the Friday before the Nativity of Saint
John the Baptist, he was, to the great joy of both sides, betrothed
to the English king's eldest sister, named Joan, as yet a girl of
very tender age. And so our lord the king went safely home
again with his betrothed, who, when she grew up, turned out
very handsome, and comely, and beautiful. That same year,
having raised an army out of Lothian and Galloway, and other
outlying provinces, the king sailed for Argyll. But a storm
arose ; and being obliged to put back, he brought up at Glas-
gow, in safety, though not without danger. The following year,
also, after Whitsunday, he led back the army into Argyll, for
he was displeased with the natives for many reasons. The
men of Argyll were frightened : some gave hostages and a great
deal of money, and were taken back in peace ; while others,
who had more deeply offended against the king's will, forsook
their estates and possessions, and fled. But our lord the king
bestowed both the land and the goods of these men upon his
own followers, at will ; and thus returned in peace with his men.
XLI.
Now, the same year — namely, in 1222 — forasmuch as Adam,
bishop of Caithness, and sometime abbot of Melrose, claimed
tithes and other church rights from his subjects, these were
kindled with fury ; and, on Sunday, within ^eight days after
the Blessed Mary's Nativity, being gathered together in a
body of over three hundred men, they took him, beat, bound,
wounded, and stripped him ; and, throwing him down into his
own kitchen, which had been set on fire, burnt him, after they
had killed a monk of his, and one of his servants. But John,
earl of Caithness, although he was dwelling close by, and had
seen the people, armed, pouring in from all sides, upon being
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 285
moreover, asked by some of that bishop's servants to bring
help, dissembled and said : " If the bishop is afraid, let him
come to me." Whence, also, it was believed by many that he
was privy to that crime. But our lord the King Alexander,
when he was on the point of starting for England, on the busi-
ness of his realm, and had halted at Jed worth (Jedburgh), was
brought news of this crime, by trustworthy messengers. So he
put that business aside ; and, raising an army, as became a
Catholic man, he went forth even unto Caithness. The afore-
said earl, however, though he proved, by the witness of good
men, that he was guiltless, and had given no countenance or
advice to those ruffians, yet, because he had not straightway
sought to take meet vengeance upon them, had to give up great
part of his lands, and a large sum of money, to the king, in
order to win his favour. He, likewise, handed over for punish-
ment many of those who had wrought this deed ; and the king
had them mangled in limb, and racked with many a torture.
I
XLII.
After Gilbert, archdeacon of Moray, had been there chosen
bishop of Caithness, in presence of our lord the king and the
chief men of his host, the king and his men returned home safe
and sound, by God's vouchsafing, although there was at that
time a very great storm, with floods of rain. Now while this
was going on, the prelates of Scotland, fearing that, if news of
so great an atrocity reached our lord the Pope, he would, perhaps,
send a legate or an envoy to make inquiries as to what had
happened, made known to that sovereign pontiff, by messengers
of their own, both the truth of the matter, and the king's zeal
in avenging the crime. Thereupon the Pope highly commended
both their diligence and the king's task. But, the very next
year, while King Alexander was keeping his birthday at Forfar,
the Earl of Caithness met him there, and, by giving him money,
got back that land which the king had, the year before, claimed
as a quittance for the aforesaid bishop Adam's death. There
were indeed a great many, at that time, who, within themselves,
did not think well of this proceeding, and suspected that our
lord the king had been overreached in this matter by evil advisers.
Later, however, the earl did not escape punishment for that crime.
For, afterwards, when seven years had gone by, that same earl
was hemmed in by his foes, and killed and burnt in his own
house. And he had richly earned such a death as he had,
without a cause, made the venerable bishop Adam undergo.
During this same time, some unrighteous men of the race of
286 JOHN OF fordun's chronicle
Macwilliam — namely, Gillespie, and his sons, and Eodoric —
started up in the uttermost bounds of Scotland. But when
they strove to overwhelm the kingdom by force, God gave them
over, with their abettors, into King Alexander's hand ; and thus
the land was no longer troubled by their lawlessness.
XLIII.
In the year 1235, Alexander, king of Scotland, mustered an
army and entered Galloway, to quiet the land, and revenge him-
self upon the rebels. When the natives found this out, they
unexpectedly started out of the hills and woods, and assailed
the king and his army, who were resting in their tents — for
that spot, full as it was of marshes, and goodly with gi-ass, as
far as the eye could reach, gave them no little confidence. But
Makintagart, who had then been made Earl of Eoss, burst with
furious might upon the rear of the natives, and swept down
many, and many he forced to flee. The illegitimate son of
Alan, lord of Galloway, however — Thomas, who had erst, in
his father's lifetime, been betrothed to the daughter of the king
of Man, and who was the leader of this heinous attempt,
went back to Ireland, with Gilroth, an abettor of his. Next
day, all the Gallwegians came with ropes round their necks,
and begged for peace and the king's favour ; so the king
kindly accepted their submission. But this same Thomas,
Alan's bastard son, came back to Galloway from Ireland,
together with a king's son and many others ; and, as soon as he
got there, he broke up his ships, lest the Irish should think of
fleeing. Soon after, however, seeing that his own men could not
withstand the king's majesty, he, by the advice of the bishop of
Whitehern, as well as of Patrick earl of Dunbar, and the abbot
of Melrose, humbly besought the king for peace ; so the king
kept him, a little while, in the Castle of Maidens (Edinburgh),
and then let him go. But the rest of the Irish, who would not
fly the country, were slain in an attack by the citizens of Glas-
gow. Two of the chiefs, however, the king ordered to be torn
asunder by horses, at Edinburgh. At that time, also, even the
Scots of the king's army, when he had gone back, despoiled the
lands and churches of Galloway with unheard-of cmelty — so
much so that a monk at Glenluce, who was at the last gasp, was
left naked but for his hair-shirt ; and, at Tongueland, the prior
and sacristan were slain in the church.
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 287
XLIV.
On the day of Saint Maurice, in the year 1237, Alexander,
king of Scots, and Henry, king of England, with the queens,
their wives, and the lords of either kingdom, met at York ;
where, for fifteen days, they talked over the knotty business of
the kingdoms, in presence of Otho, the legate of our lord the
Pope. When their negotiations were over, the king of Scotland
went home again in safety. But the queen of Scotland went
with the queen of England, to Canterbury, for the purpose of
praying ; and the following year — the year 1237, to wit — on the
4th of March, she died near London, in the arms of her brothers,
Henry, king of England, and Eichard, duke of Cornwall, who
had her body buried in state in the church of the convent of
Tarent. As, therefore, the king had begotten of her neither son
nor daughter, he, on Whitsunday, the 15th of May 1239, by
the advice of his lords, took to wife, at Eoxburgh, the daughter
of a nobleman, Ingram of Coucy. This lady was named Mary ;
and of her the king begat a son on whom the father's name was
bestowed. So Alexander, the first-born of the king of Scotland,
was born at Eoxburgh, on the day of St. Cuthbert's translation,
Wednesday, the 4th of September, when his father was begin-
ning the forty-fourth year of his age, and was well-nigh at the
end of the twenty-seventh of his reign.
XLV.
Having got together a numerous army, Henry, king of
England, came to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, to wage war against
Alexander, king of Scotland, forasmuch as a certain castle,
which is called Hermitage (at Castleton), had been reared by
the Scots, in the marches between Scotland and England, in
Liddesdale. So King Alexander, with his army well equipped,
went to meet him, as far as Caldwell, where all the chiefs
renewed their fealty to our lord the king ; and thus, all of one
mind, they marched on as far as Pentland, ready to come to
blows with the king of England, if he should enter Lothian.
But, at the instance of the archbishop of York, and other great
men, peace was restored between the kings ; and the king of
Scotland sped safely home again. The king of England, how-
ever, wheeled off towards Wales ; because the Welsh were in
rebellion against their English-born masters, and neither could,
nor would, bear their thraldom any longer. The Welsh, there-
fore, the remains of the Britons, who, from the days of Brutus,
288 JOHN OF FORDUN S CHRONICLE
their first prince, had had a king and prince of their own nation,
were, during this time, so utterly subdued, that it is in London,
the chief English city, that they try their causes — according to
Merlin's prophecy : — The red dragon (that is, the Britons) shall
pine away at the very end of the pool (that is, the very end
of the island), quelled by the white dragon (whereby the EngUsh
are meant).
XLVI.
Death of this King Alexander II.
That renowned king of Scots, Alexander ii., while he
was on his way to restore peace to the land of Argyll,
was overtaken by grievous sickness, and carried across to
an island which is called Kerneray (Kerrera) ; and there,
in the year 1249, after he had partaken of the sacraments
of eternal salvation, his blissful soul was snatched away from
this life, and joined — as we believe — all the saints in the
heavens. But his body was brought down to the church of
Melrose, as he himself had willed in his lifetime ; and after the
obsequies due had been solemnly celebrated, after the manner
of kings, it was there committed to the bosom of the earth, on
Thursday, the 8th of July, about the ninth hour, in the fifty-
first year of his age, and the thirty-fifth of his reign — for he
was sixteen years and a half old when he was made king.
While he lived, he was a most gentle prince towards his people,
a father to the monks, the comforter of the needy, the helper of
the fatherless, the pitiful hearer and most righteous judge of
the widow and all who had a grievance, and, towards the church
of Christ, a second Peter. These lines have been written on
him : — In him
" The church a buckler had, the people peace.
The wretch a leader — second of his name ;
While thrice ten years and five his reign enclose.
Kerrera's Isle beheld his soul's release,
Blest fellowship with saints on high to claim ;
His earthly bones lie buried at Melrose."
He, also, together with his mother Ermengarde, founded and
endowed the abbey of Saint Edward of Balmurinath (Balmerino),
whither was sent the brotherhood of Melrose, with the Lord Alan,
the abbot thereof, on the day of Saint Lucy the Virgin, in the
year 1229; and there, four years afterwards, was buried that
same noble queen Ermengarde, his mother — to wit, in the year
1323, the foi-ty-seventh after her betrothal.
I
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 289
XLVII.
Alexander, son of the aforesaid King Alexander, a boy of
eight years of age, came to Scone on the following Tuesday, the
1 3th of July, with a number of earls, barons, and knights. There
were, likewise, there, the venerable fathers, David of Bernham,
bishop of Saint Andrews, and Galfrid, bishop of Dunkeld, a
man in great favour with both clergy and people, zealous in
temporal and spiritual things, who endeared himself with both
great and poor, but was a terror to evil-doers. The abbot of
the monastery of Scone itself was also there. But lo ! as soon
as they were gathered together, there arose a dispute among the
nobles. For some of them would have made not a king, but a
knight, on that day, saying that it was an Egyptian day. Now
this was said not because of the Egyptian day, but because the
lord Alan Dorwart, then justiciary of the whole of Scotland,
wished to gird Alexander with the sword of knighthood on that
day. While they were arguing, the lord Walter Comyn, Earl
of Menteith, a man of foresight and shrewdness in counsel, an-
swered and said that he had seen a king consecrated who was
not yet a knight, and had many a time heard of kings being
consecrated who were not knights ; and he went on to say that
a country without a king was, beyond a doubt, like a ship amid
the waves of the sea, without rower or steersman. For he had
always loved King Alexander, of pious memory, now deceased
- — and this boy also for his father's sake. So he moved that
this boy be raised to the throne as quickly as possible, — for it
is always hurtful to put off what may be done at once ; and, by
his advice, the said bishops and abbot, as well as the nobles,
and the whole clergy and people, with one voice, gave their con-
sent and assent to his being set up as king.
XLVIIL
Coronation of King Alexander III. at Scone.
And it came to pass that when this same earl, Walter Comyn,
and all the clergy, heard this, they joined unto them some earls —
namely, the lord Malcolm, Earl of Fife, and the lord Malise, Earl
of Stratherne — and a great many other nobles, and led Alexander,
soontobe their king, up to the cross which stands in the graveyard,
at the east end of the church. There they set him on the royal
throne, which was decked with silken cloths inwoven with gold ;
and the bishop of Saint Andrews, assisted by the rest, consecrated
him king, as was meet. So the king sat down upon the royal
throne — that is, the stone — while the earls and other nobles, on
VOL. II. T
290 JOHN OF FOKDUN*S CHRONICLE
bended knee, strewed their garments under his feet, before the
stone. Now, this stone is reverently kept in that same monastery,
for the consecration of the kings of Albania ; and no king was
ever wont to reign in Scotland, unless he had first, on receiving
the name of king, sat upon this stone at Scone, which, by the
kings of old, had been appointed the capital of Albania. But
lo ! when all was over, a highland Scot suddenly fell on his
knees before the throne, and, bowing his head, hailed the king
in his mother tongue, saying these words in Scottish ; — " Benach
de Ee Albanne Alexander, MacAlexander, MacYleyham, Mac-
Henri, MacDavid," — and, reciting it thus, he read off, even
unto the end, the pedigree of the kings of Scots. This means,
in English : — " Hail, king of the Albanians, Alexander, son of
Alexander, son of William, son of Henry, son of David, son of
Malcolm, son of Duncan, son of Beatrice, daughter of Malcolm,
son of Kenath, son of Malcolm, son of Donald, son of Constan-
tino, son of Kenath, son of Alpine, son of Ethach, son of Etha-
find, son of Echdach, son of Donald Brek, son of Echa Vuid, son
of Edaim, son of Cobram, son of Donengard, son of Fergus the
Great, son of Erth, son of Etehac Munremor, son of Engusafich,
son of Eechelmech as Lingich, son of Enegussa Buchin, son of
Eechelmech Eomaith, son of Sencormach, son of Crinchlinth, son
of Findachai, son of Akirkirre, son of Ecchach Andoch, son of
Fiachrach Catmall, son of Ecddach Kied, son of Conor, son of
Mogalama, son of Lugthag Etholach, son of Corbre Crumgring,
son of Darediomore, son of Corbre Findinor, son of Coneremore,
son of Ederskeol, son of Ewein, son of Eliela, son of Jair,
son of Dethach, son of Sin, son of Kosin, son of There,
son of Rether, son of Eowen, son of Arindil, son of Mane,
son of Fergus, first king of Scots in Albania." This Fergus also
was the son of Feredach, although he is, by some, called the son
of Ferechere ; but these differ little in sound. This discrepancy
is perhaps due to a blunder of the writer, from the word being
hard to utter. Then the said Scot, going on with the said pedi-
gree, from man to man, read through until he came to the first
Scot— namely, Iber Scot. This Iber was the son of Gaithel
Glas, son of Neoilus, whilom king of Athens ; and was begotten
of Scota, daughter of the Pharaoh Chenthres, king of Egypt.
XLIX.
Again, in the second year of King Alexander iii., on the 1 9th
of June 1250, this king, and the queen his mother, with bishops
and abbots, earls and barons, and other good men, both clerics
and laymen, in great numbers, met at Dunfermline, and took
I
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 291
up, in great state, the bones of the blessed Margaret, sometime
queen of Scots, out of the stone monument where they had lain
through a long course of years ; and these they laid, with the
deepest devoutness, in a shrine of deal, set with gold and pre-
cious stones. Meanwhile, the magnates of Scotland saw the
danger in the country being under the governance of a boy
king, and that his councillors, who w^ere perhaps the greatest
men of the whole kingdom, were swayed by the advantages
each one had to gain. So, in order to avoid these and other
threatening dangers, they, by the advice of the clergy, despatched
a solemn embassy to Henry, king of England, to the end that
the treaty of peace formerly made between him and the late
king Alexander might be renewed, and most firmly secured by
an alliance through a marriage to be contracted between the
young king Alexander and this same King Henry's daughter.
So, when this embassy came to London, the king of England
granted all their demands to their hearts' content ; and he also
sent back with them to the king of Scotland, an embassy of his
own, to ask him to come with his advisers and magnates, under
the king's safe-conduct, sealed with the seals of the lords of
England, and meet him and his councillors at York, on the
following Christmas, in- order to settle the aforesaid business.
Accordingly, Alexander, king of Scotland, and Henry, king of
England, with the chiefs of either kingdom, met there, and all
things were happily settled, even as they had before been ar-
ranged ; while the kings and the lords of both kingdoms swore,
with their hands upon the most holy Gospels, that they should
thenceforth be faithfully kept. Never did any of the English
or British kings, in any past time, keep his pledges towards
the Scots more faithfully or more steadfastly than this Henry ;
for, nearly the whole time of his reign, he was looked upon by
the kings of Scotland, father and son, as their most faithful
neighbour and adviser ; — a thing which never, or seldom, had
happened, save in the days — alas ! so few — of Eichard Cceur
de Lion.
Alexander, king of Scotland, therefore, a boy of nine, there
received the honour of knighthood at the hands of Henry, king
of England, on Christmas Day, amid the greatest joy and good
wishes of the lords of either kingdom ; and, on the morrow —
that is, on Saint Stephen's Day — the king of England gave his
first-born daughter, named Margaret, in marriage to the king of
Scotland. Meanwhile, some persons there were being accused
292 JOHN OF FORDUN's CHRONICLE
before the king, by Walter Comyn, Earl of Menteith, and Wil-
liam, Earl of Mar, of treason towards him. By reason whereof
some were afraid, and went home again stealthily, like cowards.
The king of Scotland, however, having, by the advice of the
king and magnates of England, arranged and regulated every-
thing with moderation, went home again with his consort, and,
disguising his intentions, awaited better times for correcting
excesses of this kind. Eobert, abbot of Dunfermline, likewise,
the king's chancellor, was accused of intending to legitimate,
by the great seal, the king's illegitimate sister (namely, the
wife of Alan, the Hostiary), so that she might become the king's
heiress in the succession to the throne. But as soon as he
came back to Scotland, he gave up the seal to the king and his
magnates, and it was straightway broken up in the people's
sight ; while a smaller seal was given to Gamelin, who became
the king's chancellor, and who, the third year after, was chosen
bishop of Saint Andrews. Meanwhile, all the king's first coun-
cillors were dismissed, and fresh ones created : namely, Walter
Comyn, Earl of Menteith ; Alexander Comyn, of Buchan ; Wil-
liam Earl of Mar ; and Eobert of Eoss, the king's cousin. But
these councillors were so many kings. For he who saw the
poor crushed down in those days, the nobles ousted from their
inheritance, the drudgery forced upon citizens, the violence
done to churches, might with good reason say, " Woe unto the
kingdom where the king is a boy !"
LI.
When, therefore, judgment and righteousness in the kingdom
of Scotland were slumbering, Henry, king of England, of the
good- will he bore his son the king, and the lords, on being be-
sought of them, came, like a leal father, to Wark Castle. There
the kings and their advisers set busily to work to talk over the
state of the kingdom of Scotland. All the Scottish king's
councillors were forthwith dismissed from their offices ; and
Eichard bishop of Dunkeld was appointed his chancellor —
David of Lyndsay, chamberlain — and Alan Durward, high jus-
ticiary, for seven years. But when that peaceful King Henry
had returned with his train, a great feud arose among the mag-
nates of Scotland, by reason of the king's new councillors de-
manding from his former councillors an account of the king's
squandered goods, and calling upon them, by letters obliga-
tory, to answer for their deeds. On his way back, the king of
England slew many Jews at Lincoln, because they had ruth-
lessly kiUed a boy, named Hugh, and made a holy martyr of
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 293
him. For this he hanged some on the gallows, and others he
caused to be hunted down by horses through the streets ; for
they had hung the said child upon a cross, and put him to
death there.
LII.
Walter Comyn, Earl of Menteith, and his accomplices, were
more than once summoned before the king and his councillors,
upon many grave charges ; but they did not appear. But as
they durst not await their trial according to the statutes of the
kingdom, they took counsel together, and, with one accord,
seized the king, by night, while he was asleep in bed at Kin-
ross, and, before dawn, carried him off with them to Strivilyn
(StirKng), the day after that of Saint Simon and Saint Jude, in
the year 1257. They also took away by force the great seal,
which was held by Master Kobert Stutewill, dean of Dunkeld,
and vice-chancellor to Eichard, bishop of Dunkeld. The ring-
leaders in this kidnapping were Walter Comyn, Earl of Men-
teith — Alexander Comyn, Earl of Buchan — William Earl of
Mar, a man of great shrewdness in evil deeds — John Comyn,
a man prone to robbery and rashness — Hugh of Abernethy —
David of Lochore — Hugh of Barclay — and a great many other
hangers-on of these disaffected men, who did all as they pleased
and naught as was lawful, and reigned over the people, right or
wrong. And thus the last going astray was worse than the
first. Thenceforth there arose much persecution and distress
among the Scots lords ; because the king's later advisers strove
to pay back to the former ones the evils and losses they them-
selves had erst undergone. Whereupon there followed such
grinding of the poor and robbing of churches, as have not been
seen in Scotland in our day.
Lin.
But Walter Comyn, the oft-mentioned Earl of Menteith,
who was the leader of those who had seized the king, died a
sudden death — poisoned, it is said, by his wife. Upon his
death, the countess, his wife, disdaining the noble lords who
wished to wed her, married a low-born English knight, named
John Eussel. The magnates of Scotland took this in high
dudgeon, and charged her with the death of the earl, her former
husband ; so both John himself and the countess were loaded
with chains. Then Walter Bullock, on his wife's behalf, boldly
claimed the earldom of Menteith, and got the magnates to side
294 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
with him. The countess, however, unable to make head against
the attacks of so many adversaries, took a sum of money, and,
with her husband, set off out of Scotland in disgrace. Then
she sent messengers to the court of Eome, to complain of the
violence done her, and of having been despoiled of her inherit-
ance ; and, at her request, an envoy, named Pontius, was after-
wards sent from our lord the Pope Urban, into England, and
came to York, to make inquiry, at our lord the Pope's special
command, into the wrongs and annoyances unjustly inflicted
upon that countess. So Pontius had this Walter Bullock, the
holder of the said earldom, summoned, as well as well-nigh all the
bishops, abbots, and lords of Scotland, to bear witness to the
truth in this matter. Now this was against the privileges of
the king and kingdom of Scotland — that any one should be
called to account by any one outside his own borders. So the
king, considering that not only were he himself, and his king-
dom, and his people, aggrieved by this summons, but also his
ancient privileges were, in this respect, done away with, since
he himself was ready to decide this cause according to the laws
of his kingdom, brooked not that he and his country should be
any longer unduly put upon, and appealed to the supreme
pontiff against the said Pontius. And so this suit is still
pending under discussion.
LIV,
On the 9th of May 1261, in the thirteenth year of King
Alexander, a stately and venerable cross was found at Peebles,
in the presence of good men, priests, clerics, and burgesses.
But it is quite unknown in what year and by what per-
sons it was hidden there. It is, however, believed that it was
hidden by some of the faithful, about the year of Our Lord
296, while Maximian's persecution was raging in Britain. Not
long after this, a stone urn was discovered there, about three
or four paces from the spot where that glorious cross had been
found. It contained the ashes and bones of a man's body —
torn limb from limb, as it were. Whose relics these are, no one
knows as yet. Some, however, think they are the relics of him
whose name was found written in the very stone wherein that
holy cross was lying. Now there was carved in that stone,
outside, " Tomb of the Bishop Saint Nicholas." Moreover, in
the very spot where the cross was found, many a miracle was,
and is, wrought by that cross ; and the people poured, and still
pour, thither in crowds, devoutly bringing their offerings and
vows to God. Wherefore the king, by the advice of the bishop
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 295
of Glasgow, had a handsome church made there, to the honour
of God and the Holy Cross. That same year — on the last day
of February, to wit — was born the king's first-born daughter,
named Margaret, who was afterwards betrothed to the king of
^Norway.
LV. '
About the Feast of the blessed Peter, which is called ad vm-
cula, in the year 1263, Hako, king of Norway, came to the new
castle of Ayr, with eight score war-ships, having on board 20,000
fighting men : for he said that all the Scottish islands lying
between Ireland and Scotland were his by right of inheritance.
So he took the castles of Bothe (Bute) and Man, and sacked
the churches along the sea-board. Whereupon, at God's com-
mand, on the very day that both the kings had appointed for
battle, there arose, at sea, a very violent storm, which dashed
the ships together ; and a great part of the fleet dragged their
anchors, and were roughly cast on shore, whether they would
or not. Then the king's army came against them, and swept
down many, both nobles and serfs ; and a Norican (Norwegian),
King Hako's nephew, a man of great might and vigour, was
killed. On account of this, the king of the Noricans (Nor-
wegians) himself, sorrowing deeply, hurried back, in no little
dismay, to Orkney ; and while wintering there, awaiting a
stronger force to fight it out with the Scots, he died. These
rhymes have been made about him : —
" Hako, that bold and mighty lord.
Of lamblike gentleness,
Holds o'er the unjust his threat'ning sword.
But does the just caress."
He was succeeded by his son, named Magnus, a man of great
wisdom and good sense, and renowned for his love of letters.
The following was made up about him in like manner : —
" I rule the Noric coast ;
Magnus the name I boast."
LVI.
On the 21st of December 1264— the day of St. Agnes the
Virgin — there was born unto King Alexander, at Jedworth
(Jedburgh), a son, called by his father's name — to wit, Alex-
ander. Therefore God's praises rang throughout all the ends of
Scotland, for a twofold cause : namely, that in one and the same
day the king got news, by one messenger, of the death of the
296 JOHN OF fordun's chronicle
king of the Norwegians, who troubled the king and king-
dom ; and, by another, of the birth of his young son. But as
soon as the death of Hako, king of the Norwegians, was made
known to the king of Scotland, the latter hastily got a strong
army together, and made ready to set out, with a fleet, towards
the Isle of Man. The king of Man, however, hearing of this,
and being panic-stricken, despatched his ambassadors to the
king to beg that a truce might be granted him, so that he might
present himself before the king in Scotland. But the king was
prudent enough not to swerve from his purpose, or turn back ;
but, after sending the king of Man a safe-conduct, he quickly
mustered his troops, and, at their head, made for the Isle of
Man. When the king of Scotland had reached the town of
Dumfries, that petty king met him, and became his man, doing
homage unto him for his petty kingdom, which he was to hold
of him for ever ; — upon this condition, however : that if the king
of the Norwegians, for the time being, undertook to molest him,
he should have safe shelter for him and his in Scotland, for all
time to come ; while, on the other hand, the petty king of Man
should furnish to his lord, the king of Scotland, as often as the
latter had need of them, ten war galleys — five twenty-four-oared,
and five more twelve-oared. When this business was settled,
Alexander Earl of Buchan, William Earl of Mar, and Alan the
Hostiary, took with them, with due haste, by the king's instruc-
tions, no mean band of knights and natives, and went to the
Western Isles of Scotland, where they slew those traitors who
had, the year before, encouraged the king of Norway to bring
up in Scotland. Some of these they put to flight ; and, having
hanged some of the chiefs, they brought with them thence
exceeding great plunder.
LVII.
The following year, Hako's son, Magnus, king of Norway,
sent his chancellor, Gilbert, bishop of Hamere, to Alexander,
king of Scotland, at Perth, to offer him the islands of Bute and
Aranch (Arran), to be had in peaceful possession for ever, pro-
vided, however, that he himself might hold in peace all the
other islands which his father Hako had demanded. The king
scouted the very idea of this ; so the bishop, having heard the
answer to his message, went off to his own country, and pointed
out to his king that his trouble had been thrown away. He
advised the king, however, to treat with the Scots. The next
following year, therefore — that is, in 1266 — this same Norican
king, Magnus, sent his chancellor and others of his magnates
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 297
into Scotland, to bestow upon Alexander, king of Scots, on
behalf of their lord the king of Norway, by letters embodying
his resolution, all the islands between Scotland and Ireland,
which his father Hako had declared to be his ; and they also
gave back to the said king of Scots all right or claim which
King Magnus himself, or any of his predecessors, had ever had
on the said islands : Provided, however, that, on his side, the
king of Scots paid to the said king of Norway 4000 merks of
silver within two years, and afterwards 100 merks a year to
him and his heirs. Now, though this covenant gave satisfaction
to some, yet to more it was distasteful. For, through a long
course of time, long before the Scots had come to Britain, hav-
ing been first brought in by Eugenius Kothay, a leader of theirs,
had they been dwelling in the aforesaid islands ; and thereafter,
until that deadly time of the struggle of the sons of Malcolm
Canmore, king of Scotland, against their uncle Donald — when
the kingdom was wholly split up, and the Norican king Magnus,
son of Olave, attacked the islands in great force, and brought
them under his sovereignty — the Scots had possessed the same
continually, without any break or hindrance.
LVIII.
The year before, a great feud had arisen between Henry, king
of England, and his son Edward, on the one hand, and Simon
de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, and the magnates of England, on
the other. These magnates cast out of England, in dismay,
Eleanor, queen of England, and all of French birth. But the king
and his son gathered a strong army together from all sides, and
fought a battle against the said magnates at Lewes. At length,
after no little slaughter of lords and people had been made on
either side, the king and his son Edward were taken, as well as
John Comyn, and some others from Scotland, who, at the Scots
king's bidding, had come to King Henry's rescue, and were
taken and thrust into prison in London. Afterwards, however,
the English king's son, Edward, who had been kept in the
closest custody, escaped by unheard-of cleverness, through the
management of Gilbert Earl of Gloucester. Thereupon a large
army was assembled from all sides, and a desperate battle was
fought at Evesham, between the said Edward and Simon de
Montfort. In this struggle, Simon himself and his first-born,
Henry, were killed ; and it is said that eighty-seven lords and
three hundred nobles, besides serfs and foot, fell in this battle.
Now King Alexander had, of his own free will, levied three men
from every hyde of land, to despatch them to the assistance of
298 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
the king of England and his son Edward, in this war ; but, hearing
of the overthrow of Simon and his confederates, the Scots people
were spared this trouble. All who had stood out with Simon in
the war were disinherited, and outlawed from England ; so that,
within a week, the king bestowed, it said, the lands of 17,560
nobles upon aliens. There were, however, deadly plots at that
time between the king and the rest of the barons. Villages were
burnt down, towns razed to the ground, churches sacked ; and
there was never any peace or security. The king's son Edward,
at length, wishing to bring under his yoke all those who had
rebelled against him, took John de Vesci, and some others, by
stealth, at Alnwick Castle, and sent them over to London ; then
he took up his quarters at Roxburgh, in order to have an inter-
view with the king of Scotland. He was met by the king of
Scotland and Queen Margaret, sister to the said Edward, and
nearly all the nobility of Scotland ; and after many rejoicings
and compliments made by each to the other, they returned
home in joy*
LIX.
Meanwhile Ottobonus, legate of the Eoman See, came to
England to restore peace between the king and the barons, and
took up his abode in Loudon. Considering, however, that he
was labouring in vain, he wrote to the bishpps of Scotland to send
him four merks from every parish church, and six merks from
every cathedral church, by way of procuration. But King
Alexander of Scotland, having received this money — 2000 merks
— from the clergy, utterly forbade that this should be done ; and,
moreover, appealed to the Apostolic See about it. Then, in the
year 1268, all the bishops of Scotland were summoned by this
same legate, Ottobonus, to compear before him, wherever he might
be, in the fortnight after Easter, to hold his council. In like
manner he commanded the clergy of Scotland to send either two
abbots, or two priors, for the whole kingdom of Scotland. The
bishops, in a general council, deputed Kichard, bishop of Dun-
keld, and Robert, bishop of Dunblane, on their behalf, so that
nothing which could damage or aggrieve them might be enacted
in their absence. But the rest of the clergy sent, on their
behalf, the abbot of Dunfermline and the prior of Lindores.
So the legate enacted some new statutes — chiefly about the
secular and regular priests of the Scots — which the bishops of
Scotland utterly refused to abide by. That same year, many,
in all lands, took the badge of the cross against the Saracens.
Louis, the most Christian king of France, with a great swarm
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 299
of his lords, took the badge of the cross. So did Edward and
Edmund, sons of the king of England, and a great crowd of
Englishmen with them. For the expenses of these, Pope
Clement, by the advice of Ottobomis, and at the instance of the
king of England, wrote to the clergy of Scotland to pay to the
king of England every tenth penny of all the income of their
Church. The king and clergy, however, with one voice and
with one heart, scorned to do this. But, the following year,
Henry, king of England, again sent his ambassadors into Scot-
land, to ask the clergy for one penny in ten ; and the clergy, as
before, protested, appealed to our lord the Pope, and sent clerks
to his court.
LX.
In the year 1271, Louis, king of Prance, after he had won
from the discomfited Saracens a certain very large island named
Barbary, met his doom ; as did his first-born son Louis, and
much people of the Christians with them — among others, David
Earl of Athol, and Adam Earl of Carrick, and a great many
other Scottish and English nobles. Now Adam Earl of Carrick
left an only daughter, named Martha, as his heiress ; and she
succeeded him in his domain and earldom. After she had,
therefore, become mistress of her father's domain, as she was,
one day, going out hunting at random, with her esquires and
handmaidens, she met a gallant knight riding across the same
country — a most seemly youth, named Kobert of Bruce, son
of Eobert, surnamed the Bruce, the noble lord of Annandale
in Scotland, and of Cleveland, in England. When greetings
and kisses had been given on each side, as is the wont
of courtiers, she besought him to stay and hunt, and walk
about ; and seeing that he was rather unwilling to do so, she
by force, so to speak, with her own hand, made him pull up, and
brought the knight, although very loath, to her castle of Turn-
berry with her. After dallying there, with his followers, for
the space of fifteen days or more, he clandestinely took the
countess to wife ; while the friends and well-wishers of both
knew nothing about it, nor had the king's consent been got at
all in the matter. Therefore the common belief of the whole
country was that she had seized — by force, as it were — this
youth for her husband. But when this came to King Alex-
ander's ears, he took the castle of Turnberry, and made all her
other lands and possessions be acknowledged as in his hands ;
because she had wedded with Eobert of Bruce without having
consulted his royal majesty. By means of the prayers of friends,
300 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
however, and by a certain sum of money agreed upon, this
Eobert gained the king's goodwill, and the whole domain. Of
Martha, by God's providence, he begat a son, who was to be the
saviour, champion, and king, of the bruised Scottish people, as
the course of the history will show forth ; and his father's name
Kobert, was given him.
" In twelve seven four since Christ our manhood wore,
And at the feast when Benedict deceased.
That noble knight, King Eobert, saw the light.
Called from the womb by Heaven's almighty doom."
LXI.
When a very old man, Henry, that most peaceable king of
England, after having governed his kingdom in the greatest
peace and righteousness for fifty-six years, flitted to Christ, on
the 20th of November 1273, the twenty- fourth year of the reign
of Alexander, king of Scots ; and he was buried at "Westminster,
in London. He was succeeded on the throne of England by his
son, Edward, called Longshanks, who was then in the Holy
Land ; and all the magnates, clergy, and people of England
swore fealty to Edward while he still kept on in the wars
with the barbarians. When Edward afterwards came back, the
king of Scotland, with his queen and children, made every
effort to be present at his coronation, which took place in
London, on the day of the Assumption of the blessed Virgin
Mary, in the year 1274. The king of Scotland was there, with
great pomp ; as were also the queen, and many lords and nobles.
That same year, however, on the 26 th of February, the said queen
of Scotland, Margaret, King Henry's daughter, and this King
Edward's sister, died at the castle of Cupar, and was entombed
beside King David, at Dunfermline. The third year after. King
Alexander went on a pilgrimage, to Saint Thomas, in England ;
and there, without prejudice to all his dignities, did homage to
Edward, king of England, as he had formerly done to Edward's
father also, for his lands in England : namely, for the lands and
lordship of Penrith, and sundry others, which King Heniy had
given him of old, as a marriage portion with his daughter Mar-
garet, queen of Scotland, now deceased ; also for the other lands
and ancient honours formerly possessed by his predecessors the
kings of Scotland, except the earldom of Huntingdon — for
which domain Simon, abbot of Dunfermline, and William Earl
of Mar, had erst been sent by the aforesaid Alexander, king of
Scotland, to that same King Henry, almost in his last days ;
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. , 301
but Henry would on no account give it up, and kept the whole
earldom for himself, though the king of Scotland had, through
his forefathers, been holding the honours thereof from days of
yore, and possessed them wholly at the time of the peace.
LXII.
Master Baiamund was sent by our lord the Pope, and came
to Scotland, to levy and put by the tithes, as an aid for the
Holy Land. On the day after the Feast of the king and martyr,
Saint Oswald, in the year 1275, he held his council at Perth
and, at a sitting there, together with the bishops and clergy, he
decreed that all the beneficed clergy, without excepting any —
not even the privileged — should, under stress of an oath and of
excommunication, pay tithes of all the goods and income of the
Chui'ch, not after the old taxation, but according to their real
worth. Moreover, this Baiamund, at the request of the bishops
and abbots, went back to court, to beg our lord the Pope, on
behalf of the clergy of Scotland, to take the old taxations of
all their goods, whereby seven years were reckoned as only six.
But he came back to Scotland without having sped well.
Meanwhile, through the bishop of Durham, there sprung up a
dispute between Alexander, king of Scotland, and Edward, king
of England, about the boundaries and marches of the two king-
doms. To settle this dispute, three bishops of Scotland — those
of Saint Andrews, Glasgow, and Dunblane — with a great many
earls and other nobles, met, on behalf of the king of Scotland,
at Berwick-on-Tweed, in the middle of Lent, in the year 1278 ;
while, on behalf of the king of England, there met, at Tweed-
mouth, the bishops of Norwich and Durham, the Sheriff of
Newcastle, and a great many other knights and clergy, to treat
of the aforesaid boundaries and marches. But they went away
without having settled the business.
LXIII.
On the Sunday next after Martinmas, in the winter of the
year 1282, the lord Alexander, son of Alexander, king of Scot-
land, took to wife, at Eoxburgh, the daughter of the lord count
of Flanders, in the presence of many Flemish knights and ladies,
amid unbounded joy and compliments. A great many Scottish
bishops, abbots, earls, barons, knights, and the other nobles,
also, were there met together ; and after remaining there for the
space of fifteen days, when the wedding had been solemnized in
great state, they at length hied them home again. But, alas !
302 . JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
this great joy was, within a short time, followed by deep
mourning. For this Alexander, this gallant youth, who, it was
hoped, would have been the heir to the Scots throne, died, the
next year, at Lindores, in the twentieth year of his age, and
was buried at Dunfermline, amid the boundless grief of the
whole people, the tears and groans of all the clergy, and the
endless sobs of the king and the magnates. He died in the
year 1283. His younger brother, David, moreover, had de-
parted this life before him, at Strivelyn (Stirling) Castle, at the
end of the month of June 1281, amid the deep wailing of all
the Scots, and the still deeper wailing of the king ; and he lies
buried in the monastery of Dunfermline. His death was the
beginning of Scotland's sorrows to come. Alas ! woe worth the
day, 0 Scotland ! for, even though thou had known that so
many days of mourning and tears were in store for thee, evils
so great are hastening upon thee without fail,
" That, if thou knew, thou ne'er could think to bear them."
But after the death of the aforesaid Alexander, the king's first-
born, four knights, sent by the count of Flanders, came to our
lord the king of Scotland, in order to bring to her father, the
aforesaid count, his daughter, the widow of Alexander, the
king's son lately deceased. Our lord the king and his councillors
were long in treaty on this matter, and, at length, agreed that
the aforesaid lady should go back to her father, without plight-
ing her troth to our lord king for her dowry. This was done
accordingly ; and they were sent away with gifts, and hied them
home.
LXIV.
Margaret, likewise, the king's only daughter, was, before her
brother Alexander died, betrothed to Hangow, king of Norway,
and, about the beginning of the month of August, she crossed
the water with a noble train — with Earl Walter and the countess
of Menteith, the abbot of Balmurinach (Balmerino), Barnard
of Montealt, and many other knights and nobles. Of these,
while on their way back, after the solemn celebration of the
nuptials, the said ^ abbot, and Barnard, and many others, were
drowned. But Earl Walter and his wife sped back safely to
Scotland from Norway. This lady Margaret, however, queen
of the Norwegians, after she had lived a year and a half
with the king, her husband, paid the debt of nature on the
9th of April, the beginning of the same year her brother Alex-
ander died. Of her, the Norican king begat only one daughter,
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 303
also named Margaret, who likewise departed this life — as will
be told below — as soon as she was grown up. The king of
Norway, however, after the death of the queen, his spouse, and
daughter of the king of Scotland, sent a solemn embassy to the
latter king, to ask and recover, for the use of his own daughter
aforesaid — the Scottish king's granddaughter, to wit — a rent of
seven hundred merks on certain lands, according to covenants
entered upon between those kings, and supported by writs.
The king welcomed these ambassadors kindly, and, despatching,
by the advice of his lords, an embassy of his own to the Nor-
wegian king, sent them back in honour, with vast and sundry
gifts.
LXV.
Now, in these days — namely, in the year 1281 — the English
king Edward, with a countless host, made his way into Wales,
where he overcame Llewellyn, the prince of the British nation ;
and, after much people had been killed on either side, at length
the prince himself was ruthlessly and seditiously murdered.
So King Edward, by fierce warfare, made himself lord of the
whole of Wales, and superior of the remains of the Britons.
Therefore, to show his great gladness, and on account of the
wished-for victory gained over the Welsh, he held a round table
in Wales, at the foot of Snowdon. This king, also, carried off
by force the whole of the papal tithes collected in his kingdom
for six years, according to the real worth of all the income of
the Church, in aid of the Holy Land, and put by in sundry
monasteries and cathedral churches of his kingdom — the
journey to the Holy Land being thus thwarted. With this
countless sum of money, therefore, it is said, he got Wales, he
fortified the strongholds, castles, and town walls thereof, and,
at the cost of that money, he allayed a most grievous war
which he shortly afterwards waged against the Scots. Mean-
while David, brother to this Llewellyn, prince of Wales, had
this judgment passed upon him, in London, by that same tyrant
king : that he should be drawn by horses as a traitor, hanged
as a robber, beheaded as a freebooter, that his bowels should be
burnt, and his body quartered, one part of his body being sent
to each of the four parts of the kingdom. Moreover, he issued
there this edict, which was cried by the voice of heralds through-
out all England and Wales : that no one of British birth, of what-
ever condition he might be, should spend a night within walled
towns, castles, strongholds, or any fortresses whatever, on pain of
loss of life and limb. This chapter is shortly introduced there.
304 JOHN OF fokdun's chronicle
lest any foreign nation which may read the said history should,
unchastened by the example of the Welsh, unwarily fall under
the dominion of most wretched thraldom to the English.
LXVI.
In the tenth year after the queen's death — namely, in 1284 —
King Alexander, by the advice of his liegemen, took steps to
send his ambassadors — to wit, his chancellor, Thomas of Char-
teris, Patrick of Gramme, William of St. Clair, and John of
Soulis, knights — to look him out a spouse sprung of a noble
stock. So, without delay or tarrying at all, they went off
to France, after the Feast of Candlemas.
LXVTI.
Betrothal of Yolande, Daughter of the Count of Dreux, in France,
to Alexander III., King of Scots — This King's Death.
The Lord Alexander iii., king of Scotland, was, on the day of
Saint Calixtus, betrothed to Yolande, daughter of the count of
Dreux ; and a great many nobles, both of France and Scotland,
with a countless throng of both sexes, solemnly met together
to celebrate their nuptials royally. When these were over, the
French, except a few who abode with the queen, hied back in
gladness, laden with various gifts. The same year, on the 1 9tli
of March, this Alexander of goodly memory, the illustrious
king of Scotland, died at Kinghorn, and was buried in state at
Dunfermline. How worthy of tears, and how hurtful, his death
was to the kingdom of Scotland, is plainly shown forth by the
evils of after times. This king reigned thirty-six years. All
the days of the life of this king, the Church of Christ flourished,
her priests were honoured with due worship, vice was withered,
craft there was none, wrong came to an end, truth was strong,
and righteousness reigned. Moreover, rightly, and by reason of
the merits of his uprightness, was he called king : seeing that
he ruled himself and his people aright, allowing unto each his
rights ; and if, at any time, any of his people rebelled, he curbed
their madness with discipline so unbending, that they would
put a rope round their necks, ready for hanging, were that his will
and pleasure, and bow themselves under his rule. By reason
whereof he was looked upon with equal fear and love, both far and
near, not only by his friends, but also by his adversaries, — and
especially by the English. And all the time he lived upon earth
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 305
security reigned in steadfastness of peace and quiet, and glee-
ful freedom. 0 Scotland, truly unhappy, when bereft of so
great a leader and pilot ; while — greater unhappiness still ! — he
left no lawful offspring to succeed liiin. Thou hast an everlast-
ing spring of mourning and sorrow in the death of one whose
praiseworthy life bestowed, on thee especially, such increase of
welfare.
LXVIII.
Beginning of the government of the Guardians after King
Alexander's death.
When, however, the aforesaid noble prince was dead, as well
as all the children begotten of his body, and all his lawful heirs
and kinsmen, in any way, either lineally or collaterally, descended
from his grandfather King William — except one little girl,
named Margaret, the daughter of Margaret, queen of Norway,
late daughter of the aforesaid King Alexander —the kingdom of
Scotland was six years and nine months without the governance
of a king — as was said in the old prophecy : —
" While twice three years, and moons thrice three roll by,
Under no prince the widow'd land shall lie."
So it was governed by six guardians : namely, William Fraser,
lord bishop of Saint Andrews — ^Duncan, Earl of Fife — and John
Comyn, Earl of Buchan, deputed from the northern part, this
side of the Forth ; and Eobert, bishop of Glasgow — the lord
John Comyn — and James, steward of Scotland, appointed from
the southern side of the water of Forth. Duncan of Fife, how-
ever, shortly afterwards put off this mortal coil, as will be seen
further on. But, while the aforesaid number of years still
lasted, Edward I., king of England, a noble prince, seeing that
the aforesaid girl, named Margaret (daughter of the king of
Norway, as well as daughter of his own sister's daughter),
was the true and lawful heiress of the kingdom of Scotland,
and aiming, wdth all zeal and earnestness, at joining and
uniting the aforesaid kingdom of Scotland to his own king-
dom, ordained and appointed, in the year 1289, six special
commissioners and envoys extraordinary, to arrange, plan,
and treat, between himself and the aforesaid guardians of Scot-
land, as well as the other bishops and the whole of the clergy,
and the nobles — earls and barons — and the whole Estates of
the realm, for contracting a marriage between Edward, his own
son and heir, and the aforesaid Margaret, then the true heiress
of Scotland.
VOL. II. ' - u
306 JOHN OF FORDUN's CHRONICLE
LXIX.
Now when the ambassadors had told their business, and were
duly carrying on negotiations with the nobles of the aforesaid
Estates, the before-mentioned guardians, by the advice of the
others of the kingdom, determined that they would agree to the
request of those ambassadors : provided, however, that, with
respect to the rights and customs, both lay and ecclesiastical,
theretofore used and kept, the kingdom of Scotland were as
free and quit of all thraldom and subjection, as ever it had been,
at its best and freest, during the lifetime of Alexander iii., the
illustrious king thereof ; — according to what appears in a cer-
tain instrument drawn up by them, a copy whereof is more
fully contained in the book of the pleading of Baldred. And
in case the aforesaid marriage did not hold good, or either of
the contracting parties deceased without issue, while the other
survived, — in any case or event, the aforesaid kingdom was to
be freely, entirely, and absolutely, without any subjection,
restored and returned to the next heirs. So, in order that the
said matter might be carried through to the end wished for, the
nobles of Scotland solemnly despatched to the king of Norway,
two knights, distinguished for their knowledge and character —
Michael of Wemyss and Michael Scot — to perform the mar-
riage, and bring the girl to the kingdom. But, woe worth the
day ! before the thing was consummated, the said maiden de-
parted this life, in the year 1291. Upon her death, a dispute
straightway arose between John of Balliol and Eobert of Bruce
the elder (for there were three then alive, called by the same
name : to wit, Eobert, this elder noble — his son — and his grand-
son, who, afterwards, was king of the kingdom of Scotland, by
right and inheritance). This dispute was, in time, settled in
the following way.
LXX.
Discussion of the rights of Bdbert of Bruce and of John of Balliol.
The nobles of the before-mentioned kingdom, with its afore-
named guardians, oftentimes discussed among themselves the
question as to who should be made their king ; but they did not
make bold to utter what they felt about the right of succession,
partly because it was a hard and knotty matter ; partly because
different people felt differently about those rights, and wavered
a good deal ; partly because they justly feared the power of the
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 307
parties, which was great, and greatly to be feared ; and partly
because they had no superior who could, by his unbending
power, carry their award into execution, or make the parties
abide by their decision. When they had earnestly thought
over this, they, at length, with one consent, decided among
themselves to send special messengers to Edward, king of
England, that he might become supreme judge in this matter,
and declare the right of each ; and, by his might, duly coerce,
according to the requirements of the law, that party against
whom he might pronounce his award. Therefore they sent the
lord bishop of Saint Andrews, W. Eraser, in conjunction with
some others, to fetch him, while he was looking after his own
business in distant parts. Edward came, on being asked, and
fixed a day for all the nobles of the kingdom of Scotland, of what-
ever standing or condition they might be, to meet together before
him at Berwick ; and he commanded that the parties between
whom the controversy was, as well as all the others who
claimed a right to the said kingdom, should be called : provided,
however, that such summons or compearing should beget no
prejudice to the kingdom of Scotland, and also that no right or
superiority of dominion should thereby accrue to Edward ; as
he was called thereto, not as lord paramount, or judge by right,
but as a friendly umpire, and the strongest neighbour, to settle
a quarrel, equally by his wisdom and his might, after the manner
of a friendly peacemaker, and for the sake of reciprocity. Against
this they guarded in set terms, by letters-patent from him, be-
fore the day and opening of the lawsuit.
LXXI.
All the freeholders of the kingdom of Scotland, therefore,
who should, or could, be there, met together before him at Ber-
wick, and swore an oath that they would steadfastly abide by
his award, to be issued as a judgment, so far as it declared
the right of succession to the throne ; and all the bishops and
others of the clergy, as well as the aforesaid wardens, earls, and
barons, and the other estates, both of burgesses and free-
holders, bound themselves by an authentic instrument, sup-
ported by the seals of all the above-mentioned, that they would,
all and sundry, obey, as rightful and actual king, and over-
lord, that one of the two competitors that Edward declared
should reign. When, therefore, this had been arranged, this
oft-mentioned king chose men distinguished by their know-
ledge and years, for their character and trustiness, and the most
discreet in each station or degree, to the number of eighty,
308 JOHN OF fordun's chronicle
according to some — but, according to others, forty — and accord-
ing to the opinion of certain men, four-and-twenty, twelve of
whom were from England and twelve from Scotland. These,
when they had taken a solemn oath to speak the truth, he com-
missioned to bar all the rest who claimed a right to the throne
— for they were very many ; and, by what they owed to the
oath they had sworn, and at the peril of their souls, to search
faithfully and determine between the aforesaid — namely, John
and Eobert ; and, having determined between them, to make
known unto him which of them had the better and clearer
right to the throne of Scotland, so as to succeed the foresaid
King Alexander, by right of near kinship, according to the
approved custom of the kingdom. The assize, having been
arranged as stated above, was removed to a spot away from the
haunts of the people, and closely guarded ; and the king alone
was wont to go in, when and as often as he would, unaccom-
panied, to those of the assize, and would oftentimes ask how
the thing would go. At length, from their hints, he gathered
that, according to law and approved custom, the right of Eobert
the Bruce was the stronger.
LXXII.
Thereupon he strengthened the guard of the assize, and with-
drew ; and having privily called his own people, he announced
to them the determination of the assize, and, with their counsel,
debated as to what was to be done in the above matter. But
Anthony Bek, bishop of Durham, put this question to him : —
"If Robert of Bruce were king of Scotland, where would
Edward, king of England, be ? For this Robert is of the noblest
stock of all England, and, with him, the kingdom of Scotland
is very strong in itself; and, in times gone by, a great deal of
mischief has been wrought to the kings of England by those of
Scotland." At this, the king, patting him on the head — as it were
— answered in the French tongue, saying : — " Par le sank Dieu,
vous aves bun chante ;" which is to say, " By Christ's blood !
thou hast sung well. Things shall go otherwise than I had
arranged at first." In like manner, all of his council, now
stealthily, now openly, suggested unto him that he should never
give judgment without receiving their subjection — for that a fit
time was at hand, when he could fulfil the desire he had so long
brooded over. When this had been thus well weighed, he sent
for the elder Robert of Bruce, and asked him whether he would
hold the aforesaid kingdom of him in chief, so that he — Edward
— might make and appoint him king thereof. Robert answered
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 309
straightforwardly, and said : — " If I can get the aforesaid king-
dom by means of my right and a faithful assize, well and good ;
but if not, I shall never, in gaining that kingdom for myself,
reduce it to thraldom — a kingdom which all the kings thereof
have hitherto, with great toil and trouble, kept free from thral-
dom, in security of peace." When he heard this, and Eobert
had moved away, Edward called John of Balliol, and plied him
in like manner with the same question as before ; but Balliol,
after having quickly deliberated with his council, which had
been quite bought over, fell in with the aforesaid king's wishes,
that he should hold the kingdom of Scotland of him, and do
him homage for the same. Thereupon, the parties were, soon
after, called up ; and, in presence of the nobles of Scotland and
England, Edward pronounced John Balliol to be the lawful heir
in the succession to the throne, and by his award decided that
he had the stronger right. After the judgment was given, how-
ever, the Earl of Gloucester, holding Eobert of Bruce by the
hand, in the sight of all, spoke thus unto the king : — " EecoUect,
O king, what kind of judgment thou hast given to-day ; and
know that thou must be judged at the last." And straightway,
at that earl's bidding, the aforesaid Eobert Bruce withdrew ;
nor did he ever tender homage or fealty to John of Balliol.
LXXIII.
Account, or Pedigree, of the Kings of Scotland.
That the right of John of Balliol and Eobert of Bruce, how-
ever, might be brought out more clearly, there is here brought
in, abridged, the line of descent of the kings of Scotland,
coming down from King Malcolm and his spouse. Saint Mar-
garet, to the death of Margaret, daughter of the king of Norway
and Margaret, queen of that kingdom — the daughter, to wit, of
King Alexander ill., at whose death all issue descending either
lineally or collaterally from King William, was utterly extinct
and wiped out. When this has been seen, the right of the
aforesaid, who long wrangled for the throne of Scotland, will be
more easily and clearly evident.
LXXIV.
In the year 1067, Malcolm, king of Scotland, took to
wife Margaret, of whom he begat six renowned sons, — namely,
Edward, Edmund, Ethelred, Edgar, Alexander, and David ; and
two daughters — Matilda, and Mary. Of these six sons, three
310 JOHN OF FOKDUN'S CHRONICLE
reigned successively — namely, Edgar, Alexander, and David.
But all the sons, except David, died childless ; and he begat
only one son, named Henry, Earl of Huntingdon. This Henry
begat three sons — Malcolm, William, and David — and died
before his father. Upon King David's death, his grandson
Malcolm, then twelve years old, reigned eight years, and died.
He was succeeded by his brother William, who reigned fifty-
two years, and died, and was buried in the monastery of Abir-
brothoc (Arbroath), which he had himself founded. This King
William begat Alexander ii., who succeeded him, and reigned
thirty-six years. He died at Curlay (Kerrera), and was buried
at Melrose. This Alexander begat Alexander iii., who suc-
ceeded his father, and reigned thirty-six years. He died at
Kinghorn, in the thirty-seventh year of his reign, and was
buried at Dunfermline. This Alexander ill. begat, of Margaret,
queen of Scotland, and sister of King Edward I. of England (she
lies entombed at Dunfermline), two sons — Alexander, and
David ; but they both died childless before their father. He
also begat, of that same queen, one only daughter, named
Margaret. This daughter was betrothed to Eric, king of
Norway, who had, by her, one only daughter, named Margaret,
who died in girlhood ; — and thus ended the whole offspring of
King William of Scotland, and his successors, and was utterly
extinguished and ended. Therefore it is fitting and needful
to go back to David, the aforesaid King William's younger
brother.
LXXV.
Kitig WilliarrCs brother David, Earl of Huntingdon,
During the reign of King Malcolm and King William, their
younger brother David became Earl of Huntingdon, through the
Countess thereof, whom he had taken to wife, and of whom he
begat three daughters. The first was called Margaret, and
wedded Alan of Galloway. Of her, Alan begat two daughters,
the first of whom, named Darvorgilla, wedded John of Balliol,
who begat, of her, one son, named John, afterwards king of
Scotland; and this John begat Edward of Balliol. In this
Edward, the male line of Balliol came to an end ; for he had
neither son nor daughter by Darvorgilla. The aforesaid John
of Balliol, moreover, begat one daughter, named Marjory —
the sister, to wit, of the aforesaid King John. This Marjory
wedded John Comyn, who, of her, begat one son, named John,
whom Robert of Bruce, afterwards king, killed at Dumfries. This
I
I
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 311
John Comyn begat one only daughter, who wedded David, Earl
of Athol. Of her, this David begat many sons, the first and
eldest of whom, named David, took to wife the daughter of
Henry of Beaumont. This lady was begotten by the said
Henry of the first-born daughter, and one of the heirs, of John
Earl of Buchan ; and, of her, that David begat one son, named
David. The sister of that Darvorgilla, daughter of the aforesaid
Alan of Galloway and Margaret, his bride, was wedded to Eoger
de Quincy. Of her, this Eoger begat three daughters, who were
united to three nobles — namely, John of Ferrers ; Alexander,
Earl of Buchan (whose first-born daughter the aforesaid Henry
of Beaumont took to wife) ; and Lord de la Zouche. From them
sprang a countless offspring ; but it would be no less difi&cult
than long to run over their descent.
LXXVI.
Earl David! s daughter Isabella, who wedded Robert of Bruce.
The second daughter of the aforesaid Earl David, brother of
the above-named King William, was named Isabella, and was
taken to wife by the lord Eobert of Bruce. This Eobert begat
one son, named Eobert ; who begat Eobert, Earl of Carrick ;
who begat Eobert, king of Scotland, and many other sons and
their uterine brothers ; but all these — except Eobert, afterwards
king — died without lawful issue. He had, also, many daughters,
one of whom — the eldest — wedded Gartnay, Earl of Mar. This
Earl Gartnay begat Donald (called Bane), Earl of Mar, who died
at the battle of Duplin, shortly after having been appointed
warden of Scotland. This Donald Bane begat Thomas, Earl of
Mar, who was betrothed to the heiress of Menteith ; but after-
wards, egged on by* the devil, he, by trumping up colourable
pretexts, and untrue pleas, got a divorce, without there being
any offspring between them. Another daughter wedded Hugh,
Earl of Eoss, who, of her, begat Earl William.
LXXVII.
Issue of King Robert Bruce by his first wife,
Now King Eobert, when he was Earl of Carrick, took to wife
Isabella, sister of the aforesaid Gartnay, Earl of Mar ; and, of
her, he begat an only daughter, named Marjory, who wedded
Walter, Steward of Scotland, and of whom this Walter begat an
only son, named Eobert Stewart, afterwards king. This Eobert
312 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
took to his bed one of the daughters of Adam More, knight ;
and of her he begat sons and daughters, out of wedlock. But
he afterwards — in the year 1349, to wit — bespoke and got the
dispensation of the Apostolic See, and espoused her regularly,
according to the forms of the Church.
LXXVIII.
That King's Issue hy Ms second Wife.
Upon the death of the aforesaid Isabella, Eobert, while still
earl, took to wife Elizabeth, daughter of Haymer de Burc, Earl
of Ulster. Of her, this Eobert, then king, begat two daughters
— Matilda and Margaret. The said Margaret wedded the Earl
of Sutherland, who, of her, begat an only son, named John.
This John was, with his father, a hostage in England for the
release of David ii., king of Scotland. But his mother departed
this life just after she had given him birth. I will say nothing
at all about her sister, Matilda; for she did nothing worth
remembering. The aforesaid King Eobert likewise begat, in the
seventeenth year of his reign, an only son, named David, who
succeeded him on the throne.
LXXIX.
Death of John of Balliol.
Ye must know, likewise, that John of Balliol, the husband of
the aforesaid Darvorgilla, died before the death of the aforesaid
King Alexander iii. ; while she, however, outlived him. As for
Earl David's third daughter, named Ada, who wedded Henry of
Hastings, let those whom it concerns, or who wish to know, trace
and follow up her issue. Now, after having seen this, let skilled
men seek and trace which of the suitors had the stronger right ;
for this is a true history, and a correct account of the degrees of
kinship, and of the descent, of all the aforesaid.
LXXX.
Daughters of King Malcolm and Saint Margaret ; and degree of
kinship between David and Edward, tJie kings of Scotland
and of England.
Of the above-mentioned Saint Margaret, also, the aforesaid
Malcolm begat two daughters — Matilda, and Mary. Matilda
wedded Henry the Clerk, son of William the Bastard, conqueror
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 313
of England. Of her, this Henry begat "the empress Matilda,
who wedded the emperor Henry, and lived twenty years with
him. The emperor died without issue ; and, after his death,
the empress returned to her still surviving kinsfolk. She
afterwards, by their advice, wedded the Count of Anjou and
Poitou — Geoffroy, by name — who begat, of her, one son,
named Henry. This Henry afterwards succeeded to the king-
dom of England and the dukedom of Normandy through his
mother, and to the dukedom of Anjou and Poitou through his
father ; and under him suffered Saint Thomas, Archbishop of
Canterbury. He had four sons : namely, Henry, his first-born,
who was crowned king in his father's lifetime, and died before
his father, childless; the second, named Eichard, who suc-
ceeded his father on the throne ; the third, named Geoffroy,
Earl of Brittany ; and the fourth son, named John, who suc-
ceeded his brother, the said Eichard, on the throne. This John
begat Henry the peaceful ; Henry begat Edward the tyrant ;
Edward be^jat Edward ii.; Edward ii. begat Edward iii.; Edward
III. begat Edward, Prince of Wales, who predeceased his father ;
Prince Edward begat Eichard, who now is. Now, having shortly
run through all this, we must go back to the Annals.
LXXXI.
Guardians of the kingdom chosen, after the death of King
Alexander III.
When the body of Alexander iii., of renowned memory, the
aforesaid illustrious king of Scotland, had been handed over for
burial by the Church, in the year 1286, six guardians — of
whom enough was said a little further back — were chosen
by the clergy and estates of the whole kingdom of Scotland,
in a parliament held at Scone on the 2d day of April, And the
kingdom was six years and nine months without the governance
of a king, according to the words of the prophecy, " While twice
three years," etc.
LXXXII.
Slaughter of Duncan, Earl of Fife.
On the 7th of April 1288, Duncan, Earl of Fife, son of Colban,
son of Malcolm, was slain at Petpolloch (Pittelloch), by Patrick
of Abernethy and Walter of Percy, knights, with the advice
and consent of William of Abernethy, knight, who, as had been
314 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
forecasted between them, secretly lay in wait, with many men,
on another road, for the passing of the said earl ; so that the
latter could nowise escape them alive. When they had per-
petrated this wickedness, Andrew of Moray followed after them,
seeking them, in their wretched flight with their men, through
sundry places, this side of the Scottish sea, and beyond it. Two
of them — namely, Walter, and William — he manfully caught
in a village which is called Colbanston, in Clydesdale; and he
there straightway punished Walter and two squires with sen-
tence of death, and committed William to prison for life, at
Douglas Castle, in the keeping of the lord William of Douglas.
Patrick, however, fled to France, and there ended his days.
LXXXIII.
Marriage to he contracted between the son of the King of Ungland,
and Margaret, daughter of the King of Norway,
In the year 1290, six ambassadors-extraordinary — namely,
two bishops, those of Durham and Carlisle ; two earls, those of
Lincoln and Warenne ; one knight, named William de Vesci ;
and Henry dean of York — and special commissioners of Edward
I., king of England, were sent to treat with the guardians, nobles,
and estates of the kingdom of Scotland, about contracting a mar-
riage between Edward, his son and heir, and Margaret, the
daughter of the king of Norway, then the true heiress of Scot-
land: as is more fully shown in a letter drawn up by these
ambassadors, and handed to the said guardians. Of this letter,
moreover, we have spoken above. The same year, the Jews
were cast out of England.
LXXXIV.
Dispute which arose between Robert Bruce and John of BallioL
In the year 1291 died Margaret, daughter of Eric, king of
Norway. She was the lawful heiress of Scotland. That same year,
the lawsuit was begun, and the dispute, or controversy, arose
between two men — John of Balliol, and Robert of Bruce — about
the right to reign and succeed to the throne of Scotland. At
length, however, at the instance of the magnates of Scotland,
Edward i., king of England, on being asked, came to Berwick ;
and sentence was there given, by that king, in favour of John of
Balliol, in the manner and form above stated.
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 315
LXXXV.
John of Balliol created King of Scotland,
On the last day of N'ovember 1292, this John of Balliol was
made king at Scone ; and having been there set on the royal
throne, as is the custom, he was promoted in due manner. That
same year, on the 26th day of December, though against the
will of the first men of the kingdom, of all but a few, this John
did homage to Edward I., king of England, for the kingdom of
Scotland, as he had before promised in his ear, submitting to
thraldom unto him for ever.
LXXXVI.
Stepfi which led to the Deprivation of the same.
I MUST mention that, at the time of this John, king of Scot-
land, some who sought to deprive Macduff — brother of Duncan,
the lately murdered Earl of Fife — of his lands and property
of Kilconquhar, dragged him to court before the above-named
King John, in full parliament. But because the king, as it
seemed to the aforesaid Macduff, showed too much favour to
the other side, he appealed from his sentence and court to the
king of England to hear him ; and, following up his appeal as
actively as he could, he managed to get the aforesaid John,
king of Scotland, summoned to the English king's parliament,
held in London. John accordingly appeared in person ; and,
in spite of the English king and his party, he determined, after
talking the thing over with his council, that he would answer
by proxy. When, therefore, the king was called, and appeared
in court by proxy, the king of England, sitting upon the
judgment-seat, would nowise listen to the aforesaid king's
proxy, until the king of Scotland, who was then sitting beside
the king of England, should rise from his place, and, standing
in court before him, impart his answers to his proxy with his
own lips. John fulfilled these commands ; and, having under-
gone from all numberless insults and slights, against his
kingly rank and dignity, he at length imparted his answers
to his proxy. And thus, after taking leave, he returned home
very greatly crestfallen. So he straightway appointed a parlia-
ment, and called together the chiefs of the kingdom — both of
the clergy and of the people ; and, having openly set forth the
insults, slights, contempt, and shame, which he had endured
316 JOHN OF FOKDUN's CHRONICLE
he strove, by all means in his small measure of power, to find
some offset against the aforesaid king's wickedness. At length,
it was there determined that King John should utterly recall the
homage and fealty he had tendered to the king of England,
as wrung from him by force and fear ; and that he could no
longer obey his commands at all, to the injury of his kingdom's
freedom. So he despatched to the aforesaid king of England,
by Henry, abbot of Abirbrothoc (Arbroath), letters-patent to
this effect, stamped with his seal, claiming back and recalling
his homage and fealty. When these letters were presented, the
king answered, in the French tongue : " A ce foil, felim tel foli
fet ;" and he straightway added : " Sul ne voit venir a nous,
nous vendrum aly." When this answer had been given, the
aforesaid abbot — who had been sent thither out of spite, foras-
much as, owing to his knavery, he was hateful to many of the
lords and others of his country — was unable to get from the
king of England any longer letters of safe-conduct ; so, owing
to the shortness of the time which was left before his safe-
conduct ran out, he barely escaped alive.
LXXXVII.
The King of England has the King of Scotland cited to
the Marches, etc.
The often-mentioned king of England more than once sent
for the king of Scotland to compear at the marches and borders
of the kingdom, and had him summoned before him to stand his
trial for his disobedience and rebellion. But he would not deign to
come when peremptorily summoned ; so, because of his manifold
contumacy, as well as because of his misconduct in breaking
through his oath of fealty and homage, Edward passed against
him a sentence of deprivation and deposition from the kingdom,
as also from all other lands and possessions which John held
of him ; so that him wliom he had, in spite of the law, pro-
moted to the kingship, he, by the law, deprived, both by a
sentence and in deed, of all the honours bestowed upon him.
LXXXVIIL
The King of England beguiles the first Robert of Bimce with
smqoth words.
Meanwhile the king of England made ready for coming to
blows ; and, calling the lord Kobert of Bruce, the grandfather.
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 317
he acknowledged that he had given an unrighteous sentence.
So he recalled the same, and promised and pledged himself
faithfully to the aforesaid Eobert to promote him to the throne,
as having the better and stronger right ; while the other should
be utterly set aside and deprived for ever. By this promise, so
full of smooth words and all manner of falsehood, he led him
on to write a letter himself to all his friends dwelling in Scot-
land, and advise them to surrender and deliver up to him all
castles and fortified strongholds : for that the whole aim of the
king of England was directed to this — that he might consti-
tute and appoint him king. Accordingly, Eobert wrote what
the other suggested. When, however, Edward got what he
wished, he nowise kept his pledges.
LXXXIX.
The Nohles of Fife sent to guard the town of Berivick —
Their Death.
While this was going on, John, king of Scotland, by the
advice of the magnates who cleaved to him, marshalled and
sent off all the nobles and freeholders, as well as the rest of the
good men, of the county of Fife (which was then without a
head, and bereft of its lawful pilot), despatching them to guard
and defend the town of Berwick, where the greatest danger
was then threatening. There the king of England brought up
with a strong fleet collected from the Cinque Ports, and laden
with a great throng of men ; and when these made a great
onslaught on the side facing the sea, the garrison of the town,
who were active under arms, stout in body, and fierce in spirit,
drove them back by force, and burnt with fire eighteen ships
laden with armed men, all of whom they slew. In what year,
month, or day, these things above related happened, the writer
of this chronicle did not know for certain. This, however, may
be taken as beyond a doubt, — that all the aforesaid events took
place, in the order in which they are set down, in the years
1293, 1294, and 1295.
xc.
Talcing of the town of Bervnck hy Edvjard /., King of England.
On the 30th of March 1296, the king of England, being
strongly stirred up by the causes stated above, marched in
person, with a large force, upon the town of Berwick ; and
318 . JOHN OF fordun's chronicle
as lie could not take it by force, he thought to outwit the
garrison by sleight and cunning. So he pretended he was
going to withdraw; and, striking his tents, he made a feint
of going far away. But on the 30th of March, bearing aloft
the craftily counterfeited banners and war-ensigns of the
Scottish army, he neared the gates of the town. When the
garrison of the town saw this, they became right glad and
merry, because they had got news that their king would soon
be there to rescue and help them ; and being thus unhappily
deceived through that promise, they trustfully opened their
gates, like true men that knew no guile. But as soon as the
trick was found out, and they became aware of the truth, they
strove to withstand the foe. Being, however, hemmed in by
the enemy, and assaulted on every side, they were wretchedly
borne down by a sudden charge. On this wise, therefore, was
the town taken, and all were swept down ; and, sparing neither
sex nor age, the aforesaid king of England, in his tyrannous
rage, bade them put to the sword 7500 souls of both sexes ; so
that, for two days, streams flowed from the bodies of the slain.
There were the nobles of Fife utterly destroyed.
xci.
Expulsion of the English from the Kingdom of Scotland.
The same year, on the 20th of April, owing to most unmis-
takeable grounds for mistrust, and strong proofs of villanous
plotting against the king and state, all the beneficed English
in the bishopric of Saint Andrews were formally deprived ot
their benefices by William of Kinghorn and Patrick of Cam-
pania, surrogates of William Eraser, bishop of Saint Andrews,
who was abroad. In like manner, every single other English-
man, both clerk and layman, was cast out of the kingdom of
Scotland for plotting.
XCII.
Battle of Dunbar.
On the 27th of April, in the same year, was fought the battle
of Dunbar, where Patrick of Graliam and many nobles fell
wounded ; while a great many other knights and barons, in the
hope of saving their lives, fled to Dunbar Castle, and were there
readily welcomed. But they were all — to the number of seventy
knights, besides famous squires, together with William, Earl of
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 319
Eoss — made over, like sheep offered to the slaughter, by Eichard
Seward, warden of the said castle, to the king of England.
XCIII.
Abettors of John of Balliol and Bdbert Bruce.
It should be noted, moreover, that from the first mooting of
the matter of the feud between those noble men — Bruce, and
Balliol — about the right of succeeding to the kingdom of Scot-
land, that kingdom was rent in twain. Tor all the Comyns and
their whole abettors stood by Balliol ; while the Earls of Mar
and Athol, with the whole strength of their power, cleaved, in
the firm league of kinship, to the side of Eobert of Bruce, who
was steadfastly tended in the indissoluble bond of love by
Eobert, bishop of Glasgow. It was for this reason — according
to the general opinion — that the aforesaid earls with their
troops, through good-will and love for Bruce, fled scathless
from the field, on the day the aforesaid battle was fought ; and
thus the adverse party was exposed to utter ruin, and the foe of
both gained so gladsome and welcome a victory. And, even as
afterwards, while King Eobert of Bruce was making war, all
Balliol's foll(3wers were looked upon with mistrust in that king's
wars, so also, in this Balliol's war, the aforesaid bishop and
earls, with all the abettors of Bruce's party, were generally
considered traitors to their king and country. But, alas !
through this quarrel, the harmless rabble, exposed to the raven-
ous biting of these wolves, lay mangled far and wide over the
land.
xciv.
Answer given hy the King of England to the first Bdbert Bruce.
So, after the victory gained over the Scots at Dunbar, the
elder Eobert of Bruce came up to the king of England, and be-
sought him to faithfully fulfil what he had long ago promised
him, as to his getting the kingdom. But that old framer of
wiles, in no little indignation, answered thus, in the French
tongue : " Ne avonis ren autres chose a fer, que avous reamys
ganere ?" that is to say : " Have We nothing else to do but to
win kingdoms for thee ?" So that noble man, perceiving, from
such an answer, the crafty king's falsehood, withdrew to his
lands in England, and was no more seen in Scotland.
320 JOHN OF FOEDUN'S CHRONICLE
XCV.
John of Balliol and Ms son Edward tahen.
The aforesaid king then marched on, and the castles of Dun-
bar, Edinburgh, and Strivelyn (Stirling), were given up to him;
and he followed after the aforesaid John, king of Scotland, as far
as the castle of Forfar. He was there met by John of Comyn, lord
of Strabolgi, who made his submission unto him. According to
the account given by some, this Comyn immediately afterwards
brought back the aforesaid King John and his son Edward, from
Aberdeen to the castle of Montrose; and,upon the king of England
coming to the aforesaid castle of Montrose, King John, stripped
of his kingly ornaments, and holding a white wand in his hand,
surrendered up, with staff and baton, and resigned into the
hands of the king of England, all right which he himself had,
or might have, to the kingdom of Scotland. After a few days'
time, the king of England had him and his son Edward taken
down to London by sea ; and there he had them both kept, a
good while, closely guarded. But, in course of time, while the
son was kept back, the father was set free — having, however,
first sworn a most solemn oath that he would never claim the
right of reigning in the aforesaid kingdom of Scotland. So,
being thus reinstated in his lands of Balliol (Ballieule) in
France, he there ended his days. Afterwards, moreover, his son
Edward, when he had duly sworn the above oath, was given
back to him ; and, after his father's death, Edward abode there
until he set about his own war, which was set on foot and begun
at the battle of Duplin. Thus ended the reign of King John
of Balliol, who reigned three years and a half.
xcvi.
The Estates of Scotland do homage to the King of
England.
That same year, after the seizure of the king of Scotland, the
Estates of Scotland did homage and swore fealty to the king
of England, surrendering unto him their castles and fortified
towns. He, however, made no change at all — except in a few
cases — in any of the wardens of castles, the bailies of towns,
and the king's ministers, who had been wont to minister unto
the kings of Scotland, either by ancient custom, or by heredi-
tary right ; but, having taken from them an oath of fealty, he
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 321
allowed them all, except the wardens of the castles of the
chief boroughs, to stay in the same position and offices they
had formerly served in. And thus he hastened home.
XCVII.
The Magnates of Scotland meet together to guard the Kingdom.
The same year, not long after the king of England had with-
drawn, the magnates of Scotland summoned a parliament of
their own, at Scone ; and twelve peers or guardians w^ere there
appointed to guard and defend the freedom of the kingdom,
and of the Estates thereof. And, in order that this appoint-
ment might be the more strongly secured, they swore one to
another to afford each other countenance, advice, and help, in
all time to come. After this, they built castles, repaired those
which were in ruins, set trusty garrisons in the strongest posi-
tions, and made ready to withstand bravely the lawless usurpa-
tion of that most wicked king of England. That same year, in
order to humble and lessen that king's fell power, John Comyn,
Earl of Buchan, with a great army, ravaged the northern parts
of England with fire and sword, and laid siege to the town of
Carlisle; but he withdrew thence without having compassed
his end.
XCVIII.
Bise and First Start of William Wallace.
The same year, William "Wallace lifted up his head from his
den — as it were — and slew the English sheriff of Lanark, a
doughty and powerful man, in the town of Lanark. From that
time, therefore, there flocked to him all who were in bitterness
of spirit, and weighed down beneath the burden of bondage
under the unbearable domination of English despotism ; and
he became their leader. He was wondrously brave and bold
of goodly mien, and boundless liberality ; and, though, among
the earls and lords of the kingdom, he was looked upon as low-
born, yet his fathers rejoiced in the honour of knighthood.
His elder brother, also, was girded with the knightly belt, and
inherited a landed estate which was large enough for his station,
and which he bequeathed, as a holding, to his descendants. So
Wallace overthrew the English on all sides ; and gaining
strength daily, he, in a short time, by force, and by dint of his
VOL. II. X
322 JOHN OF FORDUX'S CHRONICLE
prowess, brought all the magnates of Scotland under his sway,
whether they would or not. Such of the magnates, moreover,
as did not thankfully obey his commands, he took and brow-
beat, and handed over to custody, until they should utterly
submit to his good pleasure. And when all had thus been sub-
dued, he manfully betook himself to the storming of the castles
and fortified towns in which the English ruled ; for he aimed
at quickly and thoroughly freeing his country and overthrowing
the enemy.
xcix.
Battle of Stirling Bridge.
In the year 1297, the fame of William Wallace was spread
all abroad, and, at length, reached the ears of the king of Eng-
land ; for the loss brought upon his people was crying out.
As the king, however, was intent upon many troublesome
matters elsewhere, he sent his treasurer, named Hugh of Clis-
singham, with a large force to repress this William's bold-
ness, and to bring the kingdom of Scotland under his sway.
When, therefore, he heard of this man's arrival, the aforesaid
William, then busy besieging the English who were in Dundee
Castle, straightway intrusted the care and charge of the siege
of the castle to the burgesses of that town, on pain of loss of
life and limb, and, with his army, marched on, with all haste,
towards Strivelyn (Stirling), to meet this Hugh. A battle was
then fought, on the 11th of September, near Strivelyn (Stir-
ling), at the bridge over the Forth. Hugh of Clissingham was
killed, and all his army put to flight : some of them were slain
with the sword, others taken, others drowned in the waters.
But, through God, they were all overcome ; and the aforesaid
William gained a happy victory, with no little praise. Of the
nobles, on his side, the noble Andrew of Moray alone, the father
of Andrew, fell wounded.
c.
William Wallace winters in England,
The same year, William Wallace, with his army, wintered
in England, from Hallowmas to Christmas ; and after having
burnt up the whole land of Allerdale, and carried off some
plunder, he and his meji went back safe and sound. The
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 323
same year, moreover, on the 20th of August, all the English
— regular and beneficed clergy, as well as laymen — were, by
this same William, again cast out from the kingdom of Scot-
land. And, the same year, William of Lamberton was chosen
bishop of Saint Andrews.
CI.
Battle of Falkirh.
In the year 1298, the aforesaid king of England, taking it ill
that he and his should be put to so much loss and driven to
such straits by William Wallace, gathered together a large
army, and, having with him, in his company, some of the nobles
of Scotland to help him, invaded Scotland. He was met by
the aforesaid William, with the rest of the magnates of that
kingdom ; and a desperate battle was fought near Falkirk, on
the 2 2d of July. William was put to flight, not without
serious loss both to the lords and to the common people of the
Scottish nation. For, on account of the ill-will, begotten of
the spring of envy, which the Comyns had conceived towards
the said William, they, with their accomplices, forsook the
field, and escaped unhurt. On learning their spiteful deed,
the aforesaid William, wishing to save himself and his, hastened
to flee by another road. But alas ! through the pride and burning
envy of both, the noble Estates (communitas) of Scotland lay
wretchedly overthrown throughout hill and dale, mountain and
plain. Among these, of the nobles, John Stewart, with his
Brendans ; Macduff, of Fife ; and the inhabitants thereof, were
utterly cut off. But it is commonly said that Eobert of Bruce,
— who was afterwards king of Scotland, but then fought on the
side of the king of England — was the means of bringing about
this victory. For, while the Scots stood invincible in their
ranks, and could not be broken by either force or stratagem,
this Eobert of Bruce went with one line, under Anthony of Bek,
by a long road round a hill, and attacked the Scots in the
rear ; and thus these, who had stood invincible and impene-
trable in front, were craftily overcome in the rear. And it is
remarkable that we seldom, if ever, read of the Scots being
overcome by the English, unless through the envy of lords, or
the treachery and deceit of the natives, taking them over to
the other side.
324 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHKONICLE
cn.
William Wallace resigns tlie office of Guardian.
But after the aforesaid victory, which was vouchsafed to
the enemy through the treachery of Scots, the aforesaid Wil-
liam Wallace, perceiving, by these and other strong proofs, the
glaring wickedness of the Corny ns and their abettors, chose rather
to serve with the crowd, than to be set over them, to their ruin,
and the grievous wasting of the people. So, not long after the
battle of Falkirk, at the water of Forth, he, of his own accord,
resigned the office and charge which he held, of guardian.
cm.
John Comyn becomes Guardian of Scotland.
The same year, John Comyn, the son, became guardian
of Scotland ; and remained in that office until the time when
he submitted to the king of England — to wit, the next year
after the struggle at Eoslyn. But, within that same time,
John of Soulis was associated with him, by John of Balliol,
who had then been set free from prison, and was dwelling on
his lands of BaUiol. Soulis did not long keep his charge and
governance ; but as he was simple-minded, and not firm enough,
bearing many a rebuff, he was looked down upon ; so he left
Scotland, and withdrew to France, where he died.
CIV.
Truce granted, at the instance of the King of France, to the
Estates of the Kingdom of Scotland,
In the year 1300, Philip, king of France, sent a cleric, named
Pierre de Muncy, and one knight, Jean de Barres, to Edward,
king of England, to obtain a truce between Edward liimself
and the Estates of Scotland. At his instance, the king of
England granted a truce to the kingdom of Scotland, from
Hallowmas, in the above-mentioned year, to the next follow-
ing Whitsunday. And it was at the instance of the king of
France, not as in any way the ally of the kingdom of Scotland,
but as his cousin and particular friend, and the friendly peace-
maker between the two sides, that he granted this truce. This,
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 325
moreover, he forced the aforesaid ambassadors to own before he
granted the truce.
cv.
John of Soulis.
The same year, John of Soulis, one of the guardians of Scot-
land, without mentioning the other guardian, with the advice
of the prelates, earls, barons, and other nobles of the Estates
of the kingdom of Scotland, despatched the lord William, arch-
deacon of Lothian, Master Baldred Bisset, and William of
Eglisham, as commissioners and special envoys to Boniface viii.,
then sovereign Pontiff, to break and lay bare unto him the
sundry and manifold hardships brought upon the kingdom of
Scotland by the enmity of the said king of England ; and to
get meet relief against his harassing outrages — as is more fully
contained in the commission of those ambassadors, a copy
w^hereof, together with that Baldred's pleading against the king
of England, and many letters bearing on that lawsuit, is in a
pamphlet written by Alan of Montrose.
cvi.
ITie King of England summoned to the Court of Eome.
Now the king of England, having been summoned by the
Pope, in the year 1301, sent two proofs patent to that same
sovereign Pontiff, in order to give him a clear insight into the
right which he averred was vested in him, from days of old, to the
throne of Scotland. But Baldred, in a lucid discourse, shortly
answered all his arguments, plainly showing, by strong proofs
and very clear evidence, that they were utterly devoid of truth
— as may be seen in his pleading. The same year, a castle,
viz., the Pel de Lithcu (Peel of Linlithgow), was built by the
king of England.
cvii.
Conflict of Roslyn.
On the 27th of July 1302, took place the great and famous
engagement between the Scots and English, at Eoslyn, where
326 JOHN OF fordun's chronicle
the English were defeated, though with great difficulty. From
the beginning of the first war which ever broke out between
the Scots and English, it is said, there never was so desperate
a struggle, or one in which the stoutness of knightly prowess
shone forth so brightly. The commander and leader in this
struggle was John Comyn, the son. Now this was how this
struggle came about, and the manner thereof. After the battle
fought at Falkirk, the king of England came not in person, for
the nonce, this side of the water of Forth ; but sent a good large
force, which plundered the whole land of Fife, with all the
lands lying near the town of Perth, after having killed a great
many of the dwellers in those lands. On the return of this
force, with countless spoils, that king hied him home again
with his host. Now this was brought about, doubtless, by
God's agency : for had he made a lengthened stay then, or after
the battle of Dunbar and the seizure of King John, he would
either have subjugated the whole land of Scotland, and the
dwellers therein, to his sway, or made it a waste with naught
but floods and stones. But the goodness of God, Who alone
tends and heals after wounds, so governed the actions and time
of that king, that, being stirred up to battle, and engrossed with
sundry wars, he could not put off all other matters, and give
himself up to subduing this kingdom. So that king of Eng-
land went back with his men, having first appointed the officers
of the sheriffdoms, and the wardens of the castles, in the dis-
tricts beyond the water of Forth, which were then fully and
wholly subject unto his sway- — with the exception of a few
outlaws (or, indeed, robbers), of Scottish birth, who were lurk-
ing in the woods, and could not, because of their misdeeds,
*• submit to the laws. But John Comyn, then guardian of Scot-
land, and Simon Eraser, with their followers, day and night
did their best to harass and annoy, by their great prowess, the
aforesaid king's officers and bailiffs ; and from the time of that
king's departure, for four years and more, the English and the
Anglicized Scots were harried by them, in manifold ways, by
mutual slaughter and carnage, according to the issue of various
wars.
CVIII.
When the aforesaid king had got news of this, he sent off a
certain nobleman, Ralph Confrere, his treasurer (Ralph de
Manton, the Cofferer), a man stout in battle, and of tried
judgment and wisdom, with a certain body of chosen knights,
thoroughly well-armed, to seek out, in every hole and corner,
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 327
those wlio troubled and disturbed the king's peace, and not
to forbear punishing them with the penalty of death. So
they entered Scotland, and went about ranging through the
land, until they, at Eoslyn, pitched their tents, split up into
three lines apart, for want of free camping room. But the
aforesaid John Comyn and Simon, with their abettors, hearing
of their arrival, and wishing to steal a march rather than
have one stolen upon them, came briskly through from
Biggar to Eoslyn, in one night, with some chosen men, who
chose rather death before unworthy subjection to the English
nation; and, all of a sudden, they fearlessly fell upon the
enemy. But having been, a little before, roused by the
sentries, all those of the first line seized their weapons, and
manfully withstood the attacking foe. At length, however, the
former were overcome. Some were taken, and some slain ;
while some, again, fled to the other line. But, while the Scots
were sharing the booty, another line straightway appeared, in
battle-array ; so the Scots, on seeing it, slaughtered their
prisoners, and armed their own vassals with the spoils of the
slain ; then, putting away their jaded horses, and taking stronger
ones, they fearlessly hastened to the fray. When this second
line had been, at length, overcome, though with difficulty, and
the Scots thought they had ended their task, there appeared a
third, mightier than the former, and more choice in their har-
ness. The Scots were thunderstruck at the sight of them ; and
being both fagged out in manifold ways, — by the fatigues of
travelling, watching, and want of food — and also sore distressed
by the endless toil of fighting, began to be weary, and to quail
in spirit, beyond belief. But, when the people were thus
thrown into bewilderment, the aforesaid John and Simon, with ,
hearts undismayed, took up, with their weapons, the office of
preachers ; and, comforting them with their words, cheering
them with their promises, and, moreover, reminding them of
the nobleness of freedom, and the baseness of thraldom, and of
the unwearied toil which their ancestors had willingly under-
taken for the deliverance of their country, they, with healthful
warnings, heartened them to the fray. So, being greatly em-
boldened by these and such-like words, the Scots laid aside all
cowardice, and got back their strength. Then they slaughtered
their prisoners, with whose horses and arms they were again —
as it were — renewed ; and, putting their trust in God, they
and their armed vassals marched forward most bravely and
dashingly to battle. The shock was so mighty and fierce, that
many were run through, and bereft of life ; and some of either
host, after awful spear-thrusts, savage flail-strokes, and hard
328 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
cudgelling, withdrew from the ranks, by hundreds, forties,
and twenties, to the hills, time after time, fagged out and
dazed by the day's fighting. There they would throw back
their helmets, and let the winds blow upon them ; and after
having been thus cooled by the breeze, they would put away
their wounded horses, and, mounting other fresh ones, would
thus be made stronger against the onslaughts of the foe.
So, after this manifold ordeal and awful struggle, the Scots,
who, if one looked at the opposite side, were very few in
number — as it were a handful of corn or flour compared with
the multitude of the sea-sand — by the power, not of man, but
of God, subdued their foes, and gained a happy and gladsome
victory.
cix.
The King of England scours the plains a7id hills, and brings
the Kingdom of Scotland under peaceful subjection to him-
self
In revenge for the foregoing outrages, the king of England,
with a very large force, both by sea and by land, entered Scot-
land, in the year 1303, with the deliberate design of once for all
fully bringing it, and the dwellers therein, under his yoke ; or,
of sweeping out the inhabitants altogether, and reducing the land
itself to an utter and irreclaimable wilderness. Having, there-
fore, scoured the hills and plains, both on this side of the hills
and beyond them, he, in person, reached Lochindorb ; and, after
making some stay there, he received the submission of the north-
ern districts, and appointed officers of his in all the castles and
fortified towns surrendered to him. Eeturning thence leisurely,
he received the submission of all the communities, as well as for-
tresses and castles they passed through, with none to withstand
or attack him ; and, after much winding about through the land,
he got to Dunfermline, where he lingered a long time, winter-
ing there until Candlemas. The same year, his son and heir,
Edward of Carnarvon, Prince of Wales, made a long stay in the
town of Perth. Eood was in such plenty there, for the whole
of the aforesaid time, that a laggen, Scottish measure, of good
wine sold for fourpence.
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 329
ex.
The Estates of Scotland make their submission to the
King of England.
The same year, after the whole Estates of Scotland had made
their submission to the king of England, John Comyn, then
guardian, and all the magnates but William Wallace, little by
little, one after another, made their submission unto him ; and all
their castles and towns — except Strivelyn (Stirling) Castle, and
the warden thereof — were surrendered unto him. That year, the
king kept Lent at Saint Andrews, where he called together all
the great men of the kingdom, and held his parliament ; and he
made such decrees as he would, according to the state of the
country — which, as he thought, had been gotten and won for
him and his successors for ever — as well as about the dwellers
therein.
CXI.
Stirling Castle besieged by the King of England.
Just after Easter, in the year 1304, that same king besieged
Strivelyn (Stirling) Castle for three months without a break.
For this siege, he commanded all the lead of the refectory of
Saint Andrews to be pulled down, and had it taken away for
the use of his engines. At last, the aforesaid castle was sur-
rendered and delivered unto him on certain conditions, drawn up
in writing, and sealed with his seal. But when he had got the
castle, the king belied his troth, and broke through the conditions:
for William Oliphant, the warden thereof, he threw bound into
prison in London, and kept him a long time in thrall. The
same year, when both great and small in the kingdom of Scot-
land (except William Wallace alone) had made their submis-
sion unto him ; when the surrendered castles and fortified towns,
which had formerly been broken down and knocked to pieces,
had been all rebuilt, and he had appointed wardens of his own
therein ; and after all and sundry of Scottish birth had tendered
him homage, the king, with the Prince of Wales, and his whole
army, returned to England. He left, however, the chief warden
as his lieutenant, to amend and control the lawlessness of all
the rest, both Scots and English. He did not show his face in
Scotland after this.
330 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
i
CXII.
Rise of Bohert of Bruce, King of Scotland.
After the withdrawal of the king of England, the English
nation lorded it in all parts of the kingdom of Scotland, ruth-
lessly harrying the Scots in sundry and manifold ways, by in-
sults, stripes, and slaughter, under the awful yoke of slavery.
But God, in His mercy, as is the wont of His fatherly good-
ness, had compassion on the woes, the ceaseless crying and
sorrow, of the Scots ; so He raised up a saviour and champion
unto them — one of their own fellows, to wit, named Eobert of
Bruce. This man, seeing them stretched in the slough of woe,
and reft of all hope of salvation and help, was inwardly touched
with sorrow of heart ; and, putting forth his hand unto force,
underwent the countless and unbearable toils of the heat of
day, of cold and hunger, by land and sea, gladly welcoming
weariness, fasting, dangers, and the snares not only of foes, but
also of false friends, for the sake of freeing his brethren.
CXIII.
League of King Bohert with John Comyn.
So, in order that he might actually give effect to what he had
gladly set his heart upon, for the good of the commonwealth,
he humbly approached a certain noble, named John Comyn
(who was then the most powerful man in the country), and
faitlifully laid before him the unworthy thraldom of the country,
the cruel and endless tormenting of the people, and his own
kind-hearted plan for giving them relief. Though, by right,
and according to the laws and customs of the country, the
honour of the kingly office and the succession to the governance
of the kingdom were known to belong to him before any one
else, yet, setting the public advantage before his own, Robert,
in all purity and sincerity of purpose, gave John the choice
of one of two courses: either that the latter should reign,
and wholly take unto himself the kingdom, with its pertinents
and royal honours, for ever, granting to the former all his own
lands and possessions; or tliat all Robert's lands and posses-
sions should come into the possession of John and his for
ever, while the kingdom and the kingly honour were left to
Robert. Thus, by their mutual advice as well as help, was to
be brought to maturity the deliverance of the Scottish nation
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 331
from the house of bondage and unworthy thraldom ; and an in-
dissoluble treaty of friendship and peace was to last between
them. John was perfectly satisfied with the latter of the afore-
said courses ; and thereupon a covenant was made between
them, and guaranteed by means of sworn pledges, and by their
indentures with their seals attached thereto. But John broke
his word ; and, heedless of the sacredness of his oath, kept ac-
cusing Eobert before the king of England, through his ambas-
sadors and private letters, and wickedly revealing that Robert's
secrets. Although, however, Robert was more than once
sounded thereupon by the aforesaid king, who even showed
him the letters of his adversary who accused him, yet, inspired
by God, he always returned an answer such that he over and
over again softened the king's rage by his pleasant sayings and
skilful words. The king, however, both because he was him-
self very wily and shrewd, and knew full well how to feign a
sham friendship, and also because Robert was the true heir of
the kingdom of Scotland, looked upon the latter with mistrust,
— the more so because of John's accusations. So, because of
his aforesaid grounds for mistrust, Edward bade Robert stay
always at court ; and he delayed putting him to death — or, at
least, in prison — only until he could get the rest of this Robert's
brothers together, and punish them and him at once, in one
day, with sentence of death.
CXIV.
King Robert accused "before the King of E7igland, hy John Comyn.
As the said John's accusations were repeated, at length, one
night, while the wine glittered in the bowl, and that king
was hastening to sit down with his secretaries, he talked over
Robert's death in earnest, — and shortly determined that he would
deprive him of life on the morrow. But when the Earl of
Gloucester, who was Robert's true and tried friend in his
utmost need, heard of this, he hastily, that same night, sent the
aforesaid Robert, by his keeper of the wardrobe, twelve pencJe
and a pair of spurs. So the keeper of the wardrobe, who guessed
his lord's wishes, presented these things to Robert, from his
lord, and added these words : " My lord sends these to you, in
return for what he, on his side, got from you yesterday."
Robert understood, from the tokens offered him, that he was
threatened by the danger of death ; so he discreetly gave the
pence to the keeper of the wardrobe, and forthwith sent him
back to the Earl with greeting in answer, and with thanks.
332 JOHN OF fordun's chronicle
Then, when twilight came on, that night, after having ostenta-
tiously ordered his servants to meet him at Carlisle, with his
trappings, on the evening of the following day, he straightway
hastened towards Scotland, without delay, and never stopped
travelling, day or night, until he was safe from the aforesaid
king's spite. Tor he was under the guidance of One of whom
it is written : — " There is no wisdom, no foresight, no under-
standing against the Lord, who knoweth how to snatch the
good from trial, and mercifully to deliver from danger those
that trust in Him."
cxv.
Death of John Comyn's messenger.
Now, when Eobert was nearing the borders of the marches,
there met him a messenger whom, when he sighted him afar
off, he suspected, both from the fellow's gait and from his
dress, to be a Scot. So, when he got nearer, he asked him
whence he came and whither he was making his way. The
messenger began to pour forth excuses for his sins ; but Eobert
ordered his vassals to search him. Letters, sealed with Eobert's
seal about the covenant entered into between him and John
Comyn, were found addressed to the king of England through
this messenger, and were forthwith pulled out. The messenger's
head was thereupon struck off, and God very much be praised
for His guidance in this prosperous journey.
cxvi.
Death of William Wallace.
In the year 1305, William Wallace was craftily and treacher-
ously taken by John of Menteith, who handed him over to the
king of England ; and he was, in London, torn limb from limb,
and, as a reproach to the Scots, his limbs were hung on towers
in sundry places throughout England and Scotland.
CXVIT.
John Comyn's death.
The same year, after the aforesaid Eobert had left the king
of England and returned home, no less miraculously than by
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 333
God*s grace, a day is appointed for him and the aforesaid John
to meet together at Dumfries ; and both sides repair to the
above-named place. John Comyn is twitted with his treachery
and belied troth. The lie is at once given. The evil-speaker is
stabbed, and wounded unto death, in the church of the Friars ;
and the wounded man is, by the friars, laid behind the altar.
On being asked by those around whether he could live, straight-
way his answer is : — " I can." His foes, hearing this, give him
another wound ; — and thus was he taken away from this world
on the 10th of February.
CXVIII.
Coronation of King Robert Bruce.
Now, when a few days had rolled on, after the said John's
death, this Eobert of Bruce, taking with him as many men as
he could get, hastened to Scone ; and, being set on the royal
throne, was there crowned, on the 27tli of March 1306, in the
manner wherein the kings of Scotland were wont to be invested ;
— and great was the task he then undertook, and unbearable were
the burdens he took upon his shoulders. For, not only did he lift
his hand against the king of England, and all partakers with
him, but he also launched out into a struggle with all and
sundry of the kingdom of Scotland, except a very few well-
wishers of his, who, if one looked at the hosts of those pitted
against them, were as one drop of water compared with the
waves of the sea, or a single grain of any seed with the multi-
tudinous sand. His mishaps, flights, and dangers ; hardships,
and weariness ; hunger, and thirst ; watchings, and fastings ;
nakedness, and cold ; snares, and banishment ; the seizing,
imprisoning, slaughter, and downfall of his near ones, and —
even more — dear ones (for all this had he to undergo, when
overcome and routed in the beginning of his war) — no one, now
living, I think, recollects, or is equal to rehearsing, all this.
Indeed, he is reported to have said to his knights, one day, when
worn out by such numberless and ceaseless hardships and
dangers : —
" Were I not stirred by Scotland's olden bliss.
Not for earth's empire would I bear all this."
Moreover, with all the ill-luck and numberless straits he went
through with a glad and dauntless heart, were any one able to
rehearse his own struggles, and triumphs single-handed — the
334 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
victories and battles wherein, by the Lord's help, by his own
strength, and by his human manhood, he fearlessly cut his way
into the columns of the enemy, now mightily bearing these
down, and now mightily warding off and escaping the pains of
death — he would, I deem, prove that, in the art of fighting, and in
vigour of body, Eobert had not his match in his time, in any
clime. I will, therefore, forbear to describe his own individual
deeds, both because they would take up many leaves, and
because, though they are undoubtedly true, the time and place
wherein they happened, and were wrought, are known to few in
these days. But his well-known battles and public exploits
will be found set down below, in the years wherein they took
place.
cxix.
Battle of Methven.
The same year, on the 1 9th day of June, King Robert was
overcome and put to flight, at Methven, by Odomar of Valence,
who was then warden of Scotland on behalf of the king of
England, and was staying at the then well-walled town of
Perth, with a great force of both English and Scots who owed
fealty and submission to the king of England, Now, though
the foresaid king did not lose many of his men in this struggle,
yet, because of the bad beginning, which is often crowned by an
unhappy ending, his men began to be disheartened, and the
victorious side to be much emboldened by their victory. Then,
all the wives of those who had followed the king were ordered
to be outlawed by the voice of a herald, so that they might follow
their husbands ; by reason whereof, many women, both single
and married, lurked with their people in the woods, and cleaved
to the king, abiding with him, under shelter.
cxx.
Conflict at Dairy y in the "borders oj Argyll.
The same year, while this king was fleeing from his foes, and
lurking, with his men, in the borders of Athol and Argyll, he
was again beaten and put to flight, on the 11th of August, at a
place called Dairy. But there, also, he did not lose many of
his men. Nevertheless, they were all filled with fear, and
were dispersed and scattered throughout various places. But
the queen fled to Saint Duthac in Jioss, wliere she was taken
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. , 335
by William Earl of Eoss, and brought to the king of England ;
and she was kept a prisoner in close custody, until the battle of
Bannockburn. Mgel of Bruce, however, one of the king's
brothers, fled, with many ladies and damsels, to Kyndrumie
(Kildrummie) Castle, and was there welcomed, with his com-
panions. But, the same year, that castle was made over to the
English through treachery, and Mgel, and other nobles of both
sexes, were taken prisoners, brought to Berwick, and suffered
capital punishment. The same year, Thomas and Alexander of
Bruce, brothers of the aforesaid king, while hastening towards
Carrick by another road, were taken at Loch Eyan, and beheaded
at Carlisle — and, thus, all who had gone away and left the king,
were, in that same year, either bereft of life, or taken and
thrown into prison.
cxxi.
Sundry troubles which fell ujpon King Robert
The Earl of Lennox and Gilbert of Haya, alone among the
nobles, followed the aforesaid king, and became his inseparable
companions in all his troubles. And though sometimes, when
hard pressed by the pursuing foe, they were parted from him in
body, yet they never departed from fealty and love towards
him. But, soon after this, it came to pass that the aforesaid
king was cut off from his men, and underwent endless woes,
and was tossed in dangers untold, being attended at times by
three followers, at times by two ; and more often he was left
alone, utterly without help. Now passing a whole fortnight
without food of any kind to live upon, but raw herbs and water ;
now walking barefoot, when his shoes became old and worn out ;
now left alone in the islands; now alone, fleeing before his
enemies ; now slighted by his servants ; he abode in utter
loneliness. An outcast among the nobles, he was forsaken ;
and the English bade him be sought for through the churches
like a lost or stolen thing. And thus he became a byword
and a laughing-stock for all, both far and near, to hiss at. But
when he had borne these things for nearly a year alone, God, at
length, took pity on him ; and, aided by the help and power of
a certain noble lady, Christiana of the Isles, who wished him
well, he, after endless toils, smart, and distress, got back, by a
round-about way, to the earldom of Carrick. As soon as he
had reached that place, he sought out one of his castles, slew
the inmates thereof, destroyed the castle, and shared the arms
and other spoils among his men. Then, being greatly gladdened
336 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
by such a beginning after his long spell of ill-luck, he got
together his men, who had been scattered far and wide ; and,
crossing the hills with them in a body, he got as far as Inver-
ness, took the castle thereof with a strong hand, slew its garrison,
and levelled it with the ground. In this very way dealt he
with the rest of the castles and strongholds established in the
north, as well as with their inmates, until he got, with his
army, as far as Slenach (Slaines).
cxxn.
Rout at Slenach {Slaines).
In the year 1307, John Comyn, Earl of Buchan, with many
nobles, both English and Scots, hearing that Eobert, king of
Scotland, was, with his army, at Slenach (Slaines), marched
forward to meet him and give him battle. But when they saw
the king, with his men, over against them, ready for the fray,
they halted ; and, on Christmas Day, overwhelmed with shame
and confusion, they went back, and asked for a truce, which the
king kindly granted. After the truce had been granted, the
king abode there, without fear, for eight days ; and he there fell
into a sickness so severe, that he was borne on a pallet whither-
soever he had occasion to be moved.
CXXIII.
Death of King Edward /., King of England,
The same year died Edward i., king of England, on the 5th
of April, at Burgh-upon-Sands. This king stirred up war as
soon as he had become a knight, and lashed the English with
awful scourgings ; he troubled the whole world by his wicked-
ness, and roused it by his cruelty ; by his wiles, he hindered the
passage to the Holy Land ; he invaded Wales ; he treacherously
subdued unto him the Scots and their kingdom ; John of Balliol,
the king thereof, and his son, he cast into prison ; he overthrew
churches, fettered prelates, and to some he put an end in filthy
dungeons ; he slew the people, and committed other misdeeds
without end. He was succeeded by his son Edward ii., who
was betrothed to Elizabeth, daughter of Philip, king of France.
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 337
CXXIV.
Bout at Inverury,
In the year 1308, John Comyn and Pliilip of Mowbray, with a
: great many Scots and English, were again gathered together, at
I Inverury, But when King Eobert heard of this, though he had
j not yet got rid of his grievous sickness, he arose from his pallet,
I whereon he was always carried about, and commanded his men
I to arm him and set him on horseback. When this had been
I done, he too, with a cheerful countenance, hastened with his army
I against the enemy, to the battle-ground — although, by reason of
t his great weakness, he could not go upright, but with the help
of two men to prop him up. But when the opposing party saw
him and his ready for battle, at the mere sight of him they were
all sore afraid and put to flight ; and they were pursued as far
as Fivy, twelve leagues off. So when the rout was over, and
the enemy were overthrown and scattered. King Eobert ravaged
I the earldom of Buchan with fire ; and, of the people, he killed
I whom he would, and, to those whom he would have live, he
granted life and peace. Moreover, even as, from the beginning
of his warfare until the day of this struggle, he had been most
unlucky in the upshot of every battle, so, afterwards, there
could not have been found a man more fortunate in his fights.
And, from that day, the king gained ground, and became ever
more hale himself; while the adverse party was daily growing
less.
cxxv.
Victory over the Gallwegians, at the Biver Dee.
The same year, at the Feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul,
Donald of the Isles gathered together an imposing host of foot,
and marched up to the river Dee. He was met by Edward of
Bruce, who overcame the said Donald and all the Gallwegians.
In this struggle, Edward slew a certain knight named Poland,
with many of the nobles of Galloway; and arrested their
leader, the said Donald, who had taken to flight. After this,
he burnt up the island.
VOL. II.
I
338 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
CXXVI.
Conflict of King Bdbert with the men of Argyll.
The same year, within a week after the Assumption of
the blessed Virgin Mary, the king overcame the men of Argyll,
in the middle of Argyll, and subdued the whole land unto himself.
Their leader, named Alexander of Argyll, fled to Dunstafinch
(Dunstafihage) Castle, where he was, for some time, besieged by
the king. On giving up the castle to the king, he refused to do
him homage. So a safe-conduct was given to him, and to all
who wished to withdraw with him ; and he fled to England,
where he paid the debt of nature.
CXXVII.
In the year 1310, so great was the famine and dearth of pro-
visions in the kingdom of Scotland, that, in most places, many
were driven, by the pinch of hunger, to feed on the flesh of
horses and other unclean cattle.
CXXVIII.
In the year 1311, the aforesaid King Robert, having put his
enemies to flight at every place he came to, and having taken
their fortresses, and levelled them with the ground, twice
entered England, and wasted it, carrying off untold booty, and
making huge havoc with fire and sword. Thus, by the power
of God, the faithless English nation, which had unrighteously
racked many a man, was now, by God's righteous judgment,
made to undergo awful scourgings ; and, whereas it had once
been victorious, now it sank vanquished and groaning.
CXXIX.
The tovm of Perth taken hy King Robert,
On the 8th of January 1312, the town of Perth was taken
with the strong hand by that same King Robert; and the disloyal
people, both Scots and English, were taken, dragged, and slain
with the sword ; and thus,—
" Fordone, they drained the gall themselves had brewed."
The king, in his clemency, spared the rabble, and granted for-
giveness to those that asked it ; but he destroyed the walls and
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 339
ditches, and consumed everytliing else with fire. The same
year, the castles of Buth, Dumfries, and Dalswinton, with
many other strongholds, were taken with the strong hand
and levelled with the ground. The same year, the town of
Durham was, in great part, burnt down by the Scots ; Piers
de Gaveston was killed by the Earl of Lancaster ; and Edward,
the first-born of the king of England, was born at Windsor,
cxxx.
BoxburgTi Castle taken hy James of Douglas.
On Fasten's Even, in the year 1313, Eoxburgh Castle was
happily taken by the Lord James of Douglas, and, on the 1 4th
of March, Edinburgh Castle, by the Lord Thomas Eandolph,
Earl of Moray ; and their foes were overcome. The same year,
the king entered the Isle of Man, took the castles thereof, and
victoriously brought the land under his sway.
cxxxx.
Conflict at Bannochhurn.
Edwaed II., king of England, heariiag of these glorious doings
of King Kobert's, and seeing the countless losses and endless
evils brought upon him and his by that king, gathered together,
in revenge for the foregoing, a very strong army both of well-
armed horsemen and of foot — crossbow-men and archers, well
skilled in war-craft. At the head of this body of men, and
trusting in the glory of man's might, he entered Scotland in
hostile wise ; and, laying it waste on every side, he got as far
as Bannockburn. But King Eobert, putting his trust, not in a
host of people, but in the Lord God, came, with a few men,
against the aforesaid king of England, on the blessed John
the Baptist's day, in the year 1314, and fought against him,
and put him and his to flight, through the help of Him to
whom it belongeth to give the victory. There, the Earl of
Gloucester and a great many other nobles were killed ; a
great many were drowned in the waters, and slaughtered in
pitfalls ; a great many, of divers ranks, were cut off* by divers
kinds of death ; and many — a great many — nobles were taken,
for whose ransom not only were the queen and other Scot-
tish prisoners released from their dungeons, but even the
Scots themselves were, all and sundry, enriched very much.
Among these was also taken John of Brittany, for whom the
340 JOHN OF FOEDUN'S CHRONICLE
queen and Robert, bishop of Glasgow, were exchanged. From
that day forward, moreover, the whole land of Scotland not only
always rejoiced in victory over the English, but also overflowed
with boundless wealth.
CXXXII.
Edward crosses into Ireland.
Edward of Bruce, King Robert's brother, entered Ireland,
with a mighty hand, in the year 1315 ; and, having been set
up as king there, he destroyed the whole of Ulster, and com-
mitted countless murders. This, however, some little time
after, brought him no good. In the year 1316, King Robert
went to Ireland, to the southern parts thereof, to afford his
brother succour and help. But, in this march, many died of
hunger, and the rest lived on horse-flesh. The king, however,
at once retarned, and left his brother there. In the year 1317,
the cardinals were plundered, in England, by Robert of Middle-
ton, who was, soon after, taken, and drawn by horses, in London.
CXXXIII.
The toidn of Berwick taken.
In the year 1318, Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, destroyed
the northern parts of England ; and, on the 28th of March of
the same year, the Scots took the town of Berwick, which had
been, for twenty years, in the hands of the English. On the
14th of October of the same year was fought the battle of Dun-
dalk, in Ireland, in which fell the lord Edward of Bruce, and a
good many Scottish nobles with him. The cause of this war
was this : Edward was a very mettlesome and high-spirited
man, and would not dwell together with his brother in peace,
unless he had half the kingdom to himself ; and for this reason
was stirred up, in Ireland, this war, wherein, as already stated,
he ended his life.
oxxxiv.
Berwick besieged hy the King of England.
In the year 1319, on the day of the finding of the Holy
Cross, Edward, king of England, besieged the town of Berwick ;
but, meeting with no success, he quickly retreated in great dis-
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 341
order. The same year, the Earl of Moray burnt up the northern
parts of England, as far as Wetherby ; and, at the end of the
month of August, he pitched his tents at Boroughbridge.
CXXXY.
Treachery of John of Soulis and his adherents.
In the beginning of the month of August 1320, Eobert, king
of Scotland, held his parliament at Scone. There, the lord
William of Sowlis and the Countess of Stratherne were con-
victed of the crime of high treason, by conspiring against the
aforesaid king; and sentence of perpetual imprisonment was
passed upon them. The lords David of Brechin, Gilbert of
Malerb, John of Logic, knights, and Pdchard Broune, esquire,
having been convicted of the aforesaid conspiracy, were first
drawn by horses, and, in the end, underwent capital punish-
ment. The lords Eustace of Maxwell, Walter of Barclay,
sheriff of Aberdeen, and Patrick of Graham, knights, Hamelin
of Troupe, and Eustace of Ketreve (Eattray), esquires, were
accused of the same crime, but were not found guilty in any
way. It so happened, also, at the same time, that when Eoger
of Mowbray had been released from the trammels of the flesh,
his body was taken down thither, and convicted of conspiracy ;
whereupon it was condemned to be drawn by horses, hanged on
the gallows, and beheaded. But the king had ruth, and was
stirred with pity : so he yielded him up to God's judgment,
and commanded that the body of the deceased should be
handed over for burial by the Church, without having been
put to any shame. The same year, on the 1 7th of March, our
lord the Pope's legates came to the king of Scotland, at Berwick,
cxxxvi.
In the year 1321, there was a very hard winter, which dis-
tressed men, and killed nearly all animals. The same year, the
Earl of Moray destroyed the northern parts of England, and
the bishopric of Durham, with famine, fire, and sword.
CXXXVII.
The King of Scotland crosses into England, and the King of
England into Scotland,
On the 1st of July 1322, Eobert, king of Scotland, entered
England, with a strong hand, and laid it waste for the most
342 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
part, as far as Stanemore, together with the county of Lancaster.
The same year, on the 1 2th of August, Edward ii., king of
England, entered Scotland with a great army of horse and foot,
and a large number of ships, and got as far as the town of Edin-
burgh ; for he sought to have a struggle and come to blows
with the aforesaid king. But the king of Scotland, wisely
shunning an encounter for the nonce, skilfully drew away from
his army all animals fit for food. So, after fifteen days,
Edward, being sore pressed by hunger and starvation, went
home again dismayed, having first sacked and plundered the
monasteries of Holyrood in Edinburgh, and of Melrose, and
brought them to great desolation. Eor, in the said monastery
of Melrose, on his way back from Edinburgh, the lord Wil-
liam of Peebles, prior of that same monastery, one monk
who was then sick, and two lay-brethren, were killed in the
dormitory by the English, and a great many monks were
wounded unto death. The Lord's Body was cast forth upon
the high altar, and the pyx wherein it was kept was taken
away. The monastery of Dryburgh was utterly consumed
with fire, and reduced to dust ; and a great many other holy
places did the fiery flames consume, at the hands of the afore-
said king's forces. But God rewarded them therefor, and it
brought them no good. Eor, the same year, on the 1st of
October, King Bobert marched into England in hostile wise,
and utterly laid it waste, as far as York, sacking the monas-
teries, and setting fire to a great many cities and towns. But
Edward ii., king of England, came against him at Biland, with
a great force, both of paid soldiers from France, and others
hired from a great many places, and of natives of the kingdom
itself; but he was put to flight at the above-named place, in the
heart of his own kingdom, not without great slaughter of his
men, and in no little disorder. Out of his army, John of Brit-
tany, Henry of Stibly (Sully), and other nobles, not a few,
fled to the monastery of Rivaulx, and were there taken ; and
they were afterwards ransomed for sums untold. Thus, the
king of Scotland, having gained a gladsome victory, went home
again, with his men, in great joy and honour. The same year,
on the 1st of October, Andrew of Barclay was taken, and,
having been convicted of treachery, undenvent capital punish-
ment.
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 343
CXXXYIII.
Arabassadors sent ty the King of Scotland to the Pojpe and the
King of France.
In the year 1325, amhass^dors were sent by Eobert, king of
Scotland, to treat for a renewal of the friendship and alliance
formerly struck up between the kings of France and Scotland,
and to restore them in force for ever, that they might last for
all time imto them and their successors ; and also that he might
be at one, and come to a good understanding, with the holy
Eoman Church, which had, through the insinuations of enemies,
been somewhat irritated against the king and kingdom. So
when all this business had been happily despatched, these mes-
sengers sped safely home again. In that year — on Monday
the 5th of March, to wit, in the first week of Lent — David,
King Eobert's son, and the heir of Scotland, who succeeded
his father in the kingdom, was born in the monastery of Dun-
fermline, after complines.
cxxxix.
The Queen of England brings hired soldiers into England.
In the year 1326, the lady Elizabeth, queen of England,
brought a great many hired soldiers from sundry parts of the
world ; and, after having taken her husband. King Edward, and
thrown him into prison, she bade Hugh de Spensa (Despenser),
and his father, be hanged on the gallows, and be torn limb from
limb. Because of this outbreak, a bishop was beheaded in Lon-
don ; and a great many earls, barons, and nobles were every-
where condemned to a most shameful death. The same year,
Edward iii., then fifteen years old, on his father being thrown into
prison, was, though unwilling, crowned king of England, at
Candlemas. That year, moreover, was, all over the earth, beyond
the memory of living man, fruitful and plentiful in all things to
overflowing. The same year, the whole Scottish clergy, the earls
and barons, and all the nobles, were gathered together, with the
people, at Cambuskenneth, and, in presence of King Eobert
himself, took the oaths to David, King Eobert's son and heir,
— and to Eobert Stewart, the aforesaid king's grandson, in case
that same David died childless. There, also, Andrew of Moray
took to wife the lady Christina, that king's sister.
344 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
CXL.
Messengers sent to the King of Scotland "by the English.
In the year 1327, the English sent messengers to the king of
Scotland, under a show of wishing to treat for a secure peace.
But though they met together more than once, they made no
way. At length their double-dealing was laid bare, and the
Scots entered the northern parts of England, with a strong hand,
on the 1 5th of June, and wasted it with fire and sword. The
same year, in the month of August, the Earl of Moray and
James of Douglas, with many Scottish nobles, invaded England,
with arms in their hands, and, after having brought great loss
upon the English, pitched their tents in a certain narrow place
named Weardale ; while, over against them, and at the outlet of
the road, as it were, over 100,000 English troops were posted
round the Scots. There the armies lay, for eight days, in sight
of each other, and daily harassed one another with mutual
slaughter; but they shunned a hand-to-hand battle. At
length, however, the Scots, like wary warriors, sought an oppor-
tunity of saving themselves ; and, having struck down in death
many of the foe, and taken a great many English and Hain-
aulters, they returned home safe and sound, by a round-about
road, by night.
CXLI.
The same year, a few days after their retreat, the king of
Scotland besieged Norham Castle, and, soon after, Alnwick
Castle, one after the other; and, in that siege of Norham,
William of Montealt, knight, John of Clapham, and Robert of
Dobery, were killed through their own want of skill. The
same year, on the 17th of March, ambassadors were sent by
the king of England to the king of Scotland, at Edinburgh, to
arrange and treat for a firm and lasting peace, which should
abide for all time. So, after sundry negotiations, and the many
and various risks of war incurred by both kingdoms, the afore-
said kings there came to an understanding together about an
indissoluble peace ; and the chiefs and worthies of either king-
dom tendered their oaths thereto, which were to last unshaken
for all time, swearing upon the soul of each king faithfully to
keep all and sundry things, as they are more fully contained
under certain articles of the instruments thereof, drawn up on
either side as to the form of the peace. And, that it might be
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 345
a true peace, which should go on without end between them
and between their respective successors, the king of Scotland,
of his own free and unbiassed will, gave and granted 30,000
merks in cash to the king of England, for the losses he himself
had brought upon the latter and his kingdom; and the said
king of England gave his sister, named Joan, to King Eobert's
son and heir, David, to wife, for the greater security of peace,
and the steady fostering of the constancy of love.
CXLII.
Espousal of King David — Death of William of Lamberton,
Bisliop of Saint Andrews.
On the 17th of July 1328, David, King Eobert's son and
heir, was, to the unspeakable joy of the people of either king-
dom, married to Joan, sister of Edward III., king of England,
at Berwick, in presence of Elizabeth, the girl's mother, then
queen of England. The same year died William of Lamberton,
bishop of Saint Andrews.
CXLIII.
Death of King Bdbert of Bruce.
On the 7th of June 1329, died Eobert of Bruce, of goodly
memory, the illustrious king of Scots, at Cardross, in the
twenty-fourth year of his reign. He was, beyond all living
men of his day, a valiant knight.
CXLIV.
Death of James of Douglas.
On the 26th of August 1330, James of Douglas and the king
of Spain gathered together the hosts which were flocking from
different parts of the world, in aid of the Holy Land, and warred
down the Sultan, and numberless Saracens with him ; and
when these had been overcome and put to flight, after a great
many of them had been killed, and the booty had been shared,
the said king went back safely, with his army. But the afore-
said James, alas ! kept a very few with him, as his army ; and
as this was by no means hidden from another sultan, who was
lurking in ambush, the latter, with his men, started out from
his hiding-place, and challenged James to battle. No sooner
346 JOHN OF fordun's chronicle
had the said James recognised his army and banners afar off,
than, in his fearlessness, he dashingly charged them with his
men. A great many Saracens were there slain; and James
himself ended his days there in bliss, while he and his were
struggling for Christ's,? sake. With him, a certain William of
St. Clair, and Eobert Logan, knights, and a great many others,
lost their lives. This James was, in his day, a brave hammerer
of the English; and the Lord bestowed so much grace upon
him in his life, that he everywhere triumphed over the
English.
CXLV.
Coronation of King David.
On the 24th of November 1331, David, son and heir of
King Eobert, was anointed king of Scots, and crowned at Scone,
by the lord James Ben, bishop of Saint Andrews, specially
appointed thereunto by a Bull of the most holy father John xxii.,
then sovereign Pontiff. We do not read that any of the kings
of Scotland, before this David, w^ere anointed, or with such
solemnity crowned. The same day, John Stewart, Earl of Angus
— Thomas Eandolph, son and heir of Thomas Earl of Moray —
and other nobles of the kingdom of Scotland, received the order
of knighthood.
CXLVI.
Battle of Duplin,
' On the 20th of July 1332, died Thomas Eandolph, Earl of
Moray, and warden of Scotland. After his death, all the
magnates, both churchmen and laymen, were gathered together
at Perth, on the 2d of August; and, after a great deal of
wrangling and sundry disputes, they, with one voice, chose
Donald, Earl of Mar, as guardian of the kingdom. On that very
day, news was brought to the said guardian, and to the rest of
the lords of the kingdom, that Edward of Balliol had brought up,
in the water of Forth, with a great throng of ships, on the 31st
of July ; and on the 6th of August, Balliol landed at Kinghorn.
The same day Alexander of Seton, with a few men, withstood him
in front, and fell, with three or four others. Tlie said Edward,
however, marched on thence, with his men ; and, after calling at
the monastery of Dunfermline, reached Duplin Moor on the
11th of the aforesaid month. Here a desperate battle was
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 347
fought, from the dawn of day until the ninth hour ; Edward
was victorious ; and great ruin loomed up before the Scottish
nation. On that day, the said guardian, with the two Earls of
Moray and Menteith, the lords Eobert Bruce, Alexander Eraser,
and other valiant nobles, barons, knights, and squires, and men
of lower condition and rank without number, perished in this
no less astounding than unhappy massacre, struck down, not
by the strength of man, but by the vengeance of God, Eor,
from the bruising of their bodies squeezing against one another,
more fell, though unwounded, than were slain by shaft or sword.
Moreover, Duncan Earl of Eife (under whose banner 360 men-
at-arms had been killed), and many others, were taken.
CXLVII.
Edward of Balliol made King at Scone.
The same year, on the 24th of September, the aforesaid
Edward pf Balliol was made king, at Scone, by Duncan, Earl of
Eife, and William of St. Clair, bishop of Dunkeld, who had
beforehand submitted to this Edward ; and there were gathered
together there the abbots, priors, and Estates (communitas) of
Eife and Eothreve, Stratherne, and Gowry, whose submission had
already been received by the above-mentioned Edward. The
names of the magnates who came with this Edward, in order to
get their own lands in the kingdom of Scotland, are these : —
Henry of Beaumont ; David, Earl of Athol ; Henry of Eerrers,
with his two brothers; Alexander of Arnot (Moubray); Eichard
Talbot; Walter Comyn; and many others. Now these, when
they marched forward to battle, were 600 in all; while the
Scottish army was 30,000 strong. The slain are put at 3000.
CXLVIII.
The town of Perth taken — Battle of Annan.
The same year, on the 7th of October, was taken the town of
Perth ; wherein was taken Duncan, Earl of Eife (warden of
that town on behalf of the aforesaid Edward of Balliol) to-
gether with his wife's daughter, and many other kinsfolk of
his. Among others, Andrew of Tulibardine was taken, and con-
victed of being a traitor towards the king ; so he suffered the
death of the body. The same year, on the 1 6th of December,
John Eandolph, Earl of Moray, Archibald of Douglas, and
Simon Eraser, with a few other nobles, were gathered together
348 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
in the town of Moffat, and came, by night, to the town of
Annan. There they soon came suddenly to blows with Edward
of Balliol, and Edward was put to flight. In this struggle,
John of Mowbray, Henry of Balliol, Walter Comyn, and many
others, were slain ; and Edward himself barely escaped, with a
few followers. Alexander of Bruce was there taken by the
Earl of Moray, but snatched from death.
CXLIX.
Conflict at Halidon.
On the 31st of March 1333, the town of Berwick was be-
sieged by Edward ill., king of England. Having broken the
bonds of peace and alliance, he, with all the strength of Wales,
Gascony, and England — having been, moreover, joined by the
many Scots who sided with Edward of Balliol — steadily kept up
the said siege until the 1 9th of July. On that day was fought
the rueful battle of Halidon, where (according to meaning of
its name aforesaid) the Scots were overcome, and almost utterly
swept away — especially those who abetted, and had tenderly at
heart the cause of king David. The names of those killed on
king David's side are these: — Archibald of Douglas, then
guardian of Scotland ; Hugh, Earl of Boss ; Kenneth, Earl of
Sutherland; Alexander of Bruce, Earl of Carrick; Andrew
Eraser, and his brother Simon; James Eraser; and a great
many other nobles, whose names it would be more sad than
profitable to repeat one by one. In the town of Berwick, at
that time, were Patrick Earl of March, and the warden of the
aforesaid town — Alexander of Seton, the father, whose son,
named Thomas, had been given to the king of England, as a
hostage for the surrender of the aforesaid town on or before a
day beforehand fixed upon therefor. But when the time had
run out, forasmuch as the aforesaid Alexander was still await-
ing succour, and would not give up the town on the day fixed
upon, this Thomas was hanged on the gallows, before his
father's face; while his brother, named William, had, on ac-
count of the defence of the town, been, a little before, drowned
among the English ships, while the father looked on. But
after the battle had been fought, straightway all hope of rescue
and help was quenched, and the town was surrendered and given
up to the king of England, aU the dwellers therein being saved
harmless in life, limb, and property.
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 349
CL.
Dispute hetween Ediuard of Balliol, and Henry of Beaumont,
and David y Earl of Athol.
About the end of the month of August 1334, a misunder-
standing arose at Perth between Edward of Balliol, who stood
up for Alexander of Mowbray, and the Lords Henry of Beau-
mont, David Earl of Athol, and Eichard Talbot, who were
striving to oust the said Alexander from his inheritance, and to
bring in his brother's daughters before him, by right of succes-
sion. So, being at odds upon this matter, they withdrew from
one another. Edward took the road towards Berwick ; Henry
of Beaumont, towards Dundrage (Dundarg) ; the Earl of Athol,
towards Lochindorb. Eichard Talbot made for England ; and,
while on his way through Lothian, he and his followers were
there taken prisoners, on the 8th of September. The Lord
Alexander of Mowbray, however, fearing the strength of the
opposite side, cast in his lot altogether with Andrew of Moray,
who had, a little before, on payment of his ransom, been set
free from prison. So, with their united forces, they together
besieged Henry of Beaumont, for some time, in Dundrage
Castle. But Henry of Beaumont, despairing of being relieved,
taking into account, moreover, the want of provisions, and re-
flecting that he could not defend the castle, yielded and gave
up the aforesaid castle to the above-mentioned Andrew and
Alexander, on the 23d of December, on condition of being
saved harmless in life, limb, and all his goods, and being
granted, besides, a safe and sure conduct to cross into England,
with his wife, children, and whole family ; and he promised
faithfully, and duly swore, to exert himself for the restoration
of peace. After not many days had rolled by, he and his went
on board ship at Dundee, and betook themselves to England
without delay. John of Eandolph, Earl of Moray, however,
who, after the struggle at Annan, had straightway gone to the
king of France, came home again, then, all of a sudden, and
doggedly pursued the Earl of Athol, through rough ways and
smooth ; so the latter, seeing that he could in no wise escape,
was forced, by the violent pursuit of the Earl of Moray, to sub-
mit to King David, on the 27th of September, tendering him
fealty and homage, which he confirmed by oath.
350 JOHN OF fordun's chronicle
CLI.
Messengers of the King of France.
The same year, on the 4tli of March, there came to Perth
messengers, sent by the king of France to treat for peace
between the kings of Scotland and England. This step was
taken with the consent, as well as by the directions, of the
supreme Pontiff, Benedict xii., who addressed letters-patent
severally to the kings of Scotland and England. The king of
England, however, would not deign to hear, or even see, them.
Other messengers, again, from the kings of France and Scotland,
were sent ; but he utterly rejected peace and concord.
CLH.
The King of England comes to Perth, with Edward of Balliol.
In the month of April 1335, Eobert Stewart, and the Earl
of Moray, then guardian of Scotland, held their parliament at
Dervesy (Dairsy) ; and there appeared there the Earl of March,
Andrew of Moray, Alexander of Mowbray, and William of
Douglas, on the one hand — who behaved discreetly and quietly,
— and David Earl of Athol, with a great force, on the other ;
but, by reason of the latter's insolence, nothing was there
done worthy of aught but scorn. This man cleaved to Stewart
(who was then not governed by much wisdom), and, looking
down upon the Earl of Moray, became very troublesome to all
who were there ; but the wary tact of the first-named nobles
skilfully parried his wild fierceness. The same year, by direc-
tion of the guardians, all the inhabitants dwelling in the plains
fled, in crowds, to the hills and fastnesses, with their movable
goods and all their beasts ; and, on the 6th of July, the fleet
of the king of England brought up in the water of Forth. Then
the king of England, and Edward of Balliol, who had with them
90,000 horsemen and nine score ships, pitched their tents at
Perth ; and, tarrying there until the arrival of the Earl of Athol,
they plundered all the country round.
CLIII.
John Earl of Moray taken.
The same year, on the 30th of July, the Count of Gellere
(Guelders), who had come over from parts beyond the sea to
bring help to the king of England, on this same pending matter,
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 351
came to blows, at Edinburgh, with the united forces of the Earl of
March, and the Earl of Moray (who kept away from the northern
districts, because of the tyrannousness of the Earl of Athol) ; but
he was beaten, and had to yield. The Earl of Moray, however,
who was beyond measure courteous and soft-hearted towards his
foes, feeling sure that he would thereby give great pleasure to
the king of Trance, from whom he had lately parted, let the afore-
said Count of Gellere and his men go back free and scathless,
without ransom or any other burden, and restored the booty
which had been taken from him ; — and all for love of the king
of France. And, the better to show his good-will, he accom-
panied him in person to the marches ; but he was overtaken
unawares by the onslaught of the garrison of a castle, taken by
those churls, and thrown into prison. The same year, when not
many days were overpast, the Earl of Athol made his submission
to the king of England and to Edward of Balliol, and swore
fealty to them, at Perth, faithfully promising them that he
would, before long, bring back under their sway all the Scot-
tish magnates. On the strength of this promise, he was made
warden of Scotland on behalf of those kings. After these
things, those who had fled came back, the castles were fortified,
the kingdom was tranquillized, and the king of England re-
turned, with his forces ; but the great tjrranny and cruelty this
Earl practised among the people words cannot bring within the
mind's grasp : some he disinherited, others he murdered ; and,
in the end, he cast in his mind how he might wipe all the free-
holders from off the face of the earth.
CLIV.
Death of the Earl of Athol, at Kilhlen,
There were, at that time, three ^magnates of Scotland, — to
wit, Andrew of Moray, who was, the same year, about the Feast
of St. Matthew, made guardian of Scotland on behalf of King
David, at Dunbretane (Dumbarton) ; the Earl of March ; and
William of Douglas— who had not yet made their submission
to the English, or to Edward of Balliol, but had, through the
respect and forbearance, in some wise, of the king and magnates
of England, been lurking in hiding, now here, now there, look-
ing with gaping mouth, as it were, for better times. Now, when
the aforesaid imdrew learnt, from hearsay, that his castle, with
his wife, was besieged by the aforesaid Earl, he asked and got
leave from the lord William of Montagu (then a chief councillor
of the king of England), and, with the help of the aforesaid Earl
352 JOHN OF fordun's chronicle
of March and William of Douglas, made ready, with all haste,
to relieve his castle. So these three, with their abettors, heartily
sympathizing with their sorrowing countrymen in their awful
sufferinfjs, chose rather to die in battle than see the woes of
their nation. So, with one consent, and with a lusty heart,
they gave themselves to danger as a ransom for their thraldom ;
and, raging like bears or lions robbed of their cubs, they
hastened to battle. They came to blows on the 30th of Novem-
ber, in the forest of Kilblen, where they slaughtered the Earl
himself, as well as five knights and the rest of his partisans,
under an oak ; and when they had got the victory, they merci-
fully spared the rabble who were with him against their will.
After this struggle, the said Andrew and the others came to the
castle of Cupar, and besieged it. Therein were a great many Scots
who had gone over to the English ; but, on receipt of letters
from the kings of France and Scotland, he granted the garrison
of the castle a truce up to a certain time. In the meantime he
called the chiefs of the kingdom together at Dunfermline, and
was there, by all, approved as guardian of Scotland. He then
went off beyond the hills, and tarried long in the north.
CLV.
The King of England and Edward of Balliol arrive at Perth.
In the year 1336, the king of England and Edward of Balliol
came to Perth, with a great force both by sea and by land ; and,
taking with him some chosen men, the aforesaid king hastened
straight to Lochindorb, whence he brought away the wife and
the heir of David Earl of Athol. Then, consuming the whole
of Moray with fire, he reached Elgin ; and, marching on thence —
leaving, moreover, the churches and canonical buildings of Elgin
untouched — he, by the all-devouring flames, levelled with the
ground the town of Aberdeen ; and thus he came back to the
town of Perth, after having strengthened the strongholds
of Dunottar, Kynnef, and Lauriston. Then, after talking
matters over earnestly, he, by the advice, especially, of the
aforesaid men of the kingdom of Scotland, ordered that the
town of Perth should, with all haste, be strengthened in its walls
and moats, towers and gates ; and he singled out six monasteries
— viz.,Dunfermline, Saint Andrews, Lindores, Balmurinach (Bal-
merino), Abberbrothoc (Arbroath), and Coupar-Angus — to build
up, of hewn stone, at their own charges and expense, the three
greater sides, with as many towers. By the impost for these
works, the said monasteries were greatly impoverished. At the
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 353
same time, the castles of Saint Andrews and of Lochris (Leu-
chars), were rebuilt by Henry of Beaumont and Henry of
Ferrers. The same year, while the king of England tarried at
the town of Perth, his brother, John of Eltham, making his
way through the western districts of Scotland, consumed with
fire and sword the lands which had lately submitted to the
king, his brother ; and a great many souls who fled to the
churches, were, with the churches themselves, destroyed and
clean swept away by being set on fire. The king, however, at
Perth, took him to task for all this, — as he was bound to do ;
and when he answered the king in angry mood, he was suddenly
smitten by his brother's sword, and shuffled off this mortal coil.
But the king soon after went back to England, and left Edward
of Balliol, with a strong force, in the town of Perth. At this
time, Henry of Beaumont, whenever he of himself, or through
others, could catch any who had taken part in the struggle at
Kilblene, ordered them all, in revenge for the death of his son-in-
law, to be racked with divers tortures, and put to death with-
out mercy. Among these, much guiltless blood was shed. The
same year, Strivelyn (Stirling) Castle was strengthened by Sir
William of Montagu, who set Sir Thomas of Eokeby therein ;
Edinburgh Castle, by Sir John of Strivelyn (Stirling); and
Eoxburgh Castle, by Sir William of Eelton, knights.
CLVI.
Andrew of Moray.
The same year, in the month of October, Andrew of Moray,
then guardian of Scotland, mustered an army, and besieging
the strongholds of Dunnottar, Kynneff, and Lauriston, took
them, and levelled them with the ground. Then he tarried
the whole winter in the forest of Platen, and other very safe
places in Angus, being often waylaid by the English, and
braving their dangerous attacks. So, through the ceaseless
marauding of both sides, the whole land of Gowrie, Angus, and
Mearns was, for the most part, almost reduced to a hopeless
wilderness, and to utter want. The same year, in the month of
February, shortly after the stronghold of Kinclevin had been
broken down to the very foundation, this same guardian com-
bined with the Earls of March and of Fife, William of Douglas,
and many other nobles of Scotland, and marched into Fife,
where he levelled with the ground the tower of Falkland, plun-
dered the land everywhere around, took the inhabitants pri-
soners, and put them up for ransom. Thus he got to Saint
VOL. II. z
354 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
Andrews, and, with his engines, mightily besieged the castle
thereof for three weeks. On the last day of February, this
castle was surrendered unto him, on condition of the inmates
thereof being saved harmless in life, limb, and all their goods.
Luchris (Leuchars) Castle had, a little while before, been dealt
with in like manner in all respects. Afterwards, shifting his
camp thence on the 6th of March, he got to the tower of Both-
well in the following Lent, took it by storm after some little
time, and levelled it with the ground ; — not without loss to his
men, however, for Stephen Wisman fell there.
CLVII.
Andrew of Moray besieges Strivelyn {Stirling) Castle.
In the months of April and May 1337, Strivelyn (Stirling)
Castle was besieged by this guardian. But, upon the king of
England coming with a large army, the guardian saw that they
were too many for him to withstand in battle. So he and his
withdrew therefrom, safe and sound, after William of Keith
had been, no less unhappily than strangely, killed with his own
lance. The same year Edinburgh Castle was besieged by him, and
the Estates (commimitas) of Lothian submitted unto him. But,
by means of the falsehood and deceit of certain Scotsmen, he was,
by the English forces, made to withdraw from the siege thereof,
after he had appointed Lawrence of Preston sheriff of Lothian.
Thereupon followed, on the part both of Scots and English, the
wholesale destru'ction of Lothian. The same year, on the 13th
of January, Dunbar Castle was besieged by William of Montagu,
Earl of Salisbury, and the Earl of Arundel, the leaders of the
English king's army. This siege was kept up with the strong
hand, with many huge engines, balisters, and all the contri-
vances of war-craft, for twenty-two weeks ; and, on the 1 6th of
June next following, they were called back by letters precep-
tory from the king of England, leaving their task undone. The
same year, happily for the kingdom of Scotland, was begun a
very fearful and savage war between the kings of England and
France.
CLVIII.
Death of Andrew of Moray.
In the year 1338 died Andrew of Moray, the warden
of Scotland, and was buried at Eosemarky; but his bones
were afterwards brought dowh to Dunfermline, and entombed
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 355
before the altar of the Blessed Virgin, in the monastery of that
place. He did a good deal for his country's freedom ; and
assaulted and destroyed all the castles and strongholds held by
the English about the water of Forth, except Cupar and Perth.
But all the country he marched through, in his wars, he reduced
to such desolation and distress, that more perished afterwards,
through starvation and want, than the sword devoured in time
of war. He was two years and a half guardian of Scotland. The
same year, Eobert Stewart was made guardian of Scotland, and
stood until King David's arrival.
CLIX.
The town of Perth lesieged and taken.
In the year 1339, the town of Perth was besieged by the said
Eobert and the rest of the magnates of the kingdom. It was
held, on behalf of the English, by Thomas Otyr (Ughtred), who
had with him a great many Scots that cleaved to Edward of
Balliol. On the 1 7th of August, the aforesaid town was sur-
rendered, on condition that the English were saved harmless in
life, limb, and all their moveables. Accordingly, they left Scot-
land with all haste — some, by a sea-voyage, others, by a land
journey — amid much jeering, after yielding their lands and pos-
sessions to the Scots, and submitting to such wrongs as had
been shamelessly heaped upon the king and the natives in the
time of the war. I should mention that there took part in the
siege of the said town a naval commander from France, named
Haupilie, with two ships laden with freebooters. At the first
onslaught he made upon the English, this man lost his ship,
through over-much foolhardiness and want of skill. There also
took part thereat two knights from France, with their vassals,
and a famous squire, named Giles de la Huse. N"ow the said
commander, after having recovered the ship he had previously
lost, was given money by the guardian, as a reward for his trouble;
then, going on board ship with the knights and his own servants,
hoisted the sail, and, being caught in a squall, at the outlet of
Drumlie, at once went to the bottom. But the said squire, who
was on board another ship, escaped unhurt the maw of the awful
gulf. I should mention, likewise, that, at the time of the siege
of the aforesaid town of Perth, the lord William Bullock, a chap-
lain, warden of the castle of Cupar, chamberlain of Scotland, on
behalf of Edward of Balliol, and lieutenant and treasurer of all
the English and their adherents in the kingdom of Scotland,
after having liberal compensation granted him for his lands and
356 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
possessions, surrendered the above-mentioned castle to the
warden, and became, with his party. King David's liege man.
He, moreover, took part in the aforesaid siege with all his
might, lending efficient help, and imparting useful advice. This
man, who was distinguished, above all of his day, for his tact
and the terse eloquence of his speech in his mother tongue, had
risen suddenly from the lowest depths. First, he was chamber-
lain with Edward of Balliol, and treasurer to the rest of the
English ; and, lastly, chamberlain of Scotland with King David,
the greatest among his first councillors, and renowned for shrewd
and skilful advice — indeed, equally by the king and lords of
Scotland, and by the king of England, he was held worthy to be
praised as a second Coucy. But, after he had filled sundry
different offices, and had amassed boundless wealth, he was at
length suspected of treason, and suddenly dismissed from his
office of chamberlain, when as he thought he stood fast ; and, by
the king's command, he was all at once taken by David Barclay,
and kept in custody at Malimora. Thus, after much happiness
and success, adversity came back to him ; and he ended his life
by an unhappy death. Therein was very strikingly fulfilled
that saying of the poet : —
" The more man's life is strained to reach success.
The stronger the recoil to wretchedness."
CLX.
On the 17th of April 1341, Edinburgh Castle was taken with
the strong hand, no less fortunately than cleverly, by the lords
William of Douglas, William Eraser, and William Bullock, with
their party, after they had subdued the whole garrison of that
castle. The same year — in 1341, to wit — on the 2d of June,
David, by the grace of God the illustrious king of Scots, came
back from France to Scotland. He and the queen were brought
over by a fleet to Inverbervie, and landed safe and sound.
CLXI.
Roxburgh Castle taken hy Alexander of Ramsay.
On the 30th of March 1342 — which, that year, was Easter
Eve — about cock-crow, Alexander of Ramsay and his followers
scaled the walls of Roxburgh Castle by ladders, and took it
with the strong hand, after they had overcome all the guards,
and slain some.
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 357
CLXII.
Death of this Alexander.
The same year, on the 20th of June, Alexander Eamsay,
warden of Eoxbnrgh Castle, and sheriff of Teviotdale, summoned
before him, at Hawick, all in the said sheriffdom, and repaired
thither in person. But when he had been a long while await-
ing, in the church of that town, the arrival of those summoned,
in order that he might discharge his duty, and had not the least
inkling of guile or ill-will, news was brought him that William
of Douglas was on the point of coming thither. Eamsay, al-
though he had been put on his guard about William's fierceness,
suspected no evil from him, inasmuch as, shortly before, all
misunderstandings had been settled, and friendship renewed
afresh ; so he waited in the church for William's coming. When
William came in, Eamsay rose, and, greeting him peacefully,
asked him to sit down beside him. But William and his men,
armed as they were, ruthlessly fell upon him and three others
who came to his rescue, and seized and wounded them with
ghastly wounds, in the bosom, of holy mother Church. As for
Alexander himself, they bound him with chains, set him on
horseback, and took him away ; and, when he had been brought
down to Hermitage Castle (near Castleton), he is said to have
lived seventeen days without any bodily sustenance ; and, forti-
fied by partaking of the Saving Host, he paid the debt of nature
on that same seventeenth day after he was taken. Eamsay had
done a good deal for the king and for the country's freedom : he
had felled the foe everywhere around, greatly checked their
attacks, won many a victory, done much good, and — so far as man
can judge — would have done more, had he lived longer. In brave
deeds of arms, and in bodily strength he surpassed all others of
his day ; and even as he was mightier than the rest in deeds of
arms, so was he luckier in his struggles. But the old enemy
envied his prowess, and roused against him one who, governed
by envy, not only traitorously, but also most pitifully, wrested
from him, and destroyed, the badges of his virtues.
CLXIII.
ISTow as, from the day of the struggle at Kilblene until this
Alexander's death, all things, in the result of every war,
were brought to a prosperous issue, so, when he was taken away
from our midst, all things which were tried for the good of
the country had straightway, on the contrary, an unlucky
358 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
result. For, through this Alexander's death, feuds and misun-
derstandings, undying — as it were — and endless, arose in the
kingdom, not only among the lords, but even among the com-
mon people; so that, thenceforth, they murdered each other
with mutual slaughter, and slew each other with the sword.
CLXIV.
In the year 1344 there was so great a pestilence among
the fowls, that men utterly shrank from eating, or even look-
ing upon, a cock or a hen, as though unclean and smitten with
leprosy ; and thus, as well as from the aforesaid cause, nearly
the whole of that species was destroyed.
CLXV.
Battle of Durham fought.
In the month of October 1346, David, king of Scotland,
gathered his army together, and marched, in great force, into
England. On the 17th of October, a battle was fought at
Durham, with the English, and King David was defeated and
taken prisoner ; while all his nobles were taken with him, or
killed — except Patrick of Dunbar, Earl of March, and Kobert,
steward of Scotland, who took to flight, and got away unhurt.
Together with the king, were there taken the Earl of Fife;
Malcolm Flemyng, Earl of Wigtown ; the Earl of Menteith, who
was afterwards drawn by horses in England, and was put to
death, racked with divers tortures ; William of Douglas ; and
many other barons, nobles, valiant knights, and picked squires.
The killed were John of Eandolph, Earl of Moray ; the Earl of
Stratherne ; the constable of Scotland ; the marshal of Scotland ;
the chamberlain of Scotland; and numberless other barons,
knights, squires, and good men. The same year, just after
the aforesaid battle, the castles of Koxburgh and Hermitage
(near Castleton) were surrendered to the English ; and Lothian
was consumed by fire.
CLXVI.
Robert Stewart, gvxirdian of Scotland..
The same year, not long after that battle took place, thej
chief men who were left were gathered together, and, lest thej
state of the commonwealth should be thrown into confusioi
chose unto themselves, a^ guardian, the lord Kobert, steward
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 359
Scotland, the aforesaid king's nephew ; deeming that, forasmuch
as he was the most powerful of all, the general interests would
be most strongly guarded by him. But how he governed in the
office of warden — how he governed the kingdom intrusted unto
him, his deeds show forth unto all times.
CLXVII.
Pestilence among men.
In the year 1350, there was, in the kingdom of Scotland, so
great a pestilence and plague among men (which also prevailed
for a great many years before and after, in divers parts of the
world — nay, all over the whole earth), as, from the beginning of
the world even unto modern times, had never been heard of by
man, nor is found in books, for the enlightenment of those who
come after. For, to such a pitch did that plague wreck its cruel
spite, that nearly a third of mankind were thereby made to pay
the debt of nature. Moreover, by God's will, this evil led to
a strange and unwonted kind of death, insomuch that the
flesh of the sick was somehow puffed out and swollen, and they
dragged out their earthly life for barely two days. Now this
everywhere attacked especially the meaner sort and common
people ; — seldom the magnates. Men shrank from it so much
that, through fear of contagion, sons, fleeing as from the face of
leprosy or from an adder, durst not go and see their parents in
the throes of death.
CLXVIII.
Death of the Lord David of Barclay.
In the year 1351, on Fasten's Even, that noble and mighty
man, the lord David of Barclay, knight, was inhumanly and
treacherously slain, at Aberdeen, by John of Saint Michael and
his accomplices ; — though it is reported that it was through the
intrigues of the lord William of Douglas (who was then a prisoner
in England), to avenge his brother, John of Douglas, whom this
David had caused to be seized. The aforesaid John of Saint
Michael, however, and all others, his abettors, who took part in
this murder, were, after no long interval of time, destroyed one
after the other, by the sword of vengeance ; and not even one
of them escaped death.
360 JOHN OF fordun's chronicle
CLXIX.
Matilda of Bruce and her Offspring,
In the year 1353, Matilda of Bruce, sister of the lord David,
king of Scotland, died at Aberdeen, on the Feast of the blessed
virgin Margaret, and was buried in Dunfermline, with her
father and mother. She wedded a certain squire, named Thomas
Isaac, who, of her, begat two daughters. The elder, named Joan,
wedded a noble and mighty man, John of Lome, lord of that
ilk ; who, of her, begat sons and daughters. Matilda's younger
daughter, named Catherine, was taken away from this life at
Strivelyn (Stirling).
CLXX.
Death of the Lord William of Douglas.
The same year, in the month of August, Sir William of
Douglas, a wise and most sagacious man, was, while out hunt-
ing, and crossing Ettrick Forest, unsuspicious of evil from any
man, was slain by William of Douglas, lord of that ilk ; who,
afterwards, had other lands given him by our lord the king,
and was called earl of that lordship. He was thus put to death
in revenge for the death of Alexander of Eamsay and the
lord David of Barclay, and because, also, of a great many
other causes of unfriendliness, and many a grudge stirred up
between the two Douglases by their thirst for power. His
body rests at Melrose.
CLXXI.
Messengers sent hy the King of France to tJie Nobles of Scotland.
In the year 1355, after the Feast of Easter, there came a
certain noble person, of tried skill in arms, a valiant and most
dashing knight, named Eugene de Capencers (Garencieres), with
certain chosen knights and gallant and famous squires, to the
number of sixty. He was sent by the king and council of France
to the guardian and nobles of Scotland — though not empty-
handed, but with huge store of pounds of gold, which was to be
bestowed freely, on behalf of the lord their king, upon that same
guardian and the lords of the kingdom : Provided, however, that
the Scots should not maintain peace or any good understanding
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 361
with tlie English ; but should, on the contrary, bravely war them
down. This, at all events, was settled and finally promised by the
leading men of the kingdom, in sundry interviews and councils
held in sundry places, before the aforesaid gold, which had been
left behind in Flanders, came into Scotland ; and the Scots, who
often for a penny lose a shilling, were led away, by lust for
gold, to promise to fight England to the last. But afterwards,
when it came to deeds, they achieved little worthy of remem-
brance. So the chiefs of the kingdom shared among themselves
the aforesaid gold they had got from the French ; and the others,
of meaner sort, they sent empty away. But from this agreement
and greed of gold, there followed, soon after, the destruction of
Lothian by the king of England.
CLXXII.
Conflict at Nesbit.
The same year, in the month of August, the Earl of March
and William lord of Douglas, finding it hard to brook the
depredations which had lately been committed by the English
on the aforesaid Earl's lands, sent a valiant man, of tried prowess
— the lord William of Ramsay, knight — with a great many
men, to the marches, to plunder the town of Norham and the
whole of the outlying lands, and the dwellers therein. This
was accordingly done. When hard pressed by the enemy, he held
his ground for awhile, as best he could ; but he soon made a feint
of fleeing, and purposely drew them on, as had been planned, to a
certain place called Nesbit, where he well knew that the afore-
said lord of Douglas was lurking with his Scots and Frenchmen,
and waiting to see how things would turn out. Then, quickly
putting the spur of a hill between him and the enemy, he came
to the Scots, and brought them good news of the coming of the
English. The Scots rose from their seats, and hastened merrily
to meet them. But the English, thunderstruck at the sight of
them thus unexpectedly, and knowing full well the aforesaid
lord's ensigns and banners, could not now, with honour, flee ; so
they staked their lives upon their own prowess, and manfully
fought it out with the Scots. Since, however, even the strong
must needs be overcome by stronger, and the weaker side be
tripped up, the Scots, thank God ! prevailed against them, and
they were all subdued and overthrown. A few, indeed, were
slain ; and the remainder, except a few who fled, were led
away scathless into captivity, and kept closely guarded in
divers places. These were afterwards ransomed for much gold
362 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
and silver and other substance. On that day, there fell, on the
side of the Scots, John of Haliburton, a brave and warlike man,
who had always given the English great trouble. But on the
other side were taken the lord Thomas Gray, a noble knight,
with Thomas, his son and heir ; and a brave and famous squire,
named James Darres, with a great many other gallant English
nobles.
CLXXIII.
Thomas Stewart^ Earl of Angus, makes an attempt upon the
town of Berwick.
The same year, about Allhallowmas, Thomas Stewart, Earl
of Angus, after having long thought of the undertaking, got
together a number of ships from the several harbours of Scot-
land ; and, with a mighty arm, and at the head of a body
of stout men conveyed with him by sea, he brought up at Ber-
wick harbour, on a still night, as had been planned between him
and the Earl of March. They stealthily disembarked, and came
on shore, bearing with them ladders provided for the purpose ;
and, bivouacking under the city walls, they lay in wait for a fit
time to do what they had come for. Accordingly, in the
twilight of the following morning, they set up the ladders, and
brave men straightway mounted them, and manfully entered the
city ; and, though the watchmen on the walls had given them
a great deal of trouble on their entrance, they overthrew all who
strove to defend the city. At length, all in the city, being
panic-stricken at the sudden coming of the Scotsmen, rose out
of bed, and rushed headlong without the walls, leaving the
Scotsmen gold, and silver, and boundless wealth. These, how-
ever, dealt unmercifully with what their foes had, with much
time and trouble, scraped together unto themselves. Neverthe-
less, the Scots, though they bravely assaulted the Castle of
Berwick, could not manage to take it.
CLXXIV.
The town of Berwick is surrendered to the King of England.
The same year, in the month of February, Edward iii.,
king of England, brooking ill the taking of the town of
Berwick by the Scots, and fearing that, if he let them alone so,
they would wrest the place and people from him, came to the
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 363
marches, with a large force, as fast as he could (seeing that he
lived so far off), and was going to lay siege to that town. The
Scots, seeing this, and being nnable to defend the town — because
they were few, and had no provisions ; and because they had a
great dread of the aforesaid king's fierceness, and were hopeless
of getting succour from their own nation, owing to the feuds
among the chiefs — were wisely advised, and came to the best
conclusion under the circumstances : they surrendered the afore-
said town to the king of England, on condition that they were
saved harmless in life, limb, and all their substance ; and thus
every one hied him home scathless.
CLXXV.
Edward of BallioL comes to meet the King of England at
Eoxburgh.
I MUST not omit to state that, the same year, immediately
after the town of Berwick had been made over to the aforesaid
king, and while he in person was at Eoxburgh, before he had
advanced further into the land of Scotland, Edward of Balliol
came, like a roaring lion, to meet him ; and, scarce containing
himself for wrath, he broke forth into these words, more bitter
than death itself, and said : — " 0 king, and best of princes ! who
art, I know, the mightiest of all mortals in the world in these
days — I wholly, simply, and absolutely yield unto thee my
cause, and all right I have, or may have, to the throne of Scot-
land, so that thou avenge me of mine enemies, the Scottish
nation, a race most false, who have always cast me aside, that
I should not reign over them." And as evidence that he did
so he held forth unto him, as he spoke, the royal crown, and
some earth and stones which he picked up off the ground with
his own hand. " All these," quoth he, " I give unto thee as a
token of investiture. Only, act manfully, and be strong ; and
conquer for thyself the kingdom which ought formerly to have
been mine." This, moreover, should be noticed in this matter :
that he gave away nothing from himself, inasmuch as he had
no right, from the very first ; and, if haply he had had any, he
then resigned it into another's hands.
CLXXVI.
The King of England comes to Scotland,
When this business had been duly gone through, as above
364 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
stated, the aforesaid king, hailing Edward as his cousin, warmly
thanked him for so noble and stately a gift ; and, marching on
thence, like a she-bear raging in the forest, when robbed of her
young, he in cruel wise entered the land of Scotland, with
great power and majesty, and got as far as the town of Hadding-
ton ; and his fleet followed him. While he tarried there ten
days, a strong wind came from the region of the desert — that is
to say, from the north (for " evil will come from the north ") —
and caught this fleet, and sent it to the bottom. When the
king was thus left without his fleet, he and his whole army were
soon after suffering from want of bread ; so, shifting his camp
thence, after having burnt down the whole monastery of the
Minorite brothers, together with their stately church (a most
costly work, of wondrous beauty, and the one pride of all that
country), he bent his steps through Lothian, wasting everything
all around, and saving nothing. And thus he hied him home
without glory ; though not without loss to his men, and much
danger to his own body, from an ambush laid for him in the
forest near Melrose. Now his aim and purpose had been, if his
ships had held their course prosperously, to demolish and
destroy the kingdom of Scotland far and near — yea, to waste it
utterly; but God put off to a far-off time the execution of
this plan. He would, however, have doubtless been able to
do this at that time, had not the Virgin Mother come to the
relief of the wretched Scottish nation, in this plight. For, while
that king was still at Haddington, and was, without respite,
thirsting for the blood of the Scots, the blessed Virgin, the
spring and source of goodness, by her pious prayers obtained
from her Son, — One who said, " Without me ye can do nothing "
— that boisterous wind and rough weather; so that the ships
parted from one another, and could not move a step beyond the
Firth of Forth, but were unceasingly tossed among the waves
of the sea and the storms of the deep, so that a great many of
them have never, to this day, met the gaze of living man. For
some men-of-war's men, sons of Belial, had, shortly before, dis-
embarked, and fallen upon the white kirk of the Virgin, which
stands by the sea-side. There, not having God before their
eyes, and being unmindful of their own salvation, they banished
fear, and stripped the image of the Virgin, which no man had,
with impunity, touched with evil intent, and which was decked
with gold rings, necklaces, and armlets, and other ornaments
wherewith the oblations of the faithful had becomingly loaded
it ; and two canons of the house of Holyrood, who had lately
been commissioned as keepers of that chapel, they bound and
dragged with them to their craft, after having carried off all the
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 365
property they found in the chapel. This turned out unluckily for
them, however. For, not long after, the uproar and storms above
spoken of followed, in revenge for this thing ; and the ship
which had wrought the heinous robbery, and its crew, who had
dared to lay hands on the Lady of the World, were whelmed
in the gulf of the deep, in the sight of many. But the said
canons had, by God's will, been shortly before shifted to other
ships ; and they were thus, by Our Lady's succour, snatched
from the maw of the awful gulf, and allowed to cross over
freely to their dwelling-place. Such was the miracle that
Almighty God, through His Mother's prayers, deigned to show
forth, at that time, for the salvation of the Scottish nation.
CLXXVII.
Conflict which took place at Poitiers, in France.
In the year 1356, the king of France, named John, hearing
that the fourth Edward, son and heir of the king of England,
had entered the borders of his kingdom in hostile wise, with a
strong and sturdy hand, in order to conquer him, and subdue
the whole land of France to his power and dominion, gathered
from every part of his kingdom, and from other countries
which lay under his sway, a strong army, and people without
end. Among others, a certain noble and mighty William of
Douglas, lord of that ilk, a Scot by birth, was glad to come and
lend his help to the aforesaid king of France ; and he brought
with him a great many Scots, strong in body, accomplished in
arms, and learned in warfare. Before the shock of battle, this
same king promoted him and many others, with much honour,
to the belt and order of knighthood. To make a long story
short — while his foes were plundering the land of France, the
king, with his men, followed them from place to place, until he
reached a place called Poitiers ; and, pitching his tents there,
he tarried some time, watching lest his adversaries, who were
posted over against him, should give him the slip. At last,
the English prince and his men, who were very few in com-
parison with the French, seeing that their position was shut in,
had no hope of being able to escape ; and being sore afraid of
the numbers of those pitted against them, durst not, at
first, openly come to blows with the French, who stood in
their lines, and stirred not. So they planned a stratagem and
shrewd device, in order to part them asunder. They made a
feint of wishing to return to their own country by another way,
366 JOHN OF FOKDUN'S CHRONICLE
near the French. But when these found this out, they thought
the English had taken to flight ; so, by an unlucky impulse,
they straightway broke from the ranks, deeming that they
would swallow up the Scots like a gnat. But, alas 1 great was
the ruin and dismay which came of their being broken up.
The marshal of France, with many of the best men of
France, thinking to do bravely, burst through the hedges and
vineyards, in hot pursuit of the English ; and he there fell,
together with all who had come with him, overcome by the
archers, and the other ghastly strokes of war-craft. Thereupon,
the English, gladdened beyond belief, hastened briskly and fear-
lessly to the former battle-ground, where the king had been stand-
ing the whole time without stirring. Here a desperate battle
was straightway fought between the two sides, and the French
fled miserably from before the face of the English. Their king was
left on the field alone with his little son Philip, and was, without
delay, seized by the enemy, stripped of his kingly ornaments,
and, after some little interval of time, sent over to the king of
England. But the men of the lord of Douglas, seeing what
had happened in the battle, and what was in store for them,
dragged their lord out of the thick of the fight, and took him
away with them, against his will. A great many of the best
of his men were killed in battle, and others were taken, and put
to ransom.
CLXxvin.
Release of our Lord King David, King of Scotland.
In the year 1357, about Michaelmas, King David of Scot-
land was released from prison, after having been, for twelve
years, kept in close confinement in sundry places in England.
There were given, for his ransom, 100,000 merks sterling, to be
honestly paid within the ten years immediately following,
without any treaty, dismemberment or subjection of the king-
dom, or any exaction whatsoever. As security that the whole
of this money would be paid to the king of England, the sons
and heirs of nearly all the nobles and lords of the kingdom of
Scotland were given, as hostages, into the hands of the English ;
and a great many others — earls, and barons — long remained, in
person, as hostages for their lord. The same year, the Lady
Christiana of Bruce, King Robert's sister, a most noble matron,
died at a good old age, and was buried at Dunfermline, with
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 367
her parents and her forebears, the kings of Scotland, whose own
burial-ground that is.
CLXXIX.
Great Flood of Waters.
In the month of September 1358, on the eve of the Nativity
of the Blessed Virgin, such a great flood of rain burst forth in
Lothian, as had not occurred in the kingdom of Scotland from
the time of Noah until now ; so that the waters were swollen,
and, overflowing their beds and banks, poured over the fields
and towns, cities and monasteries, utterly overthrowing and
sweeping away, in their rush, stone walls and the strongest
bridges, hamlets and houses. Moreover, tearing up by the
roots lofty oaks and sturdy trees which grew near the streams,
the resistless tide washed them down to the sea-coast. The
crops, also, and stubble, reaped and left out to dry where it was
cut, it filched from the use of man, from all places both far
and near, thereby doing great damage.
CLXXX.
King David hegs a tenth from the Sovereign Pontiff.
In the year 1359, David, king of Scotland, sent his ambassa-
dors— namely, the lord Eobert of Erskine, and Norman of
Leslie, esquire, with some other men of standing — to the Apo-
stolic See, in order to beg a tenth of all the income and rents of
the whole Scottish Church, in aid of the payment of his ransom,
whereto he had lately become bound towards the king of Eng-
land. This prayer the sovereign Pontiff kindly granted — for
three years only : Provided, however, the king did not demand
or ask for more from the clergy of his kingdom, as far as his
whole ransom was concerned. So the above-named messengers,
thus bounteously sped with papal bulls addressed to the clergy
of Scotland upon this same matter, went home again merrily.
Nevertheless, when so much had been got, all the lands and
temporalities held from the king, or otherwise, by Churchmen,
were, by that king's directions, made to contribute, together with
the barons and other freeholders of the kingdom — though the
clergy made a strong stand against this.
368 JOHN OF FOEDUN'S CHRONICLE
CLXXXI.
The King of England crosses into France.
The same year, Edward iii., king of England, entered the
kingdom of France, in cruel wise, about Michaelmas, in all the
glory of his power, and with a countless host from the whole of
England. Respecting no spot or province, he reduced to an
endless waste even the noblest monasteries, and other stately
places of sundry religious orders, as well as abbeys of nuns,
after having destroyed all their substance upon earth. No one
in the French kingdom durst lift his head against him, or fight
against him in any way ; but with unhindered foot went he
into boroughs and fortresses, towns and cities, perpetrating
countless massacres. And thus after dealing many a great
blow to God's people, he, with no little gladness, reached that
most noble city of Paris. But they of the city, taking heed
unto themselves for the time to come, treated with the king for
peace, and for the release of their king. So the aforesaid king,
perceiving that the greatest advantage unto him and his king-
dom, for ever, would grow out of this bargain, fell in with the
more suitable plan ; and, withdrawing from them, he made for
England, and got back safe and sound, without loss.
CLXXXII.
The King of France in England is released.
In the year 1360, after some little time had gone by since
the English king's return from the kingdom of France, all the
elders and greater nobles of the whole of France held a council ;
and, wishing to duly follow up the matter of their king, sent
their envoys and special messengers to the aforesaid king, about
the release of their prince. That king, on the other hand, deem-
ing, with great foresight, that a practicable opening, a covenant
most advantageous to his honour, was being held out to him by
the other side, and having, first, earnestly talked the matter
over with his wise men, determined, after mature deliberation,
to close with the messengers, who had full powers. So he
let their king, after giving hostages, go home again; though
not without a great dismembering of the kingdom and un-
settling of all property. For, by way of ransom, John invested
and seised the king of England, and his successors, of the
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 369
If
underwritten lands and domains, with many others which the
writer of this Chronicle has been unable to ascertain ; and he
alienated them for ever from the crown of France. He granted
him those of Gascony, with their pertinents, freely and without
reservation, releasing him utterly from the fealty and homage
at first due unto him. He also gave him the duchy of Guienne,
the seignory of Berri, the city of Calais, and the city of Guines;
and moreover showered upon him exceeding much gold and
silver, and boundless treasure from the French treasury. But
the king of England resigned, for himself and his posterity for
ever, all right he had, and was toiling after, to the throne of
France.
CLXXXIII.
Second Pestilence.
In the year 1362 a death-sickness among men raged exceed-
ingly in the whole kingdom of Scotland, like the former one, of
the jubilee year, in all respects, both in the nature of the disease
and in the number of those who died.
CLXXXIV.
Plot against Kin^ David.
The same year, a great sedition and plot was set on foot and
hatched, in the kingdom of Scotland, by the greater and more
powerful chiefs thereof. The magnates met together against
their lord the king, and formed, among themselves, the design
of bending him to their views upon a demand which, as every
one could see, was an unrighteous one — or banishing him ;
and, that none of them might draw back from that resolve, in-
dentures were drawn up, and sealed with their several seals.
Indeed, they soon showed forth, by deeds, the treason they had
devised; and they manfully rose up in great numbers, with
arms in their hands, to gain their ends through force or fear.
Accordingly they took the king's adherents, wheresoever they
could find them ; and, having taken them, threw them into
prison. In hostile wise fell they upon towns, and boroughs,
and the whole country, and shared the spoils of the people, and
wrought other damnable evils ; to the end that the king, being
so often pricked by the sword of compassion, should feel for
the woes of the people, and the more easily bow himself unto
VOL. 11. 2 X
370 JOHN OF FORDUN'S CHRONICLE
their wishes, however unwilling he might be. But the king,
acknowledging the vantage-ground of power, put forth his hand
unto strength ; and, wishing to check their rashness, and taking
heed lest this insolence, if left unpunished, should, in time to
come, turn out an example unto others elsewhere, while this
great carnage would go on gathering strength, and the state of
the commonwealth would seem to be impaired, he, in order that
he might break down the presumption of those men, and thwart
their plans, mustered his lieges from the four corners of his land,
offering them much money for their pay. First, however,
with his wonted forbearance, he had a proclamation published,
that they and their abettors should leave off this foolishness,
and be still. But as they were hardened in their stubbornness,
and defended their own doings, he went after them, with some
men of courage, who listed to die sooner than see the woes of
their nation and the desolation of the land. The king's op-
ponents, however, durst not openly come to blows with him
and his ; but when they might not carry out what they had
begun, they sent an embassy, asking for terms of peace, and
submitting themselves and theirs to his will and pleasure. So,
being a most meek man, who would rather forgive than avenge,
he formed a wise resolution for the nonce, and decided to be
indulgent towards them, taking an oath of fealty from them,
lest they should again take upon them to do such things, and
the community should go on and suffer greater woes ; and thus
that trouble was set at rest. The following year, Eobert
Stewart, king David's nephew, swore him fealty afresh at Inch-
murdach, in the form given elsewhere.
CLXXXV.
Second espousals of King David.
In the year 1363, the aforesaid lord David, king of Scotland,
took to wife, at Inchmurdach, a great lady, named Margaret of
Logic, of high and noble birth, and born in his kingdom ; and
he endowed her with many lands and possessions, and raised
her to reign in honour with him, with the royal diadem.
CLXXXVI.
In the year 1370, on the Feast of St. Peter's Chair, David
Bruce, king of Scotland, died at Edinburgh Castle, and was
buried in the monastery of Holyrood. He reigned forty-eight
OF THE SCOTTISH NATION. ANNALS. 371
years, and had no children. His nephew, Eobert Stewart, who
was then of age, succeeded him by right of inheritance, and was
enthroned and crowned at Scone, that same year, on Lady
Day. In the year 1373 died the lady Bridget of Sweden, etc.
CLXXXVII.
In the year 1378, within five days before the Feast of the
apostle Saint Andrew, the castle of Berwick was taken, by
night, during a truce, by some of the meaner sort, who, however,
slew some courtiers they found therein. But it was soon after
retaken, and all the Scots who were therein were slain. In the
month of December 1384, likewise, this same castle was taken
by night, by means of scaling-ladders, after a brave resistance
on the part of the town and tower ; but it was soon after given
up to the English.
CLXXXVIII.
The same year, the bishop of Glasgow was made cardinal ;
and the red hat, together with the papal bulls for his appoint-
ment, was sent to Scotland. He was also ordained legate a
latere of the Apostolic See, and made spiritual vicar of the
kingdoms of Scotland and Ireland, with full powers.
CLXXXIX.
About the end of the month of May 1385, by agreement
between France and Scotland on either hand, some Frenchmen
to the number of eleven hundred men-at-arms, fifty of whom
were knights, twenty-six bannerets, and one, only, an earl,
came over to Scotland, in two hundred and forty ships. Their
captain was the noble and valiant knight, the lord John de
Yienne, a Burgundian by birth, and called the admiral of the
king of France. These stayed for three months in sundry
places in Lothian, and then, with the Scots, toiled on towards
the marches ; and, having destroyed some strongholds in
England, they returned to the places where they were before.
But, about the middle of the month of August, the king,
Eichard by name, then nineteen years old, came in with a
great multitude ; and, marching on, destroyed everything all
about, saving nothing, and burning down, with the fiery flames,
God's temples and holy places — to wit, the monasteries of
3T2 JOHN OF fordun's chronicle, annals.
Dryburgh, Melrose, and Newbattle, and the noble town of
Edinburgh, with the church thereof. So after making great
havoc in Lothian, they went home again without loss. It is
worthy of remark, moreover, that the king of France, besides
the wages paid to the aforesaid admiral, the paid soldiers, and
the sailors, sent unto the king of Scotland and the lords thereof
50,000 francs, and fourscore suits of armour, with as many iron-
headed spears, and much other costly gear. About Allhallow-
e'entide, the Frenchmen returned to their own land, in ships
despatched by the king of France to bring them over. They
bore themselves nobly, to the best of their power.
cxc.
In the year 1383, on the 4th of February, Lawmabane (Loch-
maben) Castle was taken and destroyed by the Scots, to wit,
the Earl William of Douglas, and Archibald.
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
NOTES AND ILLUSTEATIONS.
In annotating upon the text of Fordun's Chronicle, it is obviously
impossible to do so as fully as could be wished. To attempt it, would
be in fact to write a book upon Scotch history, and the limits of this
work forbid any attempt of the kind. It is of course difl&cult to make
a selection, where much could be added to illustrate every chapter. In
these Notes, such points alone are touched upon as seem more especially
to require explanation, or illustration, and that more in the way of
supplementing what may be found in the works in Scottish history
which have already appeared, than in furnishing anything like a com-
plete commentary. Such Notes as the editor finds himself able to add,
without extending the work unduly, are here placed at the end of volume
second, and under the book and chapter to which they refer, so as to render
them applicable both to the Latin text, and to the English translation.
The authorities quoted by Fordun for his statements will be occa-
sionally referred to in the Notes, but it may be as well to insert here
an alphabetical list of them, as, where they are frequently referred to
throughout the work, it would be unnecessary to notice each quotation.
List of Authorities referred to hy name hy Fordun.
Adamnanus : Vita Sancti Columbse.
Quoted in Book iii. cc. xxvii. xxxi. xl. ; Book iv. c. xi. Adamnan
was abbot of lona, and died in 704.
Alcwynus seu Albinus Flaccus : Epistolse et Poemata.
Quoted Book iii. c. xlviii.
Ambrosius.
Quoted Book i. c. xxiii. ; Book iv. c. xlii.
Annales Chronicle.
Quoted Book iv. c. xxv. The quotation is found in three of the
second group of Chronicles, viz., that of 1187, of St. Andrews, and
of 1317.
AUGUSTINUS, S. : De Civitate Dei, et De Hseresibus.
He is quoted Book ii. cc. xxiv. xxix., and Book iv. c. xlii. Quoted
also by Higden.
B^DA : Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum. Chronicon sive de sex
setatibus seculi.
Quoted Book i. cc. xviii. xxx. ; Book ii. cc. iii. xiii. xiv. xvii. xxiv.
376 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
xxxiii. xxxiv. xl. xli. 1. lii. ; Book iii. cc. iii. v. vi. vii. viii, xi. xii.
xvi. xviii. xxx. xxxv. xxxvi. xxxviii. xlii. xliii. liii. ; Book iv. c. x.
Quoted also by Higden.
Baldredus.
Under this name, Fordun quotes Aelred of Rivaulx : Genealogia
Regum Anglige. He is quoted in Book iv. c. xxx. ; Book v.,
the fifteen chapters from c. xxxv. to c. xlix. inckisive contain
that part of it termed the Eulogium Davidis Regis Scotise. Fordun
appears to identify Aelred with a Saint Baldred in the Scotch
Calendar, locally celebrated in Lothian under the name of Saint
Baldred of the Bass, and reputed founder of the churches of Auld-
hame, Tyninghame, and Preston. The identity is a mistaken one,
for by Saint Baldred was certainly meant the " Balthere ana-
chorita," whose death Simeon of Durham, in his " Historia
Regum," records under the year 756, and, in his History of the
Church of Durham, adds " in Tiningaham." In the History of St.
Cuthbert, attributed to Simeon, he mentions, among the possessions
of the see of Lindisfame, " tota terra quse pertinet ad monasterium
Sancti Balthere, quod vocatur Tinningaham a Lambormore usque
ad Escemuthe." ^ It was left for Bower to discover that he was a
suffragan bishop of Saint Kentigern, first Bishop of Glasgow. 2
Bartholom^us.
Under this name Fordun quotes Bartholomseus de Glanvilla : Trac-
tatus de Proprietatibus rerum, in Book i. c. xxxv. ; Book ii. c. iii.
He wrote about the year 1360.
Bernardus : Vita S. Malachise Episcopi.
Quoted Book iv. c. xliii.
Chronica.
Fordun quotes from " Chronica," and " Alia Chronica," using the
word as a singular noun in Book i. cc. viii. x. xi. xii. xvii. xviii.
XX. xxi. xxvi. xxix. ; Book iii. c. xii. See Notes.
Eleucidarius.
Quoted Book i. c. xxxii.
Eleutherius, Papa.
Quoted Book iv. c. xlii.
Ennius.
Quoted Book i. c. xxv.
EUSEBIUS : Historia Ecclesiaatica.
Quoted Book ii. c. xlii. This author is also quoted by Higden.
EuTROPlUS : Historia Romana.
Quoted Book i. c. xxv.; Book ii. cc. xiv. xix. xxvi. xxxvi. xl. xlii. xlix. ;
Book iv. cc. ii. vii. xxxix. ; Annals, xiii. Also quoted by Higden.
Galfridus Monumetensis : Historia Britonum.
Quoted Book 1. cc. xvii. xxii. xxiii. xxiv. ; Book ii. cc. ii. iv. v. xiv.
^ Symeonis Dunelmensis Opera, printed for Surtces Club, vol i. pp. 20, 140.
* Scotichronicon, vol. i. p. 134.
LIST OF AUTHOKITIES. 377
xxiv. xxvii. xxxiii. xxxvi. xliv. li. ; Book iii. cc. x. xiii. xvii. xxv.
xli. Also quoted by Higden.
Gild AS.
Quoted Book iii. cc. xvii. xxiii. Fordun here quotes an old poem
attributed to Gildas. There is a copy in the Colbertine ms.
Gregorius : Historia Gallorum seu Francorura.
Quoted Book iii. c. ix. ; Book iv. c. xliii. Quoted by Higden as
" De Mirabilibus Romse."
Grossum Caput.
Quoted Book i. cc. xiii. xvii. xx. See Notes.
Helinandus, Monachus Frigidi Montis : Chronicon.
Quoted Book iv. cc. xix. xlvii.
Henricus Huntindonensis Archidiaconus : Historise Anglorum,
libri octo. ;
Quoted Book iv. c. xxxvi. Also by Higden.
Herodotus.
Quoted Book ii. c. viii. The same author is apparently quoted by
Higden, but what author is meant is unknown.
Historia.
Quoted Book iii. c. xiv. Appears to be the Historia which existed
in the Register of the Priory of St. Andrews. See Note.
Historia Sancti Congalli.
Quoted Book ii. c. xi. See Note.
Historia Beati Kentigernl
Quoted Book iii. c. ix. See Note.
Hugo Floriacensis : Chronicon.
Quoted Book ii. c. li. Hugh of Fleury flourished towards the end
of the eleventh century.
IsiDORUS HiSPALENSis : Liber Etymologicarum.
Quoted Book i. cc. iii. vi. xviii. xix. xxiii. xxv. xxxiii. ; Book ii.
cc. viii. ix. xi. Quoted also by Higden.
Januensis.
Quoted Book i. c. xviii. Under this name Fordun means Joannes
Balbus de Janua, who compiled in the year 1286 Catholicon seu
Summa Grammaticalis.
Jeronimus.
Quoted Book i. c. xxv. and Book iv. c. xiii.
JUSTINUS : Abridgment of Trogus Pompeius.
Quoted Book i. c. xxv. Quoted also by Higden.
Legenda.
Quoted Book i. c. xvii. See Note.
Legenda Sancti Brandani.
Quoted Book i. cc. viii. xiv. xvii. See Notes.
Legenda Miraculorum Sancti Johannis B everlaci.
Quoted Book iv. c. xxiii.
378 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
Merlinus.
Quoted Book iii. o. xlii. The quotation is from the prophecies
attributed to him in Geoffroy of Monmouth.
Orosius, Paulus : Historia.
Quoted Book ii. cc. xvii. xxi. xxix. Quoted also by Higden as "in
libro de Ormestu Munde."
Paulus Diaconus : Historia Longobardorum.
Quoted Book ii. c. Hi. ; Book iii. cc. iv. vii. Quoted also by Higden.
Petrus Comestor. Historia Scholastica et Historia Evangelica.
Quoted Book i. cc. xiii. xix. xxv. Also by Higden.
Petrus Blesensis.
Quoted Book iv. c. xlii.
Peter of Blois flourished about the year 1200.
Petrus Damianus.
Quoted Book v. c. xii. He died in the year 1072.
POLYCRATICON.
Quoted Book i. c. xxxv. See Note.
POLYCHRONICON.
Under this name Fordun quotes Higden's Polychronicon in Book iii.
c. viii., and Book iv. c. xxxvi.
Prosper, Aquitanus : Chronicon.
Quoted Book ii. c. Iii.
Ptolem^eus.
Quoted Book i. c. v. ; Book ii. c. iii. See Notes.
RiCHARDUS.
Under this name Fordun quotes Ricardus de Cirencestria : Speculum
Historiale, in Bookii. cc. xvi. xix. He wrote in 1348.
Sallustius Crispus.
Quoted Book i. c. xxv.
Seneca.
Quoted Book iv. c. xliii.
Sigibertus Gemblacensis : Chronica.
Quoted Book ii. cc. xxxvi. 1. Iii. ; Book iii. cc. vi. viii. ix. xii. xix.
Sigibert of Gembloux was much esteemed in the middle ages.
His Chronicle extends from the year 381 to 1112, in which year
he died.
Socrates Scholasticus : Historia Ecclesiastica.
Quoted Book iii. c. viii.
Solinus : De situ et Memorabilia Orbis.
Quoted Book ii. c. ix. Quoted by Higden as " de Mirabilibus Orbis."
Suetonius : De Vitis CjBsamm.
Quoted Book ii. c. xix.; Book iv. c. xlii. Quoted by Higden as
" de Gestis Romanorum."
Tabula Londoni^e.
Quoted Book iv. c. xxxvii. In the title to the chapter, the reference is
LIST OF AUTHORITIES. 379
to " Willelmus," the name under which William of Malmesbuiy
is usually referred to, but the quotation has not been identified.
Tertullianus.
Quoted Book i. e. xxv.
TURGOTUS.
Quoted Book v. cc. ix. xi. xiv. xv. xvi. xviii. xx. The first five
quotations are in reality from Aelred of Rivaulx, but the quota-
tions in chapter xviii. are from Turgot's Life of Queen Mar-
garet. In chapter xxx. is a long quotation from Aelred. In the
early edition of Book v. Turgot was prefixed to this quotation,
but his name is omitted from the mss. containing the later
edition, and in the title to the chapter it is referred to Baldred,
from which we may infer that Fordun had at first attributed the
" Genealogia regum," from which the quotation is taken, to Turgot,
but ascertained afterwards that Aelred, whom he calls Baldred,
was the author.
Valerius.
Quoted Book i. c. xxxii.
ViNCENTiUS Belvacensis : Speculum Quadruplex, Naturale, Doc-
trinale. Morale, Historiale.
Quoted Book i. c. ix. ; Book iii. cc. xxviii. li. ; Book iv. c. xxviii. ;
Bookv. c. xvi.
Vincent of Beauvais was a Dominican monk who flourished in the
. thirteenth century. His work, written about 1240, is a sort of
encyclopsedia. Quoted also by Higden.
ViRGILIUS.
Quoted Book i. c. xxv.
AViLLELMUS.
Under this name Fordun quotes William of Malmesbury's work " de
Gestis Regum Anglise," written soon after 1120. The quotations
are numerous, and were added after the first edition of his work
was compiled. They are, Book ii. c. iii. ; Book iii. cc. xiii.
xvi. xviii. xlviii. xlix. 1. ; Book iv. cc. xiii. xvii. xviii. xxii. xxiv.
xxvii. XXXV. xxxvi. xl. xlvii. ; Book v. cc. vii. xi. xiii. xv. xvii.
xix. XX. xxiv. xxvi. xxix. xxxi. Iii. Quoted also by Higden.
BOOK T.
In this Book, Fordun comprises the mythic history of the Scots
from their supposed origin in Egypt to their first settlement in North
Britain according to the fabulous account. This part of the fable
properly forms one of the Irish legends, though altered and adapted
to the Scottish fable.
Cap. II. Fordun here gives a very distinct account of the winds,
380 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
according to the Roman denominations. Bower, in the Scotichronicon,
appends a commentaiy much more confused and inaccurate than the
text ; he adds, likewise, an incorrect version of the memorial lines,
giving the general direction of the winds. The following is a more
correct version, which corresponds with Fordun's statement : —
Asper ab axe ruit Boreas, furit Eurus ab ortu.
Auster amat medium solem, Zephyrusque cadentem.
Flant Subsolanus, Vulturnus et Eurus ab ortu.
Circius occasum, Zephyrusque Favonius adflant.
E solis medio surgunt Notus, Africus, Auster ;
Conveniunt Aquilo, Boreas et Caurus ab ursa.
Fordun is however incorrect in placing Aquilo to the west, and Chorus,
or, more properly, Caurus, to the east of Boreas. Their true position
appears to have been the reverse. The point is one of some interest in
connexion with the expression of Gildas, that when the Scots and
Picts attacked the Roman province, the Scots came " a Circione," the
Picts " ab Aquilone." Circio was, according to Fordun's scheme, about
W.N.W., and Aquilo, as rectified, N.N.E. If the standpoint is taken
in the middle of the Southern wall, Circio would point to the north of
Ulster, from whence the Dalriads proceeded, and Aquilo to the German
Ocean,'which would be so far in accordance with Gildas's statement that
both nations were " transmarini ;" but if the standpoint is taken at
Wales, Circio would point direct to Ireland, and Aquilo to the north-
east of Scotland. This is however on the basis of the correct position
of Scotland and Ireland, but at that time Scotland was believed to
tend more to the eastward than it really does. The Picts crossing the
Firth of Forth from any part of Scotland would, according to Ptolemy's
map, have come " ab Aquilone."
Cap. III. This and the three following chapters contain a description
of the divisions of the world, and the countries of Europe, Asia, and
Africa. Higden in like manner, after the prefatory chapters, com-
mences his work with a similar description (B. i. c. vi.) The de-
scriptions are taken in the main from Isidorus, Liber Etymologianim,
but Fordun also quotes in cap. v. " Tholomseus in Tripertita Nova."
What work is here referred to it is difficult to say. Ptolemy the
geographer, besides his Geography, wrote a work called Quadrapartita,
but the quotation has not been identified.
In Cap. V. line 14 Fordun writes At Jienas for Athencn.
'- Cap. VI. line 2, for insula read insulce ; line 9, for aliqualem read
aliqualis. Fordun frequently makes the adjective agree with the
wrong substantive, and places it in the wrong gender.
Cap. VII. The ages of the world here given correspond in part with
those in Nennius, and partly with those given by Bede in his "Chronicon
aive de temporibus."
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 381
Cap. VIII. With this chapter commences the narrative of the mythic
migration of the Scots from Egypt to Ireland under their eponymuSj
Gaythelos and his wife Scota ; but the legend differs somewhat from
the Irish form of the story. According to the Leabhar Gabhala^ or
Book of Conquests, Phenius farsa, king of Scythia, went to Senaar,
where he founded a school. His son Niul went to Egypt and married
Scota, daughter of Pharaoh, by whom he had a son, Gaedal Glas, who
after his death reigned there over the Scots with Scota his mother ;
and it was under his grandson, Sru, that the Scots left Egypt.
The form of the legend here makes Niul, or Neolus, a king of Greece,
whose son, Gaythelos, goes to Egypt and marries Scota, daughter of
Pharaoh, and Gaythelos and Scota leave Egypt with their people.
Fordun is not responsible for this change in the form of the story, for
it appears under the same form in Giraldus Cambrensis Topographia
Hiberniae, D. iii. c, vii.,^ and in Higden's Polychronicon. Probably
the oldest form of the legend is that given in the Life of St. Cadroe,^
in which Nelus, or Niulus, is a son of ^neas, a Lacedaemonian, and
marries Scota. According to the analogy of such mythic legends,
Gaythelos is the eponymus of the Gaelic race, and the name Scota is
formed from Scotia, and represents the country in which they settled.
The anonymous chronicles quoted by Fordun cannot be identified,
but the legend of St. Brandan, which he likewise refers to, was, so far
as he is concerned, not a supposititious work, for this part of Fordun's
work was not compiled till 1383 ; and in the Scalachronica written
before 1362 the same story is told, and is said to have been taken
from " La vie saint Brandane." ^ The number of the lives of St.
Brandane still preserved is very great, but in none of them is there the
slightest appearance of this legend. There seems, however, to have
been a life of a spurious St. Brandane, supposed to have flourished at
a later period in Scotland, in which it may have been found. Thus
Adam King, in Calendar published in 1588, has, " S. Brandane, abbot
and confessor in Scotland under King Malcolm, 1066." Camerarius
has two Saint Brandanes. The first is " S. Brandanus, abbas aposto-
lus Orcadum et Scoticorum insularum." This is obviously St. Brandane
of Clonfert, whose voyage among the islands of the ocean has made
him celebrated ; but he is followed by " Hoc eodem die, S. Brandanus
abbas Culrossise." Dempster has also a second S. Brandane : " S. Bran-
danus alius ab Orcadum apostolo et multis post ilium secuKs domi
sanctitate conspiciens. Claruit anno mlxvi. Regi Malcolmo ii. Cams."
Cap. IX. line 14, for commestor read Comestor.
Caps. X. XL XII. These chapters contain the narrative of the emi-
gration of Gaythelos with the Scots from Egypt by the Mediterranean
to Africa, and thence to Spain, where he founds the city of Brigantia.
According to the Book of Conquests, Sru leads the Scots through the
1 Ghron. Picts and Scots, p. 146. 2 /j^-^^ p, 109. 3 /j^-^, p, 194^
382 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
Ked Sea to the plains of Tabropana, and round by the Riphaean
mountains to Scythia, and his descendant, Milig, son of Bile, is driven
out and returns to Egypt, where he marries another Scota, and from
thence proceeds through the north of Europe and Gaul to Spain, and
founds the city of Breogan. This is obviously a mere reduplication of
the mythic migration of the Scots from Egypt to Spain.
Cap. X. line 25, for otius read ocius.
Cap. XII. line 1 3, for horas read 07*05.
Cap. XIII. introduces a new authority, under the name of " Grossum
Caput." This is the Latin rendering of the name Grosseteste, who was
bishop of Lincoln in 1236, and died in 1253, but the quotation is
certainly not from him. It may also be the rendering of the Gaelic
name Ceannmor, or "large head," Who the writer referred to was
cannot now be ascertained. There are two other quotations from the
same writer in chapters XVII. and XX., the three together forming
a short statement of the migration from Egypt direct to Ireland, where
they landed in Ulster. From Scota playing the principal part in this
form of the fable, and from her husband's name being spelt Gael or
Gay el, and not Gaythelos, this seems to be the source from which the
statement in the " Instructiones " given to the Scotch Commissioners
in 1301 was taken.
Cap. XIV. line 14, for deguit read degit.
Cap. XV. line 27, for circuiunt read circueunt.
Cap. XVI. In this and the following chapter, Gaythelos, who is
settled in Spain, sends some youths to discover Ireland, and on their
report his son Hyber goes with his brother Hymec to Ireland, and returns
after traversing the country Scotia, and leaving his brother there to rule
over the colony of Scots. This is at variance with the Irish legend.
Line 6, for drcuiuntes read circueuntes ; line 8, for rediunt read
redeunt. Cap. XVII. line 20, for incitatas read incitatus ; line 33,
for sicquidem read sw quidem ; line 40, for Germano read gei-mano.
Cap. XVIII. The name of Scotia originally belonged to Ireland, but
became transferred to Scotland in the reign of Malcolm 11., who reigned
from 1004 to 1034, and is called by Marianus Scotus " rex Scotiae."
Writers prior to the eleventh century, therefore, by Scotia meant Ire-
land. Fordun, however, whenever he finds Scotia and Scoti mentioned
appropriates these names to Scotland and the Scotch. The quotation
purporting to be made in this chapter from Isidore aptly illustrates how
he deals with such passages, and the loose way in which all his quota-
tions are made. It is taken from the Liber Etymologicarum, xiv. c. G,
§ 6. The original is as follows : — " Scotia eadem et Hibemia proxima
Britannise insula, spatio terrarum angustior, sed situ fsecundior. Ha3cab
Africo in Boream porrigitur : cujus partes priores Hiberiam et Canta-
bricum oceanum intendunt, unde et Ibemia dicta ; Scotia autem, quod
ab Scotorum geutibus colitur, appellata. Illic nulla auguis, avis rara,
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 383
apis nulla, adeo ut advectos inde pulveres, seu lapillos si quis alibi
sparserit inter alvearia, examina favos deserant." Fordun, in quoting th;s
passage as applicable to Ireland, omits all mention of Hibernia, and
substitutes for the sentence, " Scotia autem, quod ab Scotorum gentibus
colitur, appellata " some expressions not to be found in Isidore. These
he repeats in Book ii. cap. viii., in a quotation said to be taken from
Isidore, but which is not to be found there, and applies them to Scotland,
In consequence of the ambiguity created by this mode of dealing
with his quotations, the word Scotia is retained in the earlier part of
the translation, and is not rendered by Scotland.
Line 1, for dirivatam read derivatam ; line 35, for proprietate read
proprietatis, for decribere read describere.
Cap. XIX. line 30, for quo ad read quoad.
Cap. XX. Hyber and his son Nonael reign in Spain after Gaythelos.
The Chronicle here quoted cannot be identified.
Cap. XXI. The Irish and the Scotch fables here coincide in Mycelius
Espayn, who is evidently the Mile espayn of the Book of Conquests
who invaded Ireland; but, the Scotch fable gives him three sons,
Hermonius, Pertholomus and Hibertus, of whom the two latter only
remain in Ireland, while, according to the Irish fable, the three sons are
Herimon, Hiber, and Ir, who divide Ireland among them. Fordun
seems to have substituted the name of Pertholomus for Ir, in order to
connect this part of the fable with the account given by Geoffrey of
Monmouth, as quoted in the next chapter. According to the Irish
legend, Pertholomus led the first of four colonies which preceded the
arrival of the Milesians.
Cap. XXIV. Fordun's conjecture that Geoffrey may have meant the
Picts by this colony does not tend to elucidate the fable much, and has
no probability in favour of it .
Cap. XXV. It has not been thought necessary to translate this
chapter, which merely gives instances of " Discrepancies of histories "
from that of other countries, and has no bearing upon Scottish history.
Cap. XXVI. Here the Irish and Scotch fables again diverge. Ac-
cording to the Irish fable, Simon Breac was the thirty-sixth king of
Ireland and a descendant of Herimon, one of the sons of Milesius.
According to the Scotch story, he is a son of a king of the Scots in
Spain, and led a third colony to Ireland. The same form of the tale,
however, appears in the Scalachronica, where it seems to form part of
the story derived from the life of St. Brandan. Fordun quotes as his
authority the Legend of St. Congal. If this is the celebrated St. Com-
gall of Bangor, his life, which has been published in Fleming's Collect-
anea, contains no trace of this story ; but, as the Scotch Calendars have
a spurious St. Brandan, so have they also a spurious St. Congal, said to
have been abbot of Halywood in Dumfriesshire, and to have lived in
the reign of Malcolm n., a.d. 1016.
384 NOTES AND ILLUSTKATIONS.
Simon Breac is here said to have brought with him to Ireland
the '* fatal Stone," but the Irish and Scotch legends of the Liafail are
quite opposed to each other, and the Scotch accounts of it are discussed
at length in the editor's tract on " The Coronation Stone " in the
Proceedings of the Antiquarian Society, vol. viii. p. 68, and separately
published by Messrs. Edmonston and Douglas.
Cap. XXVIT. line 30, for py^ophatur read proplietatur.
Cap. XXVIII. We have here the first colony from Ireland to Scot-
land, according to Fordun, said to have been brought by Ethachius
Eothay, great-grandson of Simon Breac, who gave his name to the
island of Kothesay or Bute. Fordun's object was to bring the Scots to
Scotland at as early a period as possible, and his process was to take
names from the Celtic genealogy, which first appeared at the corona-
tion of William the Lyon, and which he received from the Bishop of
Glasgow, and convert them into kings of Scotland, and to bring his
fabulous history as much into connexion with real events as possible.
He probably had no other foundation for this statement than the re-
semblance of the name Rothesay, in the island of Bute, with the
epithet Rothay, which he found attached to the third name after
Simon Breac.
Cap. XXIX. In bringing the Picts from Aquitania, Fordun evidently
does not mean the Aquitania of Caesar, but the Roman province of that
name, which extended to the Loire and embraced the district of Poitou, or
the territory of the Gaulish Pictavi. The account here given seems a
mixture of Bede's statement, as contained in the next chapter, with
that contained in the Book of Conquests, where the Picts are likewise
said to have founded Pictavis on their way to Ireland.
Line 1, for quidam read quidem ; line 9, for insidam read insula;
line 24, for urbis read urbs.
Cap. XXXI. For the account here given of the influx of the Scot-
tish population into Scotland, Fordun is probably solely responsible.
Caps. XXXII. and XXXIII. It has not been thought necessary to
translate these chapters.
Cap. XXXIV. We are here introduced to the first fabulous king of
Scotland, Fergus, son of Ferechad or Farchard, said to have commenced
his reign 330 years before Christ.
He is produced in this way. The Scalacronica contains a chronicle,
according to that form in which the kings of the race of Fergus mac
Ere, who ruled over Dalriada from a.d. 503 to a.d. 745, are placed be-
fore the line of the Pictish kings, and thus removed to a remote era ;
but in this chronicle, the name of Fergus, son of Ere, is altered to
Fergus, son of Ferchard. Fordun finding a Forgo, son of Feradaigh,
in the pedigree, at once identifies him with that name and converts him
into a king of Scotland, as " Fergus, filius Ferechad sive Farchardi."
Line 18, for radicis read radices.
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 385
Cap. XXXV. The curious statement regarding the Picts said to
have been taken from the Polycraticon is not to be found in the
only known work bearing that name, viz., the Polycraticon of John of
Salisbury, who flourished in the twelfth century, and I have been un-
able to identify it.
BOOK II.
In this book Fordun gives the history of the first kingdom of the
Scots in Scotland, founded by Fergus, son of Ferchard, in 330 before
Christ, and which terminated in a.d. 360, when the Scots were again
driven out by Maximus, with the assistance of the Britons and Picts.
This kingdom is entirely fictitious.
As Fordun wrote before the revival of classical learning, he knows
nothing of Tacitus, Agricola, or the battle of the Grampians.
Cap. II. Fordun, in line 25^ again makes the adjective agree with
the wrong substantive, for meridiano read meridiance.
Cap. III. The quotation said in this chapter to be from Ptolemseus
is not to be found in the Geography of Ptolemy.
Cap. IV. line 6, for octingentorum we should read octingenta.
Cap. V. In this chapter, the second account, which brings the
Britons from Brutus, son of Isichyon, is apparently taken from Nennius.
Cap. VI. line 1, for neptce read nepte.
Cap. VII. In this description of the mainland of Scotland
Fordun especially mentions a chain of lofty mountains, which stretch
from end to end, that is, along the length of Scotland, and once sepa-
rated the Scots from the Picts. This chain is the Dorsum Britannise or
Drumalban, called by Adomnan the " Dorsi montes Britannici, quos
Pictos et Scotos utrosque disterminant " (lib. ii. c. 46). Much con-
fusion 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 mountain chain in Scotland, which they fancied might
represent it ; but an examination of the passages, in which it occurs,
shows that it was used with precision, and that there can be little doubt
as to which chain was meant by it. It was, in fact, the great water-
shed, or, to use a Highland expression, the great wind-and-water sheer,
which divided the waters flowing into the west and east seas respec-
tively, and separated the western seaboard from the eastern districts of
Scotland. The name implies this. It was a " dorsum," drum, or back-
bone, which separated the east and west waters, as a backbone does the
ribs. Of modern historians, Pinkerton alone has rightly placed it running
north and south at right angles to the great range of the Mounth,
which stretches from the Linn^ loch to the sea, near Stonehaven, form-
ing the southern boundary of Inverness- shire and Aberdeenshire. The
"Dorsum Britannise" separated the old district Argathelia or Argyll
VOL. II. 2 B
>
386 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
from the rest of Scotland, and the modern county of Argyll from Perth-
shire. It crosses the Mounth at Benalder, and then extends through
Inverness-shire and Ross-shire, at no great distance from the western
sea, separating the districts which form the western sea-board from
the eastern parts of these counties, and terminates in the hills dividing
Sutherland from Caithness. The name of Drum is found attached to
hills along the whole course of it.
Line 23, for munitionos read munitiones.
Cap. VIII. What writer is here quoted under the name of Herodotus
it is difficult to say. A similar quotation is found in Higden, Poly-
chronicon, from the same author.
The passage said to be quoted from Isidore is not to be found in his
Etymologia.
Line 10, for namquo read namque.
Cap. IX. line 21, for ohliviunt read ohliniunt ; line 22, for affahiles
read affabilis.
Cap. X. It is rather remarkable that, while Fordun says so little
about the districts on the mainland of Scotland, he should give such a
detailed account of the islands with their ecclesiastical foundations. It
leads to the suspicion that he had personally visited them in search
of materials for the early part of his history, and that among the
** ecclesise et coenobia," which he visited in his pedestrian excursion,
those of the Western Isles were included. After beginning with the Isle
of Man, he notices the islands in the Firth of Clyde, and we may suppose
that he started from thence on a voyage through the Western Isles.
He mentions Arran, Lamlash, Bute, the two Cumbraes, Pladda at the
south end of Arran, and Inchmernok on the west side of Bute, where
he notices the small monastery of which the remains still exist. It is
called, in Bleau's map, Kildavanach, a Cill or church of monks. He
then proceeds round the Mull of Kintyre, noticing the island of San-
day, which he calls Averyne, with its church, dedicated to Saint Senchan.
On rounding the Mull of Kintyre he would find himself surrounded by
the group which he notices, viz., Kachrin, Gigha, and Isla. He notices
the small island of Eilean More Vic o Charmaig, off the coast of Knap-
dale, on which there are the remains of a small church, and the island
of Texa on the west coast of Isla, on which there are also ecclesiastical
remains. He notices Colonsay with its abbey of canons-regular, which
he no doubt visited. The ruins of this abbey, or rather priory, founded,
according to Macvurich, by John, Lord of the Isles, who died in 1380,
are on the island of Oronsay, but Colonsay and Oronsay form one
island at low water, and are ordy separated by a channel at flood tide,
and Fordun seems to have so regarded them. In Spottiswoode's list of
religious houses the name of Colonsay has been strangely corrupted
into Crusay. He seems then to have proceeded by Jura and Scarba,
passing the gulf of Corrievrekan. The earliest notices of this gulf are
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 387
in Adomnan's Life of St. Coluraba, where it is "called " Charybdis
Brecani," the Dinseanchus and Cormac's Glossary. The account in the
latter is as follows : —
" Ooire Breccain, i.e. a great whirlpool, which is between Erin and
Alban to the north, in the meeting of the various seas (tides), viz., the sea
(tide) which encompasses Erin at the north-west, and the sea (tide) which
encompasses Alban at the north-east ; and the sea (tide) to the south
between Erin and Alban. They whirl round like revolving compasses, each
of them taking the place of the other, like the paddles of a millwheel, until
they are sucked into the depths, so that the coire or caldron remains
with its mouth wide open ; and it would suck even the whole of Erin
into its yawning gullet. It vomits iter-um that draught up, so that its
thunderous eructation and its bursting and its roaring are heard among
the clouds, like the steam boiling of a caldron on the fire. Brecan,
then, a noble merchant of the Hy Neill, had fifty curraghs trading
between Erin and Alban. They fell afterwards on that c&ire and it
swallowed them all together, and not even news of their destruction
escaped from it."
A description by Nicholas D'Arville, chief cosmographer to the
French King in 1546, in his account of the navigation of James V.
round Scotland, gives quite as formidable an account of the Scotch
Corrievrekan : —
" Between Scarba and Dura, there is the most dangerous tide in
Europe, because of contrary tides which encounter there, and run
betwixt the Mull of Kintyre and Ila, and passing through a strait
channel, it runs with such violence upon the coast of Scarba, that it is
thrown back upon the coasts of Dura with a frightful noise. In re-
turning, it makes a deep and roaring whirlpool, which hinders all ships
to enter ; if they unluckily get in there, they are in great danger of
being dashed in pieces ; but the safest time to pass that place, is either
when the water is at the highest or at the lowest ebb. This passage
is commonly called Correbrekin."
Dr. Reeves considers that the true site of the gulf is the channel
between Rachrin and Ireland, and identifies it with a pool called
Slognamarra, the name having been transferred by Fordun to the pool
between Jura and Scarba, but Fordun mentions it as if it were then well
known by that name. The account in Cormac's Glossary, which implies
that it was formed by the meeting of the ebb tides, which flow along
the west coast of Scotland, and the north coast of Ireland, in fact agrees
with neither site.
Fordun then passes by Lunga, Luing, Shuna, and Shell, and notices
Elean-na-naomh and Garveleane, two of the group called the Garveloch
Isles, on the former of which are still the remains of what must have been
an early ecclesiastical foundation of some importance ; he proceeds
through the Sound of Mull, passing the Castles of Dowart and Aioss,
388 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
and thence round the north end of Mull passing Caimburgh in his way
to Hy-Columkill ©r lona, which was no doubt the main object of his
journey. From hence Muck, Rum, Coll, and Tiree are visible. The
other islands he seems to have noted from hearsay, as he omits some
which he would hardly have done, if he had seen them, as Egg and
Canna, and further north he has evidently very vague information.
Thorset and Durneys, which he calls islands, are, the one probably
Thurso Castle, and the other the district of Durness, forming the
north-west part of Sutherland.
It must also be noted that he correctly renders some of the Gaelic
names, as Helant Leneow, or Eilean-na-naomh^ scilicet. Insula sanc-
torum. Helant Moh, id est. Insula porcorum.
He mentions "Insula Hy Columbkille (lona) ubi duo monasteria
sunt, unum monachorum, aliud monialium." Bower adds the information
that the monastery was one "nigrorum monachorum," and the nunnery
" sanctarum monialium ordinis sancti Augustini rochetam deferentium,"
and that the " monasterium vero monachorum usque ad tempus regis
Malcolm Viri Sanctse Margaretse fuit locus sepultufse et sedes regalis
quasi omnium regum Scotiae et Pictinise."
It is of this monastery and nunnery that the ruins now on the island are
the remains, and the date of their foundation can be fixed, for Macvurich,
in the Book of Clanranald, states that Reginald, the son of Somerled,
who ruled over the isles from 1166 to 1208, when he died, founded
three monasteries, viz., a monastery of Black Monks in I (or lona) in
honour of God and Columkil, a monastery of Black Nuns in the same
place, and a monastery of Grey Friars at Saghadul (Saddle in Kintyre).
This date corresponds with the inscription on one of the pillars of the
church : " Donaldus 0 Brolchain fecit hoc opus." The Irish Annals
mention the death of Donaldus 0 Brolchan, prior et excelsus senior, on
the 27th of April 1202.
Bower also adds to Fordun's chapter an account of the lakes in Scot-
land.
Line 44, for virginti read viginti.
Cap. XII. In this chapter Fordun commences his narrative of the
supposed early kingdom of the Scots in Scotland ; and states that
Fergus, son of Ferchard, their first king, extended his kingdom from
the Western Ocean and the islands to Dorsum Albanise or Drumalhan,
which he established as the boundary line between it and the kingdom
of the Picts. This statement is taken from the account given by the
Chronicles of the extent of the real kingdom founded by the historic
Fergus, son of Eric, in the sixth century. The oldest of these has
" Fergus filius Eric ipse fuit primus, qui de semine Chonare suscepit
regnum Alban, id est, a monte Drumalban usque ad mare Hibemise et
ad Inchegall." In this and the succeeding chapter Fordun identifies the
Reuda of Bede with the name Rether, which is the fourth name in the
1
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 389
old genealogy after Fergus, and to increase the resemblance he alters
Bede's Reuda to Reuterha. The statement by Bede that from their
leader Reuda the Scots of Britain were called " Dalreudini, nam lingua
eorum 'Daal' partem significat," seems to have given him the hint
to appropriate Redesdale in England to his Rether, and furnish him
with an event for his reign.
The Irish Annals know of no settlement of the Scots in Britain
prior to that by Fergus, son of Ere, in the year 503, who, according
to Tighernac, "cum gente Dalriada partem Britannise tenuit et ibi
mortuus est,"^ and St. Patrick, in the tripartite life, finds the son of Ere
still in the Irish district of Dalriada, and prophesies that the kings in
Irish Dalriada and in Alban shall descend from Fergus,^ but the later
Irish historians maintain that an earlier colony settled in Scotland
under Cairbre Riada, one of the three sons of Chonare, king of Ireland,
from whom their kingdom took the name of Dalriada. I have found
no authority for this in any old Irish document, except in Cormac's
Glossary, where, under the word Mugeime, it is said that Coirpre Muse,
one of the sons of Conaire, brought a lapdog from the east from Britain.
"For," says Cormac, "when great was the power of the Gael over Britain,
they divided Alban amongst them in districts," and certainly the pas-
sage in Bede which derives the name of the Dalreudini from their
leader Reuda does seem to correspond with the Irish statement that
Dalriada took its name from Cairbre Riada, son of Conaire, a pre-
decessor of Fergus, sou of Ere.
The Irish account of the origin of the Dalriads is as follows :
Angus Turmig, an ancient king of Ireland of the race of Heremon, had
two sons Eadhna Aignech and Fiacha Firmara. From Eadhna descended
the kings of Ireland and the great tribe of the Hy Neill. From Fiacha
descended a sept called the Earnochs, from their first settlement, under
his son Aillella Eraind, being on Loch Earn in Ulster. His son was
Feradaig, father of Forgo, whom Fordun has converted into his Fergus
son of Ferchard. Under a descendant of his, who had two sons,
Deagad and Eacha, the tribe divided into two, the descendants of
Deagadh being called the Deagads, who settled in Munster ; the de-
scendants of Eacha remained in Ulster, where from Fiatach Fin, a
descendant, who became king of Ulster, they were called the Dalfiatach.
The Deagads gave three kings to Ireland, Eidersgeoil and his son,
Conare mor, and a second Conare, son of Mogalama. Conare ii. had
three sons, Cairbre Muse, Cairbre Baiscin, and Cairbre Riada. From
the two former are descended the tribes called the Muscraighe and the
Corca Baiscin in Munster. Cairbre Riada founded the small kingdom
of Dalriada in Ireland, afterwards called the Route, and forming its
north-east comer, and the cognate kingdom of Dalriada in Scotland.
The Irish genealogy from Angus Turmig, or Turbig Temrach, will be
1 Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 66. ^ /^^-^^^ p_ 17^
390 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
found in a tract printed in the Chronicles of the Pids and Scots, p.
315, and corresponds in the main with the genealogy of the supposed
ancestors of the kings of Scotland, which first appeared in the year
1165. —See Chron. Picts and Scots, pp. 133, 134.
The first historic appearance of the Scots in Britain is in the year
360, when, along with the Picts and Saxons, they burst into the Roman
province, and in 369 they were expelled by Theodosius. The invasions
of the province by the Scots after that date are uniformly accompanied
by expressions which imply that they came from Ireland. I believe
that this occupation of part of Britain by the Scots from 360 to 369
is the sole historic basis for the earlier Irish colony, and the expres-
sion in Cormac's Glossary that the principal fort founded by them in
Alban was called " the three fossed fort of Crimthau mor, son of
Fidach, King of Erin and Alban," connects the settlement with the
reign of that monarch, which extended, according to the Annals of the
Four Masters, from 366 to 378.
Cap. XVI. Fordun seems to have had no authority for this account
of Caesar's wars with the Picts and Scots, and probably emulated
Geofi'rey of Monmouth, who gives an imaginary account of his cam-
paigns in Britain, interspersed with speeches and letters, when he takes
him north to the Firth of Forth, and makes him write to the Picts
and Scots, whose reply he gives at length. He also makes him the
builder of the curious little building on the banks of the Carron,
commonly called Arthur's O'on, without however giving it a name.
Bower states in 1447 that it was *'.a plebeis Arthuris Hove dicebatur,"
and Boece seems to have been the first to give it the name of " Julis
HoflF, id est, Julii aula sive curia," and adds " quod nomen, ad nos
divenit ab incolis" (lib. iii. 1. xxvi.) The oldest notice of it is in
some of the mss. of Nennius, in which its erection is attributed to
Carausius.
In the title to this chapter, for redditu read reditu ; and in line 10
for redditus read reditus ; and for policisque read politisque.
Cap. XVIII. XIX. XX. It has not been thought necessary to trans-
late these chapters, which contain nothing bearing upon Scottish history.
Cap. XXII. and XXIII. are likewise omitted.
Cap. XXVII. Fordun has here applied the account of the settle-
ment of the Picts in Britain according to Geofi'rey and the British writers
to a supposed colony of Moravians. He has been led into this by
the resemblance of the name of Moravia, one of the provinces of Scot-
land, with the country of Moravia in the east of Europe, but the
attempt to apply Geoff'rey's account of the Picts to these Moravians
leads to a confusion between Moravia in Scotland and Catania or
Caithness.
Cap. XXVIII. This chapter, except the opening sentence, and the
succeeding chapters, XXIX, and XXX., which contain an account of
I
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 391
the Roman Emperors, mainly taken from Bede's tract De temporibus,
are likewise omitted in the translation.
Cap. XXXII. line 22, former stabile Tesid perstahile.
Gap. XXXIII. Fordim places Severus's wall between the Tyne and
the Esk. In this he follows Bede, who describes the wall built by
the Britons, when the Roman legions were about to be withdrawn and
the northern part of the province surrendered to the barbarian invaders,
as not far from the wall of Severus. It is now quite ascertained that
the remains of the rampart between the Tyne and the Solway, which
Bede attributes to the work of Severus, all belong to the wall con-
structed there by the Emperor Hadrian in a.d. 120, and the weight of
the Roman authorities is entirely in favour of Severus's wall having
been constructed between the Forth and the Clyde.
The oldest authorities on the subject are Spartian, Sextus Aurelius
Victor, and Eutropius. Spartian, who wrote about 280, does not
mention the length of the wall. He merely says : " Britanniam, quod
maximum ejus imperii decus est, muro per transversam insulam ducto,
utrimque ad finem oceani munivit." Aurelius Victor, and Eutropius,
who both wrote about a.d. 360, distinctly say that the wall was
thirty-two miles long. Aurelius Victor says : " His majora aggressus
(Severus) Britanniam, quse ad ea utilis erat, pulsis hostibus, muro
munivit, per transversam insulam ducto, utrimque ad finem oceani"
(/>d Cces. 20) ; and again, " Hie (Severus) in Britannia vallum
per triginta duo passuum millia a mari ad mare deduxit." — {Epit.
40.) Eutropius says : "Novissimum bellum in Britannia habuit
(Severus) : utque receptas provincias omni securitate muniret, vallum
per 32 millia passuum a mari ad mare deduxit ' " (viii. 19).
If the wall was thirty-two Roman miles in length, it can only have
extended across the peninsula between the Forth and the Clyde. What
probably misled Bede was the language of the ecclesiastical writers, Euse-
bius and Orosius. Eusebius, as reported by St. Jerome, says : " Severus
in Britannos bellum transfert, ubi, ut receptas provincias ab incursione
barbarica faceret securiores, vallum per 132 passuum millia a mari ad
mare duxit," And Orosius, who wrote in 417, says : " Severus victor
in Britannias defectu pene omnium sociorum trahitur. Ubi magnis
gravibusque prseliis ssepe gestis, receptam partem insulse a cseteris
indomitis gentibus vallo distinguendam putavit. Itaque magnam fossam
firmissimumque vallum, crebris insuper turribus communitum, per centum
triginta et duo millia passuum a mari 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
between the Forth and the Clyde. Horsley supposed that in the
original the distance had been written cxxxii., and that c had been
written by mistake for l, which would make the real distance Ixxxii
miles, but no ms. supports this conjecture, and Nennius, who quotes
392 NOTES AND ILLUSTKATIONS.
the passage from Eusebius, adds, " et vocatur Britannico sermone
Guaul, a Penguaul, quae villa Scottice Cenail, Anglice Tero Peneltun
dicitur, usque ad ostium fluminis Cluth et Cairpentaloch, quo mums
ille finitur rustico opere ;" thus clearly placing the wall between the
Forth and Clyde. That this must have been the real position of the
wall is plain from the fact that Severus had defeated the barbaric
tribes, and made peace after taking part of their territory, and the
theory which places the wall between the Tyne and the Solway in-
volves the manifest contradiction that he must have abandoned his con-
quests, and ceded part of the Roman province. Chalmers, who saw
this diflBculty, supposes that he built the wall before he commenced his
conquests, but this is opposed to all the authorities. The wall was
built " pulsis hostibus," and after he had concluded peace.
The plain fact seems to be that the northern frontier of the Roman
province always remained at the Forth and Clyde from the time
the wall was first built by Lollius Urbicus in 140, "submotis bar-
baris," till 360, when the barbarian tribes broke through it and took
possession of the territories between the walls for a short period. It
was again re-established by Theodosius in 369, and remained the frontier
till the Britons withdrew it to the southern wall, when the Roman
legions left the island. Severus seems to have rebuilt and more
strongly fortified the wall of Antonine.
Cap. XXXIV. In the quotation here made from Geoff'roy, Book v.
c. 2, Fordun alters Scythiam to Scociam, and adds the Scots to the
Picts.
Cap. XXXV. Fordun here places the introduction of Christianity
into Scotland under Pope Victor in the year 203. Whence he got the
verses he quotes, it is impossible to say. In the " Instructiones " in
in 1301, the Scots were said to have first received Christianity by the
relics of St. Andrew being brought into Scotland, an event which
Fordun places in the time of Maximus, that is, towards the end of the
fourth century, but Baldred Bisset, in the " processus " which followed
the " Instructiones," places the conversion of the Scots four hundred
years before that of the Anglican nation, that is, before the arrival
of Augustine in 599, which would place it in the year 199. Fordun
has probably selected the time of Pope Victor from Bede having placed
the conversion of the Britons under King Lucius at the same time.
Line 4, for ceperunt read cceperunt.
Cap. XXXVI. The latter part of this chapter containing a con-
tinuation of the account of the Roman Emperors taken from Bede is
omitted.
Cap. XXXIX. line 6, for qui read quae.
Cap. XLII. line 1 3, for terristrique read terrestrique.
Cap. XLIII. line 12, for Nichomedia discedenti read Nichomedioe
decedmti ; line 21, the scribe has written Ciciliam for CUiciam.
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 393
Cap. XLV. Fordun here concludes his narrative of the Roman
transactions in Britain, which he adapts to his fictitious account of
the early kingdom of the Scots, by their expulsion from Scotland by
Maximus, who assumed the title of emperor in a.d. 384 ; and, as he com-
menced his fictitious kingdom with Fergus, son of Ferchard, whom he
calls first king of the Scots, he terminates it with Eugenius, supposed
to be slain in battle by Maximus, while his brother Echach, with his
son Erch, took refuge in Ireland. The expulsion of the Scots by
Maximus seems to have been suggested by the following passage of
Prosper, with whose work Fordun was acquainted : — " Incursantes
Pictos et Scotos Maximus strenue superavit." Fordun antedates Maxi-
mus's reign by twenty-four years. Line 14, for nephanda read
nefanda.
Cap. XL VI. XLVII. XLVIII. In the interval between his expul-
sion of the Scots by Maximus in a.d. 360 and their return after his death,
Fordun inserts in these chapters part of the legend of the arrival in Scot-
land of the relics of St. Andrew and the foundation of St. Andrews, taken
in the main from the legend which formed part of the " Historia," con-
tained in the Register of the Priory of St. Andrews, but he divides the
legend, and relegates the latter part of it to a Hungus, king of the
Picts, in the ninth century. Cap. xlvi. line 17, for mutu read
nutu.
Cap. XLIX. Having in the previous chapter narrated the supposed
expulsion of the Scots by Maximus, in this chapter he adds the subjec-
tion of the Picts by him.
Cap. L. line 1 6, for devulgato read devulgata.
Cap. LI. It has not been thought necessary to translate this chap-
ter, which has no bearing upon Scotch history.
Cap. LII. In the concluding chapter of this Book Fordun indicates
that, Maximus being dead, the Scots prepare to return to Scotland.
Line 24, for generem read generum.
BOOK in.
With this Book Fordun leaves the region of pure myth and fable,
and enters the domain of history. Book iii. contains the history of the
colony of Scots from Ireland which established itself under Fergus, son
of Ere, in Dalriada, in Scotland. This colony is historical, though
Fordun has mixed up the historical narrative with some fabulous
matter, and in the latter part of its history has followed the corrupted
form of the Chronicles.
Cap. I. Fordun, having narrated the expulsion of his fictitious colony
of Scots by the Romans and Britons in the year 360, now brings them
394 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
back forty-three years after, under Fergus, son of Erth, in the year
403. This settlement of the Scots under Fergus is historical, but For-
dun antedates it about a hundred years. Flann Mainistrech, the oldest
authority on the subject, states that " twenty years after the battle of
Ocha, the children of Ere, son of Echach Munreamhar, passed over into
Alban." As the battle of Ocha was fought in some year between 478
and 483, this places the date of the historic settlement of the Scots
between 498 and 503. Tighemac has under 501 "Feargus mor mac
Earca cum gente Dalriada partem Britannia? tenuit et ibi mortuus est."
What motive Fordun had for antedating the colony, it is difficult to
say, but, as his theory required an expulsion of the fictitious colony
brought in by the mythic Fergus, son of Ferchard, in order to bring
them back under the historic Fergus, son of Ere, his object probably
was to bring that expulsion in harmony with the recorded subjection
of the Scots by Maximus.
His mode of accounting for this added century is not very scrupulous.
He adds to the length of the reign of some of the kings, and inter-
polates other fictitious kings not to be found in the old lists.
Cap. II. In this chapter Fordun states that forty-five kings had
reigned, from the fictitious Fergus son of Ferchard to the genuine
Fergus son of Ere ; but, with a prudence not imitated by his followers,
he excuses himself from giving their names or the events of their reigns.
Why he fixed on this number does not appear, as in point of fact there
are only thirty-three names recorded in the old pedigree, which first
appeared in 11 65. The first appearance of any statement as to the
number of these fictitious kings is in Baldred Bisset's " Processus," in
1301, who states that thirty-six Christian kings reigned in Scotland
from the introduction of Christianity 400 years before the Saxons were
converted. In the letter of the Barons, in 1320, it is stated that
Robert Bruce was the 1 1 3th king of the Scots, and, as he was in reality
the fifty-third king from Fergus son of Ere, according to the Chronicles,
and fifty-seventh according to Fordun, this gives at least fifty-six kings
before Fergus. The names in the old pedigree between Simon Breac
and Fergus amount to about that number. Fordun seems arbitrarily
to have fixed on forty-five as the number.
He also lengthens Fergus's reign from three to sixteen years. The
list in the register of St. Andrews, which he seems to have followed in
the main, has "Fergus filius Erth primus in Scotia regnavit tribus
annis ultra Drumalban usque Sluaghmaner et usque ad Inchgaall."
This is somewhat altered from the older chronicle, which has " a monte
Drumalban usque ad mare Hiberniae et ad Inchgal." Fordun reconciles
the statement in the Chronicles with his reign of sixteen years by
supposing that he had reigned only during the last three years beyond
Drumalban, and substitutes the **mare Scoticum" or Firth of Forth
for the " Sluaghmaner " of the St. Andrews, and the " mare HibernisB "
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 395
of the older chronicle, thus extending the rule of the Scots over the
whole extent of the kingdom of Scotland.
Cap. III. The first sentence of this chapter is from Gildas, the
remainder from Bede. Line 1 8 : the scribe has written Jinibus for
sinibus, the word in Bede.
Cap. IV. Fordun gives Fergus three sons, Eugenius, Dongardus, and
Constantius, but the first and last are fictitious, and only one son of
Fergus is recorded, viz., Domangart, here called Dongardus.
Cap. V. Eugenius, with his reign of thirty-three years, is one of the
fictitious kings interpolated by Fordun to make out the additional 100
years required to take this colony back to the year 403. In the title
to this chapter the scribe has written Farchard for Erth.
Cap. VII. line 15, for agentes we should probably read augentes.
Cap. VIII. The original authority for these passages about Palladius
is contained in the Chronica of Prosper Aquitanus, who wrote in the
year 455. He has, in the year 431, "Ad Scotos in Christum credentes
ordinatus a papa Coelestino Palladius primus episcopus mittitur."
There can be no question that by the Scoti here Prosper meant the
Irish, but Fordun, as usual, applies the passage to the Scots in Scotland,
and brings himself at once into this dilemma, viz., — If the Scots were
converted in a.d. 203, and only received their first Bishop in a.d. 431,
what was the constitution of the church between these dates? He
solves it by supposing that it must have been governed by Presbyters
only, or monks, and this supposition is the main foundation for the
dream of the ecclesiastical historians of Scotland, that there was an
early Presbyterian Culdee church in Scotland. Of course the dilemma
is created entirely by Fordun's fiction of an early settlement of Scots
in Scotland, and their conversion to Christianity in the third century.
Line 9, for excepti read excerpti.
Cap. IX. The Historia Beati Kentigerni, here quoted, is not Joscelyn's
Life of Saint Kentigern, printed by Pinkerton in his Vitse Sanctorum,
but agrees in the main with the fragment of a life contained in the
Cottonian MS. (Titus, A. xix.), and printed in the Glasgow Chartulary
(vol. i. p. Ixxvi.) Line 41, for operatur read operator.
Cap. XI. The letter to Aetius is quoted by Bede from Gildas,
where it first appears, but it has been placed by the latter in wrong con-
nexion with other events, and this has led to the false chronology of
the departure of the Komans, the revolt of the Picts and Scots, and the
arrival of the Saxons. The order in which Gildas narrates these events
is as follows. He first describes two devastations of the Roman province
by the Picts and Scots, after each of which they were driven back by
the Roman troops. He then narrates the final departure of the Roman
army, followed by the occupation of the territory between the walls by
the Picts and Scots, and their renewed ravages of the country south of
the Southern wall. He then quotes this document, which purports
396 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
to be a letter by the Britons, addressed *' Aetio ter consule," implor-
ing assistance against the *' Barbari," who drive them to the sea, while
the sea throws them back on the "Barbari." He understands by
these " Barbari " the Picts and Scots. The assistance asked from the
Romans being refused, the Britons then invite the Saxons, who arrive
in three ships, drive back the Picts, afterwards unite with them to
attack the Britons, and finally conquer the country.
The date of the letter to Aetius can be at once ascertained, for he was
consul for the third time in 446, and the dates of the other events
have been fixed in accordance with this, — the devastations by the Picts
and Scots being extended over the period which precedes the year
446, and the arrival of the Saxons being stated by Bede in the year
449. We know however from Zosimus that the Roman army really left
Britain finally in the year 409. We learn, from Constantius's Life of
Saint Germanus, that the Saxons had already, in alliance with the Picts,
attacked the Britons in 429 ; and Prosper, a contemporary authority,
tells us that in 441 "Britanniae usque ad hoc tempus variis cladibus
eventibusque latas, in ditionem Saxonum rediguntur." The Saxons must,
therefore, have completed their subjugation of the Britons six years before
this letter was written. And it follows that by the " Barbari " must
have been meant the Saxons, and not the Picts and Scots, and that
the letter was an appeal to the Romans for assistance against the
Saxons. The language of the letter too seems exaggerated and in-
applicable when referred to the temporary incursions of the Picts and
Scots from the north, but is quite appropriate, if directed against the
steady and permanent encroachment of the Saxons from the East.
Take the letter from its present place and place it after the narrative
of the Saxons joining the Picts and attacking the Britons, and the
order of events as narrated by Gildas and Bede harmonizes at once with
the older authorities. Line 27, for quantotius read quantocius.
Cap. XII. It is impossible to identify the Chronicles referred to in
the beginning of this chapter.
Cap. XIV. Fordun here quotes " qusedam Historia," which is no
doubt the " Historia " mentioned in the list of contents of the great
register of the Priory of St. Andrews. Fordun in the previous chap-
ters had quoted Galfridus, Paulus Diaconus, and Baeda, and in the cor-
responding part of Hector Boece's history he says his authorities were
Galfridus Monumetensis, Eutropius, Paulus Diaconus, Baeda, Vere-
mundus (Scot. Hist. B. vii. fol. 132), which is corroborative of the
suggestion made in the preface to vol. i., that the " Historia " was the
work attributed by Boece to Veremundus.
Dongardus is said to have begun to reign in a.d. 452, and to have
reigned five years. The duration of his reign corresponds with the
Chronicles, but his death is placed by Tighernac in 505, who has in that
year " the death of Domangart Mac Nissi, King of Albau.'^
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 397
Cap. XV. line 10, for tantum read tantam.
Cap. XVI. Constantius, with his reign of twenty-two years, is also
interpolated by Fordun to make up the additional 100 years.
Cap. XVIII. Congallus, son of Dongard, is said to have commenced
his reign a.d. 489, and to have reigned twenty -two years. In the
Chronicles he succeeds his father, Domangart, and reigns twenty-four
years. Tighernac has under the year 538, " Comgall mac Domanguirt
righ Alban obiit xxx suo anno regni sui."
Cap. XIX. XX. It has not been thought necessary to translate
these chapters. Cap. xx. line 26, for Sanctis read Sa7ictus.
Cap. XXI. Fordun correctly makes Gonranus succeed Congallus. He
is the Gabhran or Gouran of the Chronicles, but Fordun adds twelve
years to his reign, and makes it commence in 501. Tighernac has under
the year 560 "the death of Gabrain, son of Domangart, King of
Alban."
Cap. XXII. XXIII. The poem quoted in these chapters and
attributed to Gildas is to be found in the Colbertine MS., and there is
also an imperfect copy in the British Museum (Bib. Reg. G. B. ix.)
Cap. XXIV. XXV. Fordun seems to have been puzzled about
Arthur, as there are three editions of Chapter xxv. For his real con-
nexion with Scotland the reader may consult the " Four Ancient Books
of Wales," chapter iv. Cap. xxv. line 13, for necessitatis read neces-
sitas.
Cap. XXVI. This Eugenius or Eochodius Hebdre is also one of
Fordun' s interpolated fictitious kings. Gabhran was, according to the
Chronicles, succeeded by Conall, the son of Comgall, whom Fordun
calls Convallus, and makes the successor of Eugenius. Fordun is
obliged now to come closer to the tme chronology, as Conall is the
king mentioned by Adomnan, in his " Life of Saint Columba" (B. i. c.
7), who narrates that Columba, being then in Britain, about two years
after the battle of Cuildrebne, which was fought in 561, described the
battle of Andemone, fought in 563, "coram Conallo rege filio Comgall:"
which places this interview in the year 563, the year of St. Columba's
arrival in Britain.
It is remarkable that Tighernac calls the first four kings of Dalriada
" Ri Alban," and Conall is the first whom he designates " Ri Dalriada,"
the title which his successors bore. In mentioning the death of Gabhran
" Ri Alban," in 560, he adds, " Flight of the Albanaich before Brude, son
of Maelcon, king of the Cruithne" (Picts). This is the king whom Bede
calls (B. III. c. iv.) " rex potentissimus," and it is not unlikely that, under
the first four kings, the " gens Dalriada " had attempted to extend their
possessions in Alban, but, after this check, were confined within the
bounds of the territory to which the name of Dalriada was applied, being
separated from the Picts, on the east, by the range of Drumalban, and
from the Britons, on the south, by the Clyde, and having a more flexible
398 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
boundary on the north, somewhat on a line with the island of lona, so
that Bede might fairly state that it was given to Columba by the
Picts who inhabited the adjacent districts, while Tighernac says it waa
given by this Conall.
The Dalriads consisted of three tribes called " the three powerfuls
of Dalriada," viz., the Cinel Loarn, or descendants of Loarn, who pos-
sessed the district of Lorn as far as the north boundary of Dalriada ;
the Oinel Gabhran, or descendants of Gabhran, who possessed Kintyre,
Cowall, and several islands; to this tribe seems to have been reckoned
also the descendants of Comgall, the brother of Gabhran, from whom
Cowall takes its name ; and the third tribe was the Cinel Angusa,
who possessed the island of Isla (see the History of the Men of Alban,
Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 308).
Fordun makes Conall begin to reign in 558, and reign ten years,
which would put his death in 5 §8. The Chronicles give him a reign
of fourteen years, and Tighernac has under 574 '' Bas (death of) Conaill
mac Comgaill Ri Dalriada xiii. anno regni sui, qui offeravit insulam la
Columkille." Fordun makes him succeeded by his brother Kynatel or
Connyd, who reigned one year and three months — a fictitious king.
According to the Chronicles he was succeeded by Aidan, son of Gabran.
Cap. XXVII. Fordun very appropriately commences his account of
the reign of Aidap, son of Gahran, with the account of his inaugura-
tion as king by Saint Columba, taken from Adomnan's Life (B. iii.
c. v.) He gives 570 as the date of the commencement of his reign, and
thirty-five years as the duration of it, which gives 605 as the year of
his death. This last date coincides nearly with that of Tighernac, who
has under 606 " Bass (death of) Aedain mac Gabrain, anno xxxviii.
regni sui, aetatis vero lxxiii." The 38 years* reign given by Tighernac
is a mistake, as he had put the death oFTiis predecessor in 574. Ac-
cording to the Chronicle of St. Andrews, he reigned thirty-six years.
Line 9, for linosum the word in Adomnan is livorosum.
Cap. XXVIII. Fordun states, in the previous chapter, that the
Scots fought two battles in the reign of Aidan against the Norwegians,
Picts, and Saxons, one'under Brendinus and the other under Aidan
hijiiself. The first battle is here said to have taken place in tlie
fifteenth year of his reign, that is, according to Fordun's chronology, in
the year 58.4, and he ingeniously identifies it with a battle, recorded
in the same year in the Saxon Chronicle, between Ceawlin, King
of the West Saxons, and his son Cutha, and the Britons, at a place
called Fethanlege ; this battle was fought, however, in Gloucester-
shire, and it is unlikely that tlie Scots took any part in it. It is no
doubt the " Cath Manand " which Tighernac records under the years
582 and 583, and which must have been fought either in the Isle of
Mannan (ifen), or in the district of Mannan in the north.
Cap. XXIX. The second battle is here recorded to have been fought
NOTES AND ILLUSTEATIONS. 399
in his twenty-third year, that is, in 59^, and is identified with another
battle, recorded in the Saxon Chronicle, as having been fought in that
year at Woddesbeorg between Ceawlin and the Britons. Woddes-
beorg is, however, Wansborough in Wiltshire, and the same objection
applies. Tighernac has in 590 ''the battle of Leithrigh by Aedan,
son of Gabran," and in 596^" Jugulatio filiorum Aedan, id est, Bran and
Domangart and Eochach Fin and Arthur in the battle of Chirchinn, in
quo victus est Aedan.^'' Fordun identifies the battle in 592 with the
" Bellum Miathorum" recorded in Adomnan's Life (B. i. c. '8), and as,
in the next chapter, Adomnan says that Arthur and Eoclmd^ Fin were
slain in that battle, it seems to be the same with the battle recorded
by Tighernac in 596. Which of Aedaii's sons was intended by the
name Griffinus it is impossible to say, but he seems to be the same as
the Bran of Tighernac.
Cap. XXX. The battle with Ethelfrid is here rightly placed in his
thirty-third year. It is recorded l5y"Tighernac in the year 600, but
is placed by Bede, who is better authority, in the year 603. Line 31,
for trihutarios we should read tributarias.
Cap. XXXL This prophecy is taken from Adomnan (B. i. c. 9).
Line 15, Arturius seems written for Dongardus.
Kenneth kere is here interposed between Aydan and his son Eochoid-
buyd, but the order should be inverted.
Cap. XXXII. Fordun gives 606 as the commencement of the reign of
Eochodius, whom he also calls Eugenius Buyd, and sixteen years as its
duration, which accords with the Chronicle of St. Andrews. He appears
in the older documents as Eocha Buidh.
Cap. XXXIV. Fordun makes Eochodius or Eocha Buidh succeeded
by his son Ferchard in 622, and gives him a reign of ten years. He is
not mentioned by the Irish annalists ; but in the Chronicle of St.
Andrews, Eochoid-buyd is succeeded by Keneth kere, and he by "Ferchar
filius Ewini," who reigns sixteen years. Fordun considered Ewin or
Eugenius another name for Eocha Buyd. His successor Donenaldus or
Donald Brek is rightly made a son of Eocha Buyd, and his reign of
fourteen years accords with the Chronicle of St. Andrews.
Cap. XXXV. line 7, for insulas read infulas.
Cap. XXXVII. The death of Donald Brec is here put in his fourteenth
year. The Chronicle of St. Andrews gives him a reign of fourteen years,
and Tighernac records his death in 642, in the fifteenth year of his reign.
Fordun makes his successor Ferchardus Fode his " negos," by his brother
Farchardus, and gives him a reign of eighteen years, commencing in 64i.
The Chronicles give him no father, and a reign of twenty-one years, but
he was certainly of a different race from the previous kings and the,fi£§tii£.
the line of Loarn who ruled over Dalriada. Tighernac has at 678 : "In-
terfectio~ge!ieriS~I2»aliTrin ^lirinnTid est, Ferchair fotai et Britones, qui
victores erant. " If this was the termination of his reign it places its com-
400 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
mencement in 657. Flann Mainistrech and the Albanic Duan place four
kings between Conald Brec and Fercliaiii^Fada, viz., Conall Crandomna
and Dunchad mac Duban, who reigned jointly for ten years, Donald
Donn, who has a reign of thirteen years, and Mailduin, son of Conall,
who reigns seventeen. The latter king Fordun places after Ferchar
Fode, but omits the others. Tighernac has at 660 the death of Conall
Crandomna, and 689 the death of Maelduin his son. Conall Cran-
domna and Donald Donn appear to have been sons of Eochach buidhe
(Ghron. Fids and Scots, p. 310).
Cap. XL. Fordun makes Maldwyny the son of Donald and successor
of Ferchar Fada, and gives the year 664 as the commencement of his
reign, but in all the Chronicles he precedes Feigh^r. Fordun gives him
a reign of twenty years, which w^ould place his death in 684, which
nearly corresponds with the Irish Annals, who place his death in 689.
Cap. XLIII. By Eugenius quartus, the son of Dongard, son of
Donald Brek, whose reign commences in 674, and who reigned three
years, Fordun evidently means the Eocho Rianamhail of Flann Mainis-
trech, the Eochaidh-nan-each of the Albanic Duan, and the Heaghed
monauel of the Chronicle of St. Andrews, whose reign is there given
as three years. He is not mentioned in the Annals. His successor,
Eugenius quirdus, is one of Fordun's interpolated kings. In his quo-
tation from Bede, Fordun alters the term Picts, as it is in the original,
to Scots, so as to make Ecfrid fight against tlie Scots. It is a good
instance of the mode, in which Fordun manipulates his authorities, so
as to adapt them to his theory of an early extensive Scottish kingdom.
Cap. XLIV. Amrikellach, here called the son of Findan, son of
Eugenius quartus, appears in all the Chronicles, and also in the Irish
Annals, but in the latter, as well as in Flann Mainistrech, the Albanic
Duan, and the Chronicle of 1165, he is made the son of Ferchair Fada.
The Chronicle of 1187 and oifSt. Andrews make him son of Fmdan,
and Fordun makes Findan son of Eugenius quartus. Fordun gives him
a reign of one year only, and makes his reign commence in 697. Tigher-
nac places in this year the death of. Ferchar Fada, and tHe Annals of
Ulster have, in 698, " Expulsio Ainfcellach filii Ferchar de regno et
vinctus ad Hiberniam vehitur."
Cap. XLV. The Chronicle of 1165 inserts a Ewin, son of Fearchar
Fada, between him and Seivach, his son, according to the older
authorities. The Chronicle of 1187 and of St. Andrews make Ewin
son of Findan, and in Fordun he appears as Eugenius sextus. He is
succeeded by Mur^Jacus, son of Amrikelleth, who begins to reign in
715, and reigns fifteen years. He appears in the Chronicle of 1165
with a reign of three years. Is omitted in that of 1187, but appears
in the Chronicle of St. Andrews. Tighernac has at 733 " Muredach
mac Ainbhcellaig regnum generis Loam assumit."
Cap. XLVI. XLVII. Fordun makes the reign of his successor.
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 401
Ethfyn, son of Eugenius sextus, to commence in 730, and gives him
a reign of thirty-one years. The Chronicle of St. Andrews gives him also
a reign of thirty years. The Annals of Ulster have, in the year 778,
" Aedfinn mac Echdach rex Dalriati mortuus est." The Eugenius Sep-
timus, son of Murdac, here made his successor, is placed before him
in the Chronicle of St. Andrews. His successor is Fergus, son of
Echdach, who begins to reign in 763, and reigns three years. The
Annals of Ulster have, at 781, "Ferris mac Echdach ri Dalriati
defunctus est." It is at this period of the list of the Kings of Dalriada,
that the great divergence commences between the older lists given by
Flann Mainistrech and in the Albanic Duan, and the later lists in the
Chronicle of 1165 and the subsequent Chronicles. By the former, the
four following kings, Selvach, EochaMh Angbaidh, Dungall, and Alpjn,
precede Aedfinn, and follow immediately after Ainbhcellach ; and after
Fergus appear eight kings not to be found in the Chronicles. The
dates in the Irish Annals, however, support the older lists. Thus
Fordun makes Selvach's reign commence in 766, and gives him a reign
of twenty-one years, which would make it terminate in 7^. In
Tighernac, however, we have in 714. "Dunollaig construitur apud Sel-
bacum." In 719, two battles, one between him and Ainbhcellach, in
which the latter is slain, and another between the genus Gabhran under
Dunchadh Becc, and " Selbac_cum „..gfinere^.LQairn,'' in which he is
defeated, and in 7.^ " Clericatus Selbaigh regis Dalwada."
Cap. XLVIII. Fordun makes Achaius, who succeeds Selvach, the
son of Ethfyn, places the commencement of his reign in 787, and gives
him a reign of thirty-two years. In the later Chronicles he has a reign
of thirty years. In Flann Mainistrech he is the second of the four kings
who precede Aedfinn, and Tighernac has, in 726, " Eochach^mac Eochach
regnare incipit," and in 733^ "Eochach mac Echach ri Dalriada et
Conall mac Conchobair mortui sunt." It is with this M^ Achaius that
Fordun places the celebrated" alliance between the Scots and Charle-
magne. He records in the Gesta Annalia (cxxxviii.) that, in the year
1323, Robert Bruce, king of Scotland, sent ambassadors to France to
renew the ancient league between the kings of France and Scotland,
which, he says, was happily accomplished. This treaty was concluded
in the year 1326, and the text of it is preserved. In it the king of
France states his willingness to " renew by treaty the friendship and
goodwill which have long subsisted between our predecessors, kings of
France, and our kingdom on one part, and the said kingdom of Scot-
land on the other." There was, therefore, some tradition before
Fordun's time of an older alliance. David Chambres in his history
dedicated to Henry iii. of France in 1579, produces a series of treaties
of alliance between Malcolm iii. and Philip i. of France, Malcolm iv.
and William the Lion with Lewis vii., Alexander ii. and Philip ii.,
and Alexander iii. and St. Lewis ; but there is no trace of any such
VOL. IL 2 C
402 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
treaties ever having been entered into, and they are obviously fictitious.
The supposed treaty between Achaius and Charlemagne appears to be
based upon the following passage in Eginhard's Life of Charlemagne : —
" Scotorum quoque reges sic habuit (Carolus magnus) ad suam volun-
tatem, per suam munificentiam, inclinatos, ut eum nunquam aliter nisi
Dominum, seque subditos ac servos ejus pronunciarent. Extant epistolae
ab eis ad ilium missae, quibus hujusmodi affectus eorum erga ilium
indicatur," and in the " Annales poetse Saxonici de gestis Caroli magni,"
we have —
" Scottorum reges ipsum Dominum vocitabant,
Ac se subjectos ipsius et famulos,
Hoc apices ab eis missi testantur ad ilium,
Quorum claret amor maximus alloquio."
But the Scots here referred to were unquestionably the Irish.
Cap. LIII. The Convallus here made the successor of Achaius is one of
Fordun's interpolated kings. He makes his successor Dungallus the son
of Selvach, and gives him a reign of seven years, commencing 824. In
Flann Mainistrech and the Albanic Duan, Dungal succeeds Eochach, and
along with his successor Alpin precedes Aedfinn. In Tighernac we
have in 726 " Dungal de regno ejectus est." He is mentioned in 733
as leading an expedition against Tory island in the north of Ireland,
and in 736 Tighernac has the important entry, " Aengus mac Fergusa
rex Pictorum vastavit regiones Dailriata et obtinuit Dunad et combussit
Creic et duos filios Selbaiche catenis alligavit vizt. Dungal et Feradach."
His reign of seven years was probably partly before and partly after
that of Eochach. Flann Mainistrech and the Albanic Duan place
Alpin immediately after Dungal, and he is followed by eleven kings,
two only of whom are mentioned by Fordun. There is thus an in-
terval of a hundred years between this Alpin and Kenneth mac Alpin
who conquered the Picts in a war extending to 850. This interval is
filled up by Fordun, after the later Chronicles, by altering the order of
the kings, postdating their reigns, and interpolating fictitious kings, so
as to bring this Alpin down a century later and identify him with
the father of Kenneth. The table which follows will show the differ-
ence between the statements of the old authorities and the system
erected by Fordun upon the later Chronicles : —
;?1
p
o
o -^
CO ^
CO tJ
o ©
'^ ^
B
ft
fH :^ I
P W a;
O H :5
^ -B i
$ ^^
W
. o
y o
1^'
fs
II-
•ig
K°?
■li-
e «o
"1-"
^^'
1^
1^-
|f^
q&*
Qr-,
^li
"S 3
on
VO
00
^5
&q ^ -3
M ^ S
H ^ ?:
-P CO
-•;
^^
55 P^
O
O
1
■^fe
oi.
2>^.g '■?-'§ ;
fife" fejfe
«r ^ H
^ ^ g
bq^i
2
5 .
/•TO CO
K fi
5 ij i~ ,
iz;
o .
o ;j 5 3 2
; o s: !? iz ^ O
3 o o o o o -z;
S3
5 eSW
14
404
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
BOOK IV.
This Book contains the history of Scotland from the conquest of the
Picts in the ninth century by Kenneth mac Alpin to the accession of
Malcolm iii. Fordun's history now becomes more trustworthy, as he
has no longer an object in adapting his materials to a false theory. The
Chronicles too now more or less accord with one another, and we have
the important addition of the Pictish Chronicle, the oldest and most
authentic of all.
Cap. II. The account of Alpin here is taken from the Chronicle of
Huntingdon {Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 209), as will appear from the
following comparison : —
Chronicle of Huntingdon.
Anno ah Inoamatione Domini oc-
tingentesimo tricesimo quarto, con-
gressi sunt Scotti cum Pictis in sol-
lempnitate Paschali. Et plures de
nobilioribus Pictorum ceciderunt.
Sicque Alpinus Rex Scottorum vic-
tor extitit, unde in superbiam elatus
ab [eis altero conserto] hello tertio
decimo kalendas Augusti ejusdem
anni a Pictis vincitur, atque trun-
catur.
FORDUN.
Postquam Dungallus ohiisset, Alpi-
ntis filius Achay statim co7'0)iatus,
regni regimen suscepit, anno Domini
Mcccxxxi, regnavitque tribus ann'is.
Bellum contra Pictos a prcedeces-
soribus coeptum, infatigabili labore
continuavitf eos semper exercitibus
aut crebris irruptionibus devastando.
Igitur anno tertio sui regni, in so-
lemnitate paschali, Scoti cum Pictis
congressi sunt, et plures de suis nobi-
libus ceciderunt ; unde fit, ut rex
Alpinus victor existens, in super-
biam elatus, eodem anno xiii kalen-
das Augusti, temere cum eis altero
conserto proelio, vincitur, capitiir^
et, omni neglecta redemptione, capite
detruncatur.
Of course Fordun identifies Alpin, the father of Kenneth, with the
Alpin, son of Eochach, who lived a century earlier, following in this the
Chronicle of 1165. The latter Alpin was probably the brother or son
of the Eochach, son of Eachach, King of Dalriada, whose death is recorded
by Tighernac in 733. His name, however, is a Pictish one, and he may
have been Pictish by maternal descent, and had a claim to the Pictish
throne by their law of succession through females. Tighernac, in 726,
haa " Dungal de regno ejectus est et Druist de regno Pictomm ejectus
et Elphin pro eo regnat." Alpin, whose father, unlike other Pictish
/ kings, is not given, thus succeeds Dungal in Dalriada and Drust on
v/ the Pictish throne, but his right is immediately contested by AnguAjBun
^^ Fergus, and Nectan, son of Derili. He is defeated by Angus in
NOTES AND ILLUSTKATIONS. 405
728 at Monaigh Craebi, or Moncrieff in Perthshire, and his son slain,
and, in the same year, he is defeated by Nectan, son of Derili, at
Caislen Credi, or Scone, and his territories and all his men taken.
His death is quite differently recorded from that of the later Alpin
in the Chronicle of Huntingdon. The Chronicle of St. Andrews says
of the earlier Alpin, son of Eachach, " Hie occisus est in Gallowathia
postquam eam penitus destruxit et devastavit," and the Chronicle in
the Scalachronica says that " he was killed in Galloway after he had
destroyed it, by a single man, who lay in wait for him in a thick wood
overhanging the entrance of the ford of a river, as he rode among his
people." When expelled from Dalriada, he seems to have attacked
the Pictish province of Galloway with success, and to have been
assassinated. His grave, termed Laicht Alpin, and marked by a large
upright pillar- stone, is on the north bank of a stream which flows
into Loch Ryan.
The local tradition which places the battle, in which Alpin, the
father of Kenneth, was taken and beheaded, at Pitelpin, in the Carse of
Gowry, is probably well founded.
Cap. III. Fordun places the commencement of the reign of Kenneth
mac Alpin in the kingdom of his father in the year 834, and, in the
kingdom of the Picts, in the year 839. The former date is taken from
the Chronicle of Huntingdon. He gives him a reign of sixteen years
in both kingdoms. This is taken from the Chronicle of St. Andrews.
In Chapter xv. he gives 854 as the year of Kenneth's decease. The
date of Kenneth's decease however, is given in the Irish Annals as
858, where we have " Cinaeth mac Alpin rex Pictorum Adulf rex
Saxonum mortui sunt." It is obvious, therefore, that by adopting a
reign of sixteen years he has been forced to postdate the commencement
of his reign over the Picts five years beyond the year 834, and antedate
his death four years.
The story of the artifice by which he induced the Scots to support
him in an attack upon the Pictish kingdom appears in Fordun for the
first time.
Cap. IV. The account here given of Kenneth's battles is taken from
the Chronicle of Huntingdon, but Fordun has interpolated a few sen-
tences to adapt it to his theory that Kenneth succeeded his father in
the kingdom of Dalriada, and united the two monarchies by his con-
quest of the Picts. This will appear from the following comparison.
40 G NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
Chronicle of Huntingdon. Fordux.
Ciijus filius Kynadius [successit in
regno patris].
qui vii"* regni sui anno, cum piratse
Danorum, occupatis litoribus, Pictos
sua defendentes, strage maxima
l)ertrivissent, in reliquos Pictorum
terminos
transiens arma vertit et multis oc-
cisis fugere compulit sicque
monarchiam totius Albanice, quce nunc
Scotia dicitur, primus Scottorum rex
conquisivit et in ea primo super Scottos
regnavit.
qui anno xii** regni sui, septies in uno
die, cum Pictis congreditur, multis-
que pertritis regnum
Bibi confirmat.
Filius autem Alpini Kenethus suc-
cessit in regno patris anno Domini
Dcccxxxiv et in regno Pictorum, ipsis
superatis, anno Domini dcccxxxix
Anno deinde regni sui sexto, cum
piratse Danorum, occupatis litoribus,
Pictos sua defendentes, non modica
strage prcedando maritima, protrivis-
sent, similiter et ipse Kynnedu^ in
reliquos Pictorum terminos, montana
Jinium suorum, vlzt., Dorsum Albanice
quod Scotice Drumalban dicitur tran-
siens arma vertit, et, multis Pictorum
occisis, reliquos in fugam compulit,
et amborum regnorum monarchiam
conquisivit. Picti vero, reparatis ali-
quantulum Anglorum auxilio viribus,
quatuor annis Kynnedum infestdbant.
Sed consequenter postmodum inopina-
tis incursibus, et variis eos stragibus
debilitans, duodecimo tandem anno
regni sui, septies uno die, congredi-
tur, et, innumeris Pictorum populis
prostratis, regnum deinceps defluvio
Tyne juxta Northumbriam^ ad Orca-
dum insulas, ut dudum sanctus Adam-
nanu^ Hyensis abbas prophetando
retulit, totum sibi ratificat confirma-
tum.
There certainly is no such proi-hecy to be found in Adomnan's Life
of St. Columba.
The Chronicle of Huntingdon gives Kenneth a reign of twenty-eight
years, which, taking the commencement of his reign in 834, gives 862
as the year of his death, and places his seventh year in 841, his twelfth
in 846 ; but, taking 858 as the year of his death, gives 837 as his
seventh year and 842 as his twelfth, from which year the reign of six-
teen years appears to be reckoned ; but the Pictish Chronicle, which
gives him a reign of sixteen years, states that he died on the Ides of
February, on the third day of the week, and the ides of February fell
on a Tuesday in the year 860, which is probably the true year, and
gives 839 as his seventh year, in which year the Annals of Ulster
record a great defeat of the Picts by the Danes, and 844 as his twelfth
year, from which his reign of sixteen years over the Picts was
reckoned. Line 33, for somntim we should read som,nhtm.
Cap. V. VI. VII. It has not been thought necessary to interrupt
the narrative by a translation of these chapters, which have no bearing
upon Scotcli history.
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 407
Cap. IX. line 14, for tertius we should read ceHius ; line 23, for
ohicere read ohjicere ; line 29, for musitant we should read mus-
sitant.
Cap. X. Fordun inserts here a list of the Pictish kings from Cruyth-
ne, the eponymus of the race, to Brude, son of Maelcon, in whose reign
Saint Columba came to Scotland. This list is made up from the lists
in the Chronicle contained in the Scalachronica and in the Chronicle of
St. Andrews ; but Fordun interpolates three kings in the early part :
First, Blarehassereth, said to have reigned seventeen years ; Thalarger
Amfrude, sixteen years, who is obviously the Talargan filius Amfrud
mentioned in his right place in Chapter xii. ; and Hurgust filius Forgso,
twenty-seven years, the king of the Picts mentioned in the Legend of
St. Andrew. Line 20, for onto read ante.
Cap. XI. This chapter is taken from Adomnan's Life of St. Columba,
and contains an account of his dealings with Brude, the king of the
Picts, The quotations will be found in B. ii. cc. 35 and 42.
Line 25, for Orcadus read Orcadas.
Cap. xii. Fordun here continues the list of the Pictish kings to
Drusken, the last king of the Picts. The list is taken from the same
chronicles. Garnad, the first of the list, is here said to have founded
Abirnethy. Bower adds to this a statement which probably preserves
an ancient tradition of the church. He says : " Garnard filius Domp-
nach sive Makdompnach, qui fundavit et sedificavit ecclesiam collegia-
tam de Abirnethy. Postquam illuc introduxit beatus Patricius sanctam
Bridgidam, sicut in quadam chronica ecclesiae de Abirnethy reperimus,
cum suis novem virginibus in Scotiam ; et obtulit Deo et beatse
Marise, et beatse Brigidae, et virginibus suis, omnes terras et decimas
quas Prior et canonici habent ex antiquo. Istse vero novem virgines
infra quinque annos decesserunt, et ex parte boreali dictse ecclesise sunt
sepultse. Et in ilia ecclesia fuerunt tres electiones factse, quando non
fuit nisi unus solus episcopus in Scotia. Tunc fuit locus ille sedes
principalis, regalis et pontificalis, per aliquot tempora, totius regni
Pictorum." The date of the final conquest of the Picts under their
last king appears, from the calculation of their reigns, to have been the
year 850, and this seems to have formed an era from which the dura-
tion of the subsequent monarchy under Kenneth, and his successors, is
calculated in all the chronicles.
Cap. XIII. and XIV. Fordun places here that part of the legend
of St. Andrew which narrates the battle between Hungus, king of the
Picts, and Athelstane, removing it from the early period of the legend
to a later Hungus in the ninth century, feeling probably the incongruity
of an Athelstane appearing in the fourth century. The quotations in
Chap. XIII., are from William of Malmesbury, Book il, sections 106,
107, and 108. But in line 17, William has notari for vocari. For
an attempt to ascertain the true history of the foundation of St.
408 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
Andrews, see the Proceedings of the Antiquarian Society, vol. iv. p.
300. Cap. xiv. line 3, for sigillatim read singiltatim.
Cap. XV. Fordun gives Donald, the brother of Kenneth, a reign of
four years, commencing 854, thus placing his death in 858. The
Pictish Chronicle gives him also a four years' reign, and in 862 the
Annals of Ulster have " Domhnall mac Ailpin rex Pictorura mortuus
est." Fordun follows the Chronicon Elegiacum in placing his death at
Scone. By the Chronicle of St. Andrews, it is placed at Ratliinver-
ament, or the fort at the mouth of the Almond, facing Scone ; and, by
the Pictish Chronicle, at Cinnbelachoir. Fordun gives his successor
Constantine, son of Kenneth, a reign of sixteen years, commencing in
^0%. The Pictish Chronicle gives him also a sixteen years' reign ;
and in 876 the Annals of Ulster have " Constantin mac Cinaeda rex
Pictorum moritur."
In the text Fordun uses ii. Kalendas Aprilis erroneously for pridie
Kalendas Aprilis.
Cap. XVI. Of the war here detailed between the Danes and Nor-
wegians, we have the following traces in the Pictish Chronicle : " Paulo
post ab eo bello in xiiii, ejus facto in Dolair (Dollar) inter Danarios et
Scottos, occisi sunt Scoti co [at] Achcochlam (perhaps now Cocklaw,
near Dunfermline). Normanni annum integrum degerunt in Pi eta via."
In the Chronicon Elegiacum :
" In bello pugnans Dacorum corruit armis
Nomine Nigra specus est ubi pugna fuit ; "
and in the Chronicle of St. Andrews, " Interfectus fuit a Norvagensibus
in bello Inverdofacta." In 875 the Annals of Ulster have "Con-
gressio Pictorum for Dubhgallu (against the Danes) et strages magna
Pictorura facta est." This seems the same battle as that in which the
" Scotti " were said to be slain. At Fifeness there is a cave in the
rocks termed Constantine's Cave, in which he is said to have been
killed by the Danes.
Fordun gives his brother and successor Hethus Alipes a reign of one
year, commencing in 874. The Pictish Chronicle also gives him a
reign of one year ; and in 878 the Annals of Ulster have " Aedh mac
Cinaedon rex Pictorum a sociis suis occisus est." Fordun states that
the nobles were divided between him and Gregorius, who had a pre-
ferable right, and that he was mortally wounded in a battle in Strath-
allan. The Pictish Chronicle says he was slain " in civitate Nrurim."
Strathallan is separated from Glenartney by the heights of Blairinroar,
and, in a pass through this height, is a farm called Blairinroar, on which
are several upright stones, and where stone coffins have been found.
The word Blair marks it as the site of a battle.
Cap. XVII. Fordun gives Gregorius a reign of eighteen years, thus
commencing in 875. The Pictish Chronicle calls him Ciricius, and
leaves the name of his father blank. According to this Chronicle, he
NOTES AND ILLUSTKATIONS. 409
reigned along with Eochodius, son of Run, king of the Britons of Strath-
clyde, and grandson of Kenneth mac Alpin by his daughter, to whom it
gives a reign of eleven years. The Pictish Chronicle also records that
an eclipse of the sun took place in his ninth year on St. Ciricius's day.
This day is the 1 6th of June, and there was an eclipse of the sun on
the 16th of June 885, which places the first year of his reign in 877.
He is not mentioned either in the Albanic Duan or in the Irish
Annals ; and taking this fact in connexion with the circumstance that
the Irish Annals term the four kings who preceded him " reges Picto-
rum," that Eochodius could only have succeeded under the Pictish law
of succession, and that the kings who succeeded him were termed " Ri
Alban," it seems probable that there was a conflict between the Pictish
and Scottish laws and customs, which terminated in the establishment
of the latter, and in their rule over the Picts being more firmly consoli-
dated.
In stating that he subjugated " Hiberniam et pene totam Angliam,'*
Fordun follows the Chronicle of St. Andrews, but a later chronicle has
the passage, " Hie subjugavit sibi totam Berniciam et fere Angliara,"
which may be the correct reading.
Cap. XVIII, The death of Gregorius is here placed at Donedoure,
which has given rise to the tradition which connects him with Dunadeer
in the Garioch, and led Chalmers to pronounce him the Mormaor of the
district between the Dee and the Spey, one of his gratuitous assump-
tions. By the chronicles his death is placed at Dundurn, a fort near
St. Fillans on the Earn. Line 12, possessio has here been probably
written for possessis.
Cap. XX. Fordun gives his successor, Donaldus, son of Constantino,
a reign of eleven years, commencing in 892, which would place his
death in 903. The Pictish Chronicle also gives him eleven years, and
in 900, the Annals of Ulster have " Domhnall mac Constantin ri Alban
moritur." Fordun places his death " in villa de Fores " in accordance
with the Chronicle of St. Andrews, but the Pictish Chronicle has
" oppidum Fother." In this chronicle " oppidum " represents the
Gaelic Dun, and oppidum Fother, or Dun Fother^ was certainly Dun-
otter in the Mearns.
Cap. XXI. Fordun gives his successor, Constantinus, son of Heth
Alipes, a reign of forty years, commencing in 903, which places its
termination in 943, when he abdicated the throne in favour of Malcolm,
the son of Donald. This statement corresponds with the Pictish
Chronicle, which likewise gives him a reign of forty years, and states
that " in senectute decrepitus baculum cepit, et Domino servivit et
regnum mandavit Mail, filio Domnail." The Chronicle of St. Andrews
likewise gives him a reign of forty years, and says, " Hie demisso
segno sponte Deo in habitu religioso Abbas factus Keledeorum Sancti
Andreae, quinque annis et ibi mortuus est," which would place his
410 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
abdication in 948. The Annals of Ulster have in 952, " Custantin
mac Aeda ri Albain m oritur."
The Pictish Chronicle states that in the sixth year of his reign
" Constantinus rex et Cellachus episcopus, leges disciplinasque fidei,
atque jura ecclesiarum evangeliorumque, pariter cum Scottis, in Colle
Credulitatis prope regali civitati de Scoan devoverunt custodiri."
According to the Chronicle of Melrose and Simeon of Durham, in
934 "Rex Athelstanus vastavit Scotiam usque ad Dunfoeder et Werte-
more terrestri exercitu ; navali vero usque ad Catanes ; eo quod Constan-
tinus pactum foederis dirupit." Dunfoeder is Dunfother, now Dunotter
in the Mearns, and by Wertemore is, I believe, meant Kerimor, now
Kirriemuir in Angus, one of the principal seats of the old Mormaors or
Earls of Angus. Kerimor was the name of one of the quarters into
which Angus was divided. Keri is Ceathramh, a quarter in Gaelic,
and the Saxon equivalent is Feorde, corrupted to Werte. This led to
the great battle of Brunanburgli, called by Fordun in this and the
next chapter Brounygfelde, in which the whole powers north of the
Humber were arrayed against Athelstan, King of the West Saxons, and
defeated. The site of this battle is one of the problems of history
which has not yet been solved.
He is said here to have given the dominion " Cumbrise regionis " to
Eugenius, son of Donald, but Cumbria did not yet belong to Scotland.
The Pictish Chronicle records, however, that in his reign died " Done-
valdus rex Britannorum et Duvenaldus filius Ede rex eligitur." This
Donald was probably his broth'^r, and the subsequent kings were thus of
Scottish race. Line 9, for regis read reges.
Cap. XXIV. Fordun places the accession of Malcolm, son of
Donald, in 943, and gives him a reign of nine years, in accordance
with the Chronicle of St. Andrews. The Pictish Chronicle gives him
a reign of eleven years. A nine years' reign would place his death in
952. The Ulster Annals have in 954 "Mailcolaim Mac Domnall ri
Albain occisus est."
Fordun records the donation of Cumbria by Edward, King of
Wessex to Malcolm in 945. Cumbria was by no means represented by
modern Cumberland. It extended from the Clyde to the river Derwent,
and contained the district of Strathclyde as well as that of Cumberland
as far as the Derwent, and part of Westmoreland. The boundary
between it and Northumbria was the Rere cross of Stanmor.
Cap. XXV. Fordun, following the Chronicle of St. Andrews, says
he was slain at Ulrim by the Moravienses, but the Pictish Chronicle
states that he was slain by the men of the Mearns at Fodresach, now
Fetteresso. It may be remarked here, that the later Chronicles usually
remove the scene of the events of the reigns of these kings to
localities further to the north, than those in the older documents.
He was succeeded by Indulfus, son of Constantin, to whom Fordun
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIOXS. 411
gives a reign of nine years, commencing in 952, which would place his
death in 961. The Annals of Ulster do not mention him. Fordun,
in accordance with the Chronicle of St. Andrews, states he was slain by
the Danes and Norwegians, who had arrived with a fleet in the north,
at Collyn, that is, Inverculan, now Cullen, and the Pictish Chronicle
corroborates this, and has " Classi Sumarlidiorum occisi sunt in
Buchain."
Cap. XXVI. His successor is DufFus, son of Malcolm, to whom
Fordun gives a reign of four years and a half, commencing in 961,
which would place his death in 965 or 966. The Annals of Ulster
have in 9 67 "Dub mac Malcolaim ri Albain do marbh la h'Albanchu fein"
(slain by the men of Alban themselves), but the Pictish Chronicle has
" Expulsus Niger (Duff) de regno." Fordun states, in accordance with
the Chronicles of St. Andrews, that he was slain at Fores, and his body
hidden under the bridge of Kynlos. There was an eclipse of the sun
on 10th July 967, which may account for the darkness, while his
body remained hidden.
Cap. XXVII. Fordun gives his successor, Cullen, son of Indulf, a
reign of four years and a half, beginning in 965, which would place his
death in 970. The Annals of Ulster have in 971 " Culen mac Illuilb ri
Alban do marbh do Bretnaibh irroicatha" (slain by the Britons in battle).
All the Chronicles agree that he was slain by the Britons of Strathclyde,
and the later documents add "in Laodonia." Line 1, for suceptus read
susceptus.
Cap. XXVIII. His successor was Kenneth, son of Malcolm, to whom
Fordun gives a reign of twenty-four years and nine months, commencing
970, which would place his death in 995, and in this year Tighernac
has " Cinaet mac Malcolaim ri Albain a suis occisus est." Fordun's
chronology now corresponds with that of the Irish Annals. The
Pictish Chronicle was completed in his reign, and the number of years
he reigned is therefore left blank, while his death is also not recorded.
Cap. XXX. and XXXI. These chapters contain what is called the
sermon of King Edgar, taken from Ailred's Genealogia regum^ and it
has not been thought necessary to interrupt the narrative by translating
them. They have no bearing on Scottish History. Ailred is here also
called Baldredus, as to which see notes p. 376.
Cap. XXXII. XXXIII. These chapters contain the well-known
story of the treacherous death of Kenneth by Fenella at Fettercairn. The
Chronicle of St. Andrews has " interfectus in Fotherkerne a suis per
perfidiam Findle (filio) Cunnuchar comitis de Angus, cujus Findle filium
unicum predictus Kinath interfecit apud Dunsinoen." Cap. xxxii.
line 13, for acutissimus read acutissimis. Cap. xxxiii. line 23, for
cruentatem read cruentatum.
Cap. XXXIV. Fordun gives his successor Constantinus calvus son
of Culen, a reign of one year and a half, commencing in 994, which
412 NOTES AND ILLUSTKATIONS.
would place his death in 996, and, in 997, Tighernach has " Cath etir
Albancho itorchair (Battle between the men of Alban in which was
slain) Constantin mac Cuilindain ri Alban et alii multi." The Chro-
nicle of St. Andrews states that he was slain at Inveramoen by-
Kenneth, son of Malcolm, and Fordun explains that this Kenneth was
the illegitimate brother of Kenneth, son of Malcolm, the king of Alban,
who was slain by Fenella.
Fordun makes Constantinus's successor, Gryme, son of Kenneth, son of
Duff, and gives him a reign of eight years and three months, beginning
in 996, which would place his death in 1004 or 1005. The Annals
of Ulster have in 1005 "Cath etir firu Alban imonetir itorcair
(Battle between the men of Alban among themselves in which was
slain) ri Alban, viz. Cinaed mac Duib." The Chronicle of St. Andrews
terms this king, Girgus mac Kinat mac Duff, but the older Chronicle
of 1065 "ChenetfiliusDuf."
Cap. XXXVI. The quotation from the Polychronicon is from Hig-
den. Book i. cap. 40. Line 22, for in lucris agri Dcedali, the pas-
sage in Higden is in lucris Argi in labor ibus Tantali, in curis
Dcedali.
Cap. XXXVIII. Fordun states that this king, whom he calls
Gryme, was slain by Malcolm, son of Kenneth, at a place called
Auchnebard. The Chronicle of St. Andrews has " interfectus a filio
Kinet in Moeghanard." The Chronicon Elegiacura has " quo truncatus
erat, Bardorum campus habetur." The place meant is Monzievaird in
Stratherne, whi(;h literally means the "moor of the Bards."
Cap. XXXIX. Fordun gives as his successor, Malcolm, son of
Kenneth, who began to reign in 1004, and reigned thirty years, which
would place his death in 1034. We have now the advantage of a
nearly contemporary authority in the Chronicle of Marianus Scotus,
compiled in 1078, but he himself was born in this reign, in the year
1028. In the year 1034, he has " Moelcoluim rex Scotiae obiit 7
kalendas Decembris," and we have thus nearly contemporary testimony
to this king having borne the title of " Rex Scotiae." It is the first
appearance of the name of Scotia, as applied to any part of Scotland, but
this title appears merely to be a change of name from the designation of
the previous kings, as the " descriptio Albaniie " in 1165 has "Legimus
in historiis et in chronicis antiquorum Britonum et in gestis et
annalibus antiquis Scottorum et Pictorum quod ilia regio, qua^ nunc
corrupte vocatur Scotia, antiquitus appellabatur Albania."
Fordun states that Malcolm had an only child — a daughter Beatrice,
married to Crinan "Abthanus de Dul ac insularum Seneschallus."
Where Fordun found these titles, it is impossible to say. In the
chronicles, Crinan is termed Abbas de Dunkelden, and his wife Bethoc,
the daughter of Malcolm. There was in fact no such title as Abthanus,
but there was an " Abthania de Dul." The first mention of Dul, now
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 413
called Dull, occurs in the Irish life of St. Cuthbert, cap. xxiv.
" Veniens itaque in urbe, quae Dul dicitur, urbana deseruit et solitarius
esse delegit." The church of Dull was dedicated to Saint Adomnan,
and it was therefore probably founded by that Saint, who was Abbot of
lona from 679 to 704 when he died. The "Abthaniade Dull" appears
frequently in the Chamberlain Rolls as in the Crown, for the Chamber-
lain accounts for the " firmse Abthanise de Dul," and it appears to
have been of great extent, as we find the lands of Easter Fossache, now
Foss and Glenleoyne, now Glenlyon, were "infra Abthaniam de Dull."
It was in fact co-extensive with the parishes of Dull and of Fortingall,
but we nowhere find any trace of the possessors of this, or of any
"Abthania" being called " Abthanus," and Fordun's explanation of its
meaning is founded upon a false etymology and a false analogy between
this name and the word " Thanus." The word " Abthania" has no con-
nexion whatever with the name " Thanus." It is a Latin form of the
Gaelic word Abdhaine, which is the equivalent of the Latin " Abbatia,"
and signifies both the office of Abbot and the territory belonging to a
Monasterium or Abbacy. It seems to have been applied to the territory of
those churches called Monasteria, which were founded by the Columban
clergy. Thus in the Chartulary of Inchaff'ray, Gilbert Earl of Stratherne
grants " totam illam terram de Maddyrnin, quae antiquitus Ahhatia
vocabatur," and William the Lion, in confirming the grant, calls it
*' ilia terra de Maddyrnin, quae antiquitus Ahthen vocabatur." Again,
the Bishop of Dunkeld remits and quitclaims " Canum et conevetum,
quod clerici ecclesiae Dunkeldensis precipue consueverunt apud Mad-
dyrnin, quae Scotice dicitur Abthen" (pp. 15, 71, 73). In the Char-
tulary of Holyrood we have " ecclesia de Melginch cum terra, quae Scot-
tice dicitur Abbathain." In the Chartulary of Arbroath we have a
grant of the " Ecclesia Sancta Marias de veteri Munros, cum terra
ejusdera ecclesiae, quae Scotice Abthen vocatur," and in the confirma-
tion by William the Lion it is called ''terra Abbatiae de Munros"
(pp. 4 and 67). These notices are sufficient to show that the word
"Abthain" was the equivalent Scottice of " Abbatia." The following
Abthainries appear in the Chartularies and Records : —
D ULL — Abthania.
Maddyrnin (now Madderdy in Stratherne) — Terra, antiquitus Abbatia,
Scottice Abthen.
Melginch— Terra, Scottice Abbathain.
Kylmichel et Lerenach (Kirkmichael, Perthshire) — Terra de Abbe-
thayn.
Vetus Munros (Old Montrose) — Terra Abbatiae, Scottice Abthen.
MoNiFOD (Monyfeith, Forfarshire) — Terra de Abthein.
EccLESGREiG (St. Cyrus, Kincardine) — Terra Abbatiae.
RossiNCLERACH (Rossie, Carse of Gowry) — Abbatia.
Kyngorne — Abthania (now Abden).
LiSMORE — Apthane (now Appin).
414 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
The owners of an Abbatia or Abthanrie appear to have occasionally
borne the title of Abbe or Abbot. We find in the chartulary of
Arbroath, in connexion with this title, Abereloth, Monifod, Edale,
Brechin, and Abernethy ; and the term Abden appears in the Retours
as applied to lands in connexion with Ratho in Midlothian, Kettins in
Forfar, and Blairgowrie in Perthshire.
Besides Beatrice or Bethoc, Malcolm had another daughter married
to Sigurd, Earl of Orkney, by whom she had Torfinn, afterwards Earl
of Orkney, as appears from the Orkneyinga Saga.
Cap. XL. The foundation of an episcopal seat at Marthillach here
attributed to Malcolm ii. more properly belongs to Malcolm Canmore.
Cap. XLIII. This is one of the most important chapters in Fordun,
from the light which it throws upon the ancient tenures of the Crown
lands in Scotland. The statement which Fordun here makes that
Malcolm gave out the whole land to vassals, and retained nothing, but the
Moot hill of Scone and the right to ward and relief from the vassals, is
the same as that contained in the so-called laws of Malcolm Macken-
neth, published by Sir John Skene, but which are undoubtedly spurious.
— (Regiam Majestatem, p. 1.) Whether there ever was a time when
it could be said that the king possessed nothing but the Moot hill of
Scone, and that the whole kingdom was divided into Thanages, and in
what sense it could be said that the whole lands of the kingdom once
belonged to the Crown, are questions which can only be answered by an
inquiry into the ancient social state of the people, and this is reserved
for an additional Note in the Appendix ; but in explaining what a
Thanage was, and by what classes of people the Crown lands were occu-
pied, Fordun is dealing with matters which still existed in his own day,
and the characteristics of which he had every means of ascertaining, if
they were not perfectly familiar to him.
He defines a Thanage, as a portion of a province, lesser or greater,
held of the king " in feodifirmam " or feu-farm, for payment annually of
a certain " census " or feu-duty, and this definition is quite borne out
by such charters or other deeds connected with Thanages which are still
preserved. Thus David ii. infefts Walterus de Lesly miles in " thanagio
de Aberkyrdore et thanagiis de Kyncardyn," that is, as appears from
another charter, the thanages of " Kyncardyn Abirlouthnot et Fether-
kern," under this condition, " tamen quia forte heredes thanorum, qui
dicta thanagia autiquitus ad feodamfirmam tenuerunt, recuperare
poterunt, in futurum ipsa thanagia tenenda prout ipsorum predecessores
ipsa tenuerunt, concessimus dicto consanguiueo nostro, quod, si ipsi
heredes vel aliquis eorum dicta thanagia vel aliquod ipsorum forte
recuperaverint, idem consanguineus noster, et heredes sui, habeant
teneant, et possideant, servitia heredum, vel heredis, dictorum thanorum,
vel thani, et feodifirmas, vel feodifirmam, antiquitus debitus de thanagiis,
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 415
vel thanagio, prenotatis." These thanages were then in the Crown and
were granted feudally to Walter de Lesly, and the meaning of the
clause is, that the thanes and their predecessors had held them of the
Crown in feu-farm, and that being, as we shall see, a hereditary tenure,
their heirs might make good their right to them, in which case Walter
de Lesly, instead of a right to the lands, should merely have the same
right to the services and feu-farm duties rendered by them, as the Crown
would have had. One of the most important thanages in Scotland, viz.,
that of Cawdor, was still possessed by its hereditary thane in Fordun's
days, and we find the tenure of it the same. There is preserved a charter
by Robert i. in which he grants, conveys, " et ad feodofirmam" demits
" Willelmo thano de Caldor totum thanagium de Caldor," to be held
" hereditarie ad feodofirmam," for payment of twelve marks sterling
yearly, " prout consuetum fuit tempore bonse memorise Alexandri regis
Scotiae et faciendo servitium nostrum debitum et consuetum tempore
Alexandri." It was the same with thanages held of the Earls, for
" Robertus Seneschallus Scotise et Dominus Atholise " grants and conveys
" Eugenio thano de Glentilt, totum thanagium de Glentilt nomine trium
davatarum terras per fideli servitio suo nobis impenso," to be held by him
" in feodo et hereditate," for payment annually of eleven marks sterling.
It was the same with thanages held of bishops, for the lands of
Rothiemurchus, belonging to the Bishops of Moray, were possessed by
a family of M'Intoshes or Shaws as tenants ; and we find in the Char-
tulary of Moray, " CsiTta. feodifirmce Alexandro Keyr Makyntoschy" of
the lands of Rothymurchus, for payment annually of twenty-four merks.
This charter is granted by the Bishop on 4th September 1464 (p.
419), and converted his tenancy into a feu-farm holding; and in a bond
of manrent by Alexander Makintosche, granted on 17th June 1472,
he designates himself " Thanus de Rathamurcus " (Spalding Misc.y
ii. 252).
In estimating the true position of these thanes, it is necessary to
keep in view the precise technical signification of the terms used. Much
confusion and uncertainty has been created by using them loosely. We
find the feu -farm holding talked of as a hereditary tenancy, and thanes
as hereditary tenants, as if the only difference between their position
and that of an ordinary tenant was, that they held it hereditarily in-
stead of for a term of years. It may be as well, therefore, to remind
the reader of the real meaning of the words employed. " Firma," in
Saxon feorm, was the share of the produce of the land paid by the
tenant to his landlord by way of rent. Ross (sect. i. 235) defines it
as " rent in kind," but, when converted into a money payment, it came
also to include money rent. " Dimittere ad firmam " was to grant
lands on lease, and the tenant was called " Firmarius." But between
them and the feudal holdings which were granted by charter for
416 NOTES AND ILLUSTKATIONS.
militaiy service, ward, and relief, there was a holding, in which lands
were granted feudally by charter, not for military service, but for the
payment of an annual "firma." Such lands were granted ^\> feodofirmam.
The annual payment was the *' feodofirma," and the holder was called
" Feodofirmarius." Such grants were supposed to resemble the Roman
Emphyteusis, and still exist in form in our modern Feu Charters, in
which the same expressions are used. In these, the land is conveyed
in feu-farm, to be held " in feu-farm, fee, and heritage for ever," for
payment of an annual "feu-duty," and the granter is called the "feuar."
It is, however, essentially a feudal holding, and differs from the lease
in this, that, in the former, the usufruct of the land is solely given, the
property in the soil is not parted with, and the title is completed by
possession. In the grant *' ad feodofirmam," the " dominium utile " of
the land is conveyed by charter to the vassal, and the title is completed
by infeftment.
This explanation may seem elementary, but it is necessary. Thus
Chalmers, in his account of the Thanes — the source, I believe, of much
of the erroneous conception of them — says in a note {Caledonia, i. p.
717): "In two charters of Alexander ii. the Firmarii and Thayni
are put on the same footing. — Chart. Moray, 59, 60." The charters
referred to are those numbered in the printed Chartulary 34 and 40.
In the first, the Firmarii and Thayni are contrasted and not identified,
and, in the second, the Thanes of Moythas, Dike, and Brothyn (Moy,
Dyke, and Brodie) are termed, not " Firmarii," but " Feodofirmarii,"
which is a very different thing.
The following Thanes and Thanages are mentioned on record : —
I. South of the Firth of Forth--
HADiNTfiN (Haddington) — Thanes.
Kalentyr (Callendar, near Falkirk) — Thanes.
Strivelyn (Stirling)— Thanes.
II. Between the Forth and the Spey —
Kinross — Thanage.
FoRDELL (Kinross)— Thane's lands.
Falkland (Fife)— Thanes.
Chellin (Kelly, Fife)— Thanes.
Dervesin (Dairsie, Fife) — Thanes.
Abkrlemno (Forfar) — Thanage.
Glammis (Forfar) — Thanes and Thanage.
Downy (Forfar) - Thanage.
Thanades (Tannadyce, Forfar)— Thanage.
Kyngaltry (Forfar) — Thanage.
MoNiFOD (Monifeith, Forfar)— -Thanage. .
Edevyn (Idvies, Forfar)— Thanes.
Kathenes (Kettins, Forfar) — Thanes.
Cloveth (Clova, Forfar)— Thanage.
Inverkeillor (Forfar)— Thanes.
Aberbutiinot (Marykirk, Kincardine) — Thanage.
Morty, or Mickle Morphie (Marykirk, Kincardine) — Thanage.
NOTES AKD ILLUSTRATIONS. 417
Newdoskis (Kincardine) — Thanage.
EccLESGREiG (St. Cyius, Kincardine) — Thanes.
Aberbuthnot (Kincardine) — Thanes and Thanage.
Fettercairn (Kincardine) — Thanage.
♦ Kincardine (Kincardine) — Thanage.
Collie (Cowie, Kincardine) — Thanes and Thanage.
DoRES (Kincardine) — Thanage.
Dunning (Stratherne, Perth) — Thanes and Thanage.
Struin (Strowan, Stratherne, Perth) — Thanes.
FoRTEVioT (Stratherne, Perth) — Thanes and Thanage.
KiNCLAVEN (Perth) — Thanage.
Scone (Perth) — Thanage.
Strathardell (Perth) — Thanes.
Alyth (Perth) — Thanage.
Glentilt (AthoU, Perth) — Thanes and Thanage.
Dull (Atholl, Perth) — Thanes and Thanage.
Forterkill (Fortingall, Perth) — Thanes and Thanage.
Cranach, Achmore and Kynknoc (Strathtay, Perth) — Thanage.
DuLMONYCH (Logierait, Perth) — Thanage.
Fandufuith (Logierait, Perth) — Thanage.
Aberdeen — Thanes and Thanage.
Balhelvie (Aberdeen) — Thanage.
Brass (Birse, Aberdeen) — Thanes.
KiNTORE (Aberdeen) — Thanage.
FoRMERTYN (Aberdeen) — Thanage.
Obyn (Aberdeen) — Thanage.
O'Neill (Kincardine, Aberdeen) — Thanage.
Down, or Glendowachy (Banff) — Thanage.
Aberkerdor (Banff) — Thanes and Thanage.
CoNVETH (BanflF) — Thanes and Thanage.
Boyne (Banff) — Thanage.
Munbre (Banff) — Thanage.
Nathirdole (Banff) — Thanage.
III. Beyond the Spey —
EssY (Elgyn) — Thanage.
KiLMALAMAN (St. Andrcws, Elgin) — Thanages.
Moray (Elgin) — Thanage.
MoYTHAS (Moyness, Nairn) — Thanes.
Kjlledor (Cawdor, Nairn) — Thanes and Thanage.
Brothyn (Brodie, Nairn) — Thanes.
Dyke (Nairn) — Thanes.
Cromdale (Inverness) — Thanes.
EoTHiMURCHUs (Invemcss) — Thanes.
Dingwall (Ross) — Thanage.
Fordun gives a very clear account of the different classes of tenants
in a Thanage. The lowest class were the "Agricolse," of which there
were two kinds : those holding land by the year " ad firmam," and
those holding at will. The first were the Bondi of the charters, and
the second the Nativi, who were pure serfs. Above them were the
" Liberi et Generosi." These consisted first of those who held land
for a fixed term of ten or twenty years. These were the "Liberi
firmarii" of the Statutes. They consisted secondly of those who held
VOL. II. 2d
418 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
lands for life, with remainder to one or two heirs. These were not
farmers, but feudal sub-vassals, and possessed what were called tenandia
or tenandries. They are the " Liberi tenentes " or freeholders of the
charters. Then came those holding the thanage "in capite" of the
Crown. They were either " Milites " who held it by military service ;
" Thani" or the pure thanes ; and " Principes," by which word I believe
Fordun intends to express the ancient Toshachs or chiefs who preceded
the Thanes.
The charters connected with the Thanage of Kin tore will show these
classes of tenants. We have first a charter by Robert the Second to
John De Dunbar, Earl of Moray, in 1375, in which he grants to him
" terras nostras Thanagii de Kyntor, sal vis et retentis tenandiis, libere-
tenentibus, terris liberetenentium, ac canis nobis debitis de Thanagio
supradicto," to be held in free barony " cum bondis, bondagiis, nativis
et eorum sequelis." Here the king grants the thanage as a barony with
the lands occupied by the Bondi and Nativi, but reserves the tenandries
and lands of the " liberetenentes" with the duties payable to the Crown.
Then in 1383 there is a charter to the same Earl granting "terras nostras
Thanagii de Kyntor, cum tenandiis, liberetenentibus, et terris libereten-
entium, et canis nobis debitis de Thanagio supradicto, excepta tenandria
de Thaynstona." Here he renews the grant and includes the ten-
andries, lands of the "Liberetenentes," and duties payable to the Crown,
but excepts the " tenandia de Thaynstona " or Thanestown — what had
been the Thane's demesne, and, in 1465, there is a charter of the
lands of Thaynston "in Thanagio de Kyntor." — (Ant. Ah. and Banff,
vol. i. pp. 250, 576.) The different classes of the Nativi, Bondi,
Liberetenentes with their " tenandia," culminating with the demesne
of the Thane, are here well distinguished.
We find most of the Thanages to have been in the Crown after the
reign of Alexander iii., and the subsequent kings appear to have con-
verted them by degrees into a feudal holding. The first step was to
grant them for military service, which Fordun seems to allude to in
saying that some were held by " Milites," and then to convert these
military holdings into a Barony. The process was very much the same
with the Thanages which once existed in the north of England. Sir
Francis Palgrave states that the Thanages in the northern counties were
held by pecuniary rents [Rise and Progress, ii. p. ccclxxxi.), and we find
an instance of this gradual transmutation of a Thanage into a Barony,
in an Exchequer record quoted in Dugdale's Monasticon (iii. p. 9), where
it is said, "Ivo de Tailbois tenet in capite de domino rege Baroniam
de Hephall, cum uxore sua, quae fuit filia Willelmi de Bardolph, quam
habuit ex dono domini regis, et omnes antecessores suo tenuerunt dictam
Baroniam in Thanagio et reddit domino regi inde per annum quinqua-
ginta solidos. Dominus vero rex primus viz. Willelmus Conquestor
removit illud Thanagium tempore Willelmi Bardolph ad feodum unius
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 419
Militis." Thus we find a Thanage held for a money-payment, converted
into a holding by knight-service in the person of William Bardolph,
and into a barony in that of Ivo de Talboys.
It is frequently said that Thanes and Thanages in Scotland were dif-
ferent in character and position from the Saxon Thanes. So far as my
examination has gone, I have been unable to discover any appreciable
difference, but it is necessary in comparing them to keep in view the
stage in the progress of the Thanages of the respective countries.
Cap. XLIV. Fordun places the commencement of the reign of
Duncan, grandson of Malcolm ii. by his daughter Beatrice, and his
successor, in 1034, and gives him a reign of six years, which would
place his death in 1040. Marianus Scotus, a contemporary writer,
gives Donnchad, whom he calls son of the daughter of Malcolm, a reign
of five years and nine months, and in 1040 has "Dounchad rex Scotise
in autumno occiditur (19 Kal. Sept.) a duce suo Macbethad mac
Finnloech." Fordun says he was slain by the wickedness of the same
race who slew his grandfather and great-grandfather, of whom the chief
was Machabeus, son of Finele, but he has fallen into this mistake from
confounding Finnlaech, the father of Macbeth, with the Findle or Finele
who slew Kenneth ii. Who Macbeth realty was will appear from the fol-
lowing passages from Tighernac and the Annals of Ulster : "1020, Find-
laec mac Ruaidhri Mormaer Moreb (Moray) a filiis fratris sui Maelbrigdi
occisus est" (Tigh.) "1029, Maelcolaim mac Maelbrigdi mic Ruadri Ri
Alban mortuus est" (Tigh.) "1032, Gillacomgan mac Maelbrigde Mor-
maer Murebe do loscadh co coecait do dhuinibh imme" (burnt with fifty
of his men along with him) (An. Ult.) " 1 058, Lulach mac Gillcomgain
Ardri Albain domarbhadh la Maelcolaim meic Donchadh i cath" (slain
by Malcolm, son of Duncan, in battle). " Macbeathadh mac Finnlaich
Airdri Albain domarbhadh la Maelcolaim meic Donnchadh i cath '
(slain by Malcolm, son of Duncan, in battle) (An. Ult.) He was
therefore of the race of the hereditary Mormaers of Moray. In the ,
Chronicle of Huntingdon he is called " nepos "^""of Malcolm ii., a
statement which is not repeated by Fordun, though he quotes this
Chronicle, as we have seen.
There seems little doubt that Duncan is the king mentioned in the
Orkneyinga Saga by the name of Kali Hundason, against whom
Thorfinn, Earl of Orkney, waged war till he defeated him at a great
battle at Torfnes on the shores of the Moray Firth, and subjected the
greater part of the north of Scotland to his sway, which he held till
the year lOU.— (Coll. de lieb. Alb. p. 344.) The Orkneyinga Saga
states that Kali Hundason or Duncan " drew an army together from
the south of Scotland, from the west and from the east, and all the
way from Satiri " (Kintyre). The men of Moray and Argyll therefore
seem to have formed part of his army, and Marianus gives us this import-
ant fact that Macbeath was his " dux," or the commander of his troops.
420 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
Thorfinn was likewise a grandson of Malcolm ii., by another daughter,
and may have claimed a share of the kingdom, and Macbeath
probably slew his king and joined him, and so was established as
king over the rest of Scotland. Chalmers considers that he may have
claimed the Crown through his wife, who appears in the old charters
in the Chartulary of St. Andrews, as " Gruoch filia Bode," and whom he
conjectures to have been descended from Kenneth, son of Duff, and to
have inherited the rights of that branch of the Scottish Royal family.
This conjecture is mainly founded on a passage in the Ulster Annals,
where we have at 1033, "Mac meic Boete mac Cinaeda do marbhadh la
Maelcolaim meic Cinaeda " (The son of the son of Boete, son of Cinaeda,
slain by Maelcolaim, son of Cinaeda). Lulach, who was slain in 1058,
is also called by tho chronicle of 1065 " nepos filii Boide," but as
Kenneth, son of Duff, was slain in 1005, this would give only fifty-
three years for four generations, which is impossible. There is nothing
to show who Kenneth, the father of Bode, really was.
Fordun names the place whereDuncan was slain *' Bothgofnane," and
the Chronicle of St. Andrews " Bothgavenan." The Chronicon Elegia^
cum has " Vulnere letali rex apud Elgyn obiit." The syllable Both in
names of places passes often into Pit as in Badfoddalis, which has be-
come Pitfoddels, and I have no doubt the place meant is Pitgaveny or
Pitgowny near Elgin. Line 50, vota has apparently been written for
nota ; see also ch. xlv. line 27.
For the remaining three chapters of this book we have no authority
but Fordun himself. The following table will show the descendants of
Kenneth mac Alpin down to the sons of Duncan.
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422 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
BOOK V.
This Book contains the history of Scotland from the accession of Malcolm
Canmore to the death of David i. It appears to have been compiled by
Fordun before the first /our books were written, with the exception of
the last three chapters, which were subsequently added, and to have
been intended as the commencement of a work termed " Liber Chroni-
carum regni Scotise incipiens ad Malcolmum Canmor," before he ex-
tended his plan so far as to embrace the history from the earliest period.
He embodies in this book the chapters contained in the Appendix
No. III. In compiling it, Fordun has made large use of the " Genea-
logia Kegum " of Ailred, nearly the whole' of which, including the
" Lamentatio " on the death of David i., is quoted in it. He seems at
first to have been doubtful whether Turgot, who wrote the life of Queen
Margaret, was not also the author of this work, as some of his quota-
tions from Ailred are attributed to Turgot. He also quotes largely
from William of Malmesbury. There can be no better commentaiy
upon Book V. and the " Gesta Annalia " than Hailes' Annals, a work
the value of which cannot be too highly estimated, and in the following
notes such points only will be adverted to as he has left somewhat
obscure.
Cap. I. to VI. The first six chapters contain the record of a sup-
posed conversation between Macduf, Thane of Fife, and Malcolm, the
son of the murdered Duncan, who had taken refuge at the Court of
England, in which Macduf persuades him to attempt the recovery of
the kingdom of Scotland, and Malcolm tries him with an imaginary
account of his bad qualities. For the whole of this ingeniously
imagined interview, I consider Fordun to be solely responsible, and I
am inclined also to accredit him with the entire invention of Macduf,
Thane of Fife, and the part which he plays in the reigns of Macbeth and
Malcolm. The Earls of Fife of the race df Macduf first appear in the
reign of David i. In the memoranda of old grants in the Chartulary of
St. Andrews is a donation to the Culdees of Lochleven by " Edelradus
vir venerandse memorise filius Malcolmi regis Scotije, abbas de Dunkelden
et insuper comes de Fyf," who is the first Earl on record. On the
narrative that it was granted " in juvenili ajtate," it is confirmed by
his two brothers David and Alexander, in presence, among others,
** Constantini comitis de Fyf," probably in the reign of Edgar.
The charter by King David i. remodelling the monastery of Dun-
fermline is witnessed, among others, by " Constantinus comes," and
" Gillemichel Macduf," and a later charter to Dunfermline is witnessed
by " Gillemichel comes de Fife." If Constantine had been of the race of
Macduf, and Gillemichel was his son, as many writers affirm, they could
hardly appear together thus, " Constahtinus comes, Gillemichel Macduf,"
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 423
without any mention of their connexion ; and , Gillemichel seems to
have been the first Earl of the race of Macduff. Cap. iii. line 1, for
Jhoec we should read hoc.
Cap. VII. and VIII. The expedition under Siward seems to have
taken place in the year 1054, when, according to Tighernac, a battle
took place between the Albanach, or Scotch, and the Saxons, in which
many were slain — according to the Annals of Ulster, 3000 of the Scotch,
and 1500 of the Saxons ; and in the same year, according to the Saxon
Chronicle, " Earl Siward went with a large army to Scotland, both with
a naval force and a land force, and fought against the Scots, and put to
flight King Macbeth, and slew all that was best then in the land."
But the final defeat of Macbeth by Malcolm at Lumphanan, in Aberdeen-
shire, did not take place, according to the Irish Annalists, till 1057,
and this is confirmed by Marianus Scotus, a contemporary writer, who
states that Macfinlaeg, i.e. Macbeth, was slain in August of that year,
and his successor Lulach in the following March, when Malcolm suc-
ceeded.— (Chron. Ficts and Scots, p. 65.)
Cap. IX. and X. The last part of Chapter ix. and the whole of
Chapter x., which is here attributed to Turgot, are taken verbatim from
the " Genealogia regum Anglise " of Ailred. See App. ni. c. xv.
Cap. XL This chapter is taken from William of Malmesbury, but
the substitution of " imperatorem " for " regem Hunorum," which is
here attributed to Turgot, occurs in Ailred.
Cap. XII. See App. in. c. xi. for the first part of this chapter.
Cap. XIV. The first sentence of this chapter is from the " Genealogia
regum " of Ailred, though the name of Turgotus is prefixed to it. The
remainder is not to be found in any extant work of his. See App. in.
c. xii. Line 1, for rex read res.
Cap. XV. The first part of this chapter is also attributed to Turgot,
but except the expression, " Suorum magis quam sua voluntate, immo
Dei ordinatione, potentissimo regi Scottorum Malcolmo in conjugium
copulatur," taken from his Life of St. Margaret, the remainder of the
passage is not to be found there or in Ailred. See App. in. c. xiv.
The rest of the chapter is taken from WiUiam of Malmesbury.
Line 10, for quas we should read quern ; line 11, for honoratum,
read oneratum. The sentence on line 26, beginning Edgarum, and
ending archiepiscopis, is interpolated by Fordun.
Cap. XVI. The first part of this chapter, attributed to Turgot, is
taken from Ailred. See App. in. c. xvi. The last sentence, though
said to be from William of Malmesbury, is from Vincentius.
Cap. XVII. See App. in. c. xvii.
Cap. XVIII. The legend here referred to is the Life of St. Margaret
by Turgot, in which the whole of this chapter, with the exception of a
few expressions, is to be found. See App. in. c. xviii.
Cap. XIX. The greater part of this chapter is from William of
424 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
Malmesbury. Line 37, for precaria we should read precario ; line 41,
for tantum read cantum ; line 45, for tj'icejttos read trecentos.
Cap. XX. The account of the foundation of the new church of Dur-
ham, by Malcolm Canmore, here attributed to Turgot, is not to be found
in any extant writing of his or of Ailred. Simeon of Durham has,
in his Historise Regum, "Anno mxciij Ecclesia nova Dunelmi est
incepta tertio idus Augusti feria quinta, episcopo Willelmo et Malcholmo
rege Scottorum, et Turgoto priore ponentibus primos in fundamento
lapides," from which Fordun has probably taken his account. See also
App. III. c. xix. The last sentence is from William of Malmesbury.
Line 20, for suo read sua.
Cap. XXI. See for the first part of this chapter App. iii. c. xx.
There Fordun had termed Donald, Malcolm's brother, Rufus, and also
in the first edition of Book v., but in the revisal he adds, " vel Bane."
For the last part of the chapter see App. iii. c. xxx.
Cap. XXII. For the first half of this chapter, see App. iii. c. xxii.
For the latter half, c. xxiii.
Cap. xxiii. See for this chapter, App. iii. cc. xxiv. xxv. Line 32,
for defereret read desereret.
Cap. xxiv. See for this chapter, App. iii. cc. xxvi. and xxviii.,
between which Fordun has inserted a passage from William of Mal-
mesbury. He was, I believe, the first to term Duncan son of Malcolm
*' uothus," which has been adopted by Fordun, but it is now generally
admitted that Duncan was a legitimate son of Malcolm by his first
wife, Ingibiorg, widow of Thorfinn, Earl of Orkney. Magnus Bare-
foot's first invasion of the Isles was in the year 1093, his second in
1098, and he was slain in his third expedition, in 1103.
Cap. xxv. See also vol. i. App. iii. c. xxvii. Line 23, for excer-
citus read exerdtus ; line 27, the reference should be to Chapter viii.
Cap. xxvi. See for the first two sentences of this chapter vol. i. App.
III. c. xxviii., which adds, " Mortuus est autem apud Roscolby et Dun-
fermlyn sepultus, sed et ejus ossa in lona insula, translata sunt," here
omitted ; and for the remainder of the chapter, with the exception of
the last sentence, added from William of Malmesbury, see vol. i. App.
III. c. xxix. The reference in line 17 is to c. xxix.
Cap. xxvii. See for the first part of this chapter, and the last
sentence, vol. i. App. iii. c. xxx., and for the remainder c. xxxiv.
Cap. xxviii. See, for the materials of this chapter, vol. i. App. in.
cc. xxxi. xxxiv. The sentence " Fundavit etiam Monasterium Canoni-
corum de insula Emonia juxta Inverkeithin," is interpolated in the later
edition of this chapter. In the earlier narrative, in vol. i. App. in. c.
xxxi., the sentence regarding Scone is thus expressed, " Ipse est, qui
tot et tanta privilegia ecclesise Sanctte Trinitatis de Scona praestitit,
quod nuUus est de successoribus, qui ad eorum audientiam ingrumiat.
Fundata euim est, sedificata et dedicata, ut dictum est, apud Scouam,
NOTES AND ILLUSTKATIONS. 425
ubi antiqui reges, Cruthne primo Pictorum rege, sedem regni Albanise
constituerant." In the text he omits the reference to Cruthne, and
adds to the term reges " tarn Scoti quam Picti."
Cap. XXIX. For the first and last parts of this chapter see vol. i.
App. III. c. xxxii., between which Fordun interjects a passage from
William of Malmesbury. Line 32, Fordun omits incolere after ccelum.
Cap. XXX. The whole of this chapter, with the exception of the
last two sentences, is taken from Ailred, but is not to be found in vol. i.
App. III. For the last two sentences see vol. i. App. iii. c. xxxiv.
Cap. XXXI. For the first three sentences of this chapter see vol. i,
App. III. c. xxxv. In the earlier edition of this chapter Fordun refers
generally to the " Lamentationes " on the death of David i,, without
naming the author, but in the later text he names Baldredus as the
author of them. By Baldredus, Fordun of course means Ethelredus or
Ailred. While extensively using the writings of Ailred, even in his
earliest compositions, he seems at first to have been uncertain as to the
author of them, and attributes much of them to Turgot.
This is followed by a passage from William of Malmesbury, and for
the last few sentences of the chapter see vol. i. App. iii. c. xxxvi.
Line 20, Fordun reads esse for isse.
Cap. xxxii. For this chapter see vol. i. App. iii. c. xxxvii.
Fordun notices very shortly the battle of the Standard at AUerton, or
Northallerton, in which David i. was defeated in 1138, but Aelred's
fuller account of it has been printed in vol. i. App. iv. It gives a
curious picture of the various populations which made up the king-
dom of Scotland, and still remained distinct. The army was arranged
in the following bodies : —
Prima acies —
1. Galwenses.
Altera acies. Filius regis et milites sagittarii cum eo —
2. Cumbrenses.
3. Tevidalenses.
Tertius cuneus —
4. Laodonenses.
5. Insulani.
6. Lavernani.
Rex in sua acie retinuit —
7. Scottos.
8. Muravenses.
9. De militibus Anglis et Francis ad sui corporis custodiam.
The Galwenses were the Picts of Galloway ; the Cumbrenses, the
Welsh population of Strathclyde : the Tevidalenses, the people of Teviot-
dale ; the Laodonenses, the Anglic population of Lothian ; the Insu-
lani, the Gael of the Isles ; the Lavernani were probably the people of
the Lennox. This word is a corruption of Levenach, or, according to
426 NOTES AND ILLUSTKATIONS.
Gaelic orthography, Leamhainach, and the Leamhnaigh, or men of the
Lennox, often appear in the Irish records as acting separately; thus, in
the " wars of the Gaedhil with the Gaill," we have a statement that the
Gael, in 1005, levied tribute from the Saxons and Britons (Strathclyde),
and Leamhnaigh, and Alban, and Airergaedhil (Argyll), (p. 137).
The Leamhnaigh also took part in the battle of Cluantarff. The Scotti
were the inhabitants of Alban or Scotia in its confined sense, viz., the
districts extending from the Forth to the river Spey on the north and
Drumalban on the west ; the Muravenses, the people of Moray beyond
the Spey ; the Milites Franci were the Norman soldiers.
Cap. XXXIII. For the first part of this chapter see vol. i. App. in.
c. xxxviii. The notices at the end beginning "Anno iiii. regis David"
have been added to supply omissions. In the last sentence the state-
ment is made that David Earl of Huntingdon was the elder brother of
William the Lion. The same statement is made in the first edition of
the Gesta Annalia, written in 1363 (see sections i. and vii.), but Fordun
eventually became aware of his error, as the statement is corrected,
when the Gesta were revised in 1385. The original error, however,
remains uncorrected here.
Cap. XXXIV. For this chapter see vol. i. App. in. cc. xxxix.
and xl. The expressions in the latter part of this chapter, as to the
character of David, are taken from Richard of Hexham.
Cap. XXXV. This and the fourteen succeeding chapters contain the
first part of Ailred's Genealogia Regum, usually called the " Eulogium
regis David." It has been printed by Pinkerton in his Vitse Sanctorum,
and the text closely con-esponds.
Cap. XXXVI. line 31, for quce read qui.
Cap. XXXVII. line 26, Fordun omits iniquis el sifter puniendis.
Cap. xxxviii. Prior to the accession of David i. we find only
three Bishops appearing, and they can be connected with the sees of
St. Andrews, Moray, and Dunkeld. David, when Earl, restored the
see of Glasgow, and after he became King founded or restored those of
Whitehern, Caithness, Ross, Brechin, Dunblane, and moved Mortlach to
Aberdeen. Of the monasteries named, Kelso was founded in 1126, for
Tyronensian monks; Melrose in 1136 ; Newbattle in 1140 ; Dundren-
nan in 1141; Holmcultrane in 1150, for Cistertian monks; Kynloss
was also founded for Cistertians ; Cambuskenneth was founded in 1147
for Canons-regular from Aroise, or Arovensians; Holyrood in 1128, for
Canons from St. Andrews ; and Jedburgh in 1118, for Canons from
Beauvais, or Belvacensians. The monastery at Berwick was founded for
Bemardines or Cistertian nuns. The Prajmonstratenses and the Cluniac
monks possessed none of the monasteries named, but Dryburgh was
founded in this reign for the former, and Paisley in the succeeding
reign for the latter.
Cap. xxxix. line 29, for singulis we should read singulus.
NOTES AND ILLUSTKATIONS. 427
Cap. XLI. The "pseudo-episcopus" here meant was Wimund, a monk
of Furness, who was elected bishop of Man and the Isles, and then
declared himself to be the son of Angus Earl of Moray, whom David
defeated in 1130. He is also called Malcolm Macbeth. His history
is treated of in the note to the first section of the Annals. Line 26y
for efectum we should read affectum.
Cap. XLII. line 37, for vocantes read vocantis, ^
Cap. XLV. line 29, Fordun omits habens after ymaginem.
Cap. XL VII. In title, for ipsa read ipso ; line 5, for effectum read
affectum; line 24, for perpensus read perpessus.
Cap. L. This and the two following chapters have been added in
1385, as Walter, bishop of Glasgow, whom he terms cardinal, was not
made cardinal till the year 1384. Fordun states that he received
from him the genealogy of King David. It is the same which he in-
serts as having been recited at the coronation of Alexander iii. It is
curious, however, that he refers to the twenty-sixth chapter of Book i.
for the genealogy between Fergus, son of Ferchard, and Simon Brek,
which is here omitted, but it is not there given.
The two last chapters are taken from Ailred's Genealogia Regum, and
the sentence in cap. xli. beginning " Sicut in veracissimis " forms the
commencement of what was apparently Fordun's original work. See
vol. i. App. III. c. i. The sentence in c. Iii. beginning " Hie tantae
fuit auctoritatis," is also from vol. i. App. iii. c. i.
ANNALS.
These Annals contain the history, or rather the materials for the
history, of Scotland from the accession of Malcolm iv. Fordun appears
to have first compiled them in the year 1363, and to have brought
them down to the second marriage of David ir. in that year. He
again revised them in the year 1385, and added a few notices between
1363 and 1385. He appears to have intended eventually to work
them up into two additional Books, and add them to the five Books
he had then completed, but was probably prevented by his death, as
after that year it is impossible to discover any notice implying that
Fordun was still alive. The Chronicle of Melrose is used throughout.
I. The account of the coronation of Malcolm iv. is taken
almost verbatim from John of Hexham, who was a contemporary
writer. The passage is as follows : — " Tollens igitur omnis populus
terrse Melcholmum, filium Henrici comitis filii ipsius David regis, apud
Scotiam, sicut consuetudo illius nationis est, puerum admodum duoden-
nem constituerunt regem pro David avo suo. De quo veraciter dici
potest ' cum semine eorum permanent, bona haereditas sancta, nepotes
428 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
eorum.' Northymbria vero subjecta fuit Willelmo fratri ejus." Fordun
has correctly read " apud Sconam" for "apud Scotiam," which John of
Hexham undoubtedly meant.
It is not an easy matter to reconcile the different accounts of the
Malcolm Macbeth here mentioned, and to attach correct dates to the
events of his history. He is incidentally mentioned by Ailred in his
" Eulogium regis David " (see Book v. c. xli.), and also in his account of
the battle of the Standard (vol. i. App. iv.) ; and a sketch of the life of
evidently the same person is given by William of Newburgh, who calls
him Wimund, and saw him at Biland, where he had retired, blind
and mutilated, in his old age, and where he died. (B. i. c. xxiv.)
Comparing these various accounts, the following is probably not far
from the truth. William of Newburgh says, he was born in Anglia " in
obscurissimo loco," but probably nothing was known of his birth ; and he
first appears in his narrative filling the office of scribe to certain monks.
After this he receives the tonsure at Fumess, and takes the monastic vows
there. He is then sent with his brethren to the Isle of Man, and this
probably took place in the year 1134, as in that year, according to the
Chronicle of Man, " Olavus rex dedit Yvoni abbati de Furness partem
terrae suae in Mannia ad Abbatiam construendam in loco, qui vocatur
Russin." Here he was elected Bishop of Man and the Isles, and
appears immediately to have announced, that he was the son of Angus,
Earl of Moray, who had been defeated and slain by King David i. in
1130, and that he intended to claim his inheritance and avenge his
father's death. Wimund was probably his monastic name, and he
seems now to have announced, as his real name, Malcolm Macbeth, the
Gaelic form of which shows his claim to a Highland '"origin. His claim
appears to have been acknowledged by Somerled, the "regulus" of
Argyll, as he married his sister, and by the Earl of Orkney, who married
his daughter. According to William of Newburgh, he collected a band
of men, and proceeded through the adjacent isles, where he was joined by
troops of adherents, and then made a descent upon the mainland of Scot-
land. This probably took place in 1 1 37, as Ro1>ert de Brus, in his speech
before the battle of the Standard in 1 138, as recorded by Ailred, reminds
the king that, when he had in the preceding year sought thTassistance of
the English " adversus Malcolmum paterni odii et persecutionis hoere-
dera," he and other English nobles had joined him at Carlisle, and
thrown terror into his enemies (vol. i. p. 445). He adds, that they had
taken the traitor Malcolm and delivered him bound to the king ; but
William of Newburgh says, that, whenever the royal army was despatched
against him, he eluded them by either retreating to distant forests, or
taking to the sea ; and this is probably the correct account, and his
capture must have tJiken place at a later period, as it is inconsistent with
what is elsewhere said of him to suppose that his attempts to recover
his supposed inheritance had terminated in one year. William then
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 429
narrates, that in again making a descent upon the provinces of Scotland,
he was encountered by a certain bishop, who met with his people,
felled him to the earth as he was marching in the van, and dispersed
his army. The bishop meant was probably the Bishop of Galloway, and
local tradition seems to have preserved a remembrance of the battle.
The parish of Wigton is bounded on the north by a stream called the
Bishopsburn, which flows into Wigton Bay, and the tradition is, that a
hostile army, under the command of a bishop, became hemmed in the
moss, when attempting to ford the river Cree, and was defeated with
great slaughter, so that the burn became crimson with blood.
It was probably after this defeat that he was taken prisoner, as
Fordun says that he was incarcerated " ab eodem rege David in turre
Castri de Marchemond," and he was still in prison on the accession of
Malcolm, as Fordun says, that Somerled, continuing the war, one of his
sons, Dovenaldus " per quosdam regis Malcolmi fideles apud Withterne
comprehenditur et in eadem turre de Marchemond cum patre suo incar-
ceratur." This was in 1156, under which year the Chronicle of Mel-
rose has " Dovenaldus filius Malcolmi apud Witerne captus est, et incar-
ceratus in turre de Rokesburc cum patre suo." When William of New-
burgh says, that, after his defeat by the Bishop, he recovered his forces,
and ravaged the islands and provinces of Scotland, as he had done before,
he must refer to the continuation of the war by Somerled and by his own
sons. William proceeds to say, that the king was therefore compelled to
soothe the plunderer, and made peace by yielding "quendam provinciam
cum Monasterio de Furness," but Malcolm was certainly in prison when
this pacification took place, for Fordun says that, after the capture of
Dovenaldus, in the next year " Malcolmus patre ejus cum rege paci-
ficatus est," and this is borne out by the Chronicon Sanctse Crucis,
which, under the year 1157, has "Malcolm Machet cum rege Scot-
torum pacificatus est." William then narrates that, proceeding through
his province surrounded by his army like a king, the people, unable to
endure his insolence, with consent of the nobles laid a snare for him,
took him and bound him, blinded and mutilated him. After which he
retired to Biland. The mention of Furness as included in his posses-
sions must be a mistake, as the king of Scotland had at that time no
power over that monastery ; but I am inclined to think that the " pro-
vincia" given to him by the king was the Earldom of Ross, for a
charter by King Malcolm to the Monastery of Dunfermline is witnessed
by Melcolmus mac Eth, who is placed immediately after Gilbertus
comes de Angus, and before Walterus filius Alani, the High Steward of
Scotland, showing that he had the rank of an Earl. This charter must
have been granted after the pacification in 1157, but before 1160, as
Arnaldus, Abbot of Kelso, is a witness, who ceased to be abbot in that
year, and in the same Chartulary there is a mandate addressed by
King Malcolm " Malcolmo Comiti de Ros," which is witnessed by the
430 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
same Arnald, as Bishop of St. Andrews, and he was elected bishop in
1160, and died in 1162. There is no appearance of a Malcolm Earl
of Eoss either before or after this time, and the outrage committed upon
him seems more consonant with the wild Highlanders of that district.
The Earldom was also soon after in the Crown, as it appears to have been
given, in 1162, by King Malcolm to Florence, Count of Holland, in mar-
riage with his sister Ada. — (Palgrave's Documents and Records, p. 30.)
King Malcolm appears to have made peace with Somerled in 1 1 60, as
a charter granted by him in that year is dated " Apud Perth in natali
Domini proximo post concordiam Regis et Sumerledi." — {The Family of
Innes, p. 52.) Line 23, for trucidatur we should read truditur,
II. Line 7, for vermosis we should probably read numerosk.
III. The six Earls who besieged Malcolm in Perth probably re- !
presented the seven Earls of Scotland. As the Earl Qf.Jife, who is
usually placed at the_head^f them, had himself.,jCQiid;.icted Malcolm,
on the death of his 5EEe3^~Hmii3£^,>3:8iind^ScoJJaBi^^ proclaimed him
heir to the crown, and as Ferchad^^arl of Stratherne, appears here as
the leader of the'EafTs, it is probable that the EaiLfifJFife took no part
in this attempt.
It is remarkable that there should appear together, for the first
time in the history of Scotland, a " Regulus Ergadise " and a " Regulus
Gallwallise," and that no hint should be given of the parentage of either.
For the parentage of Somerled, the " Regulus " of Ergadia, we have
nothing but a traditionary Irish genealogy, deducing his descent from
the Irish tribe which possessed the district of Oirgialla or Oriel, in
Ulster, and the strange epithet of Citebi or Cicebi in the contemporary
poem (v. 1, App. No. v.); and for that of Fergus, the "Regulus" of
Gallwallia, we have no hint whatever.
The district termed Ergadia is known in the Irish Annals under the
form of Aerergaidhel, and in Scotch documents under that oi Arregai-
thel and Earragaithel. It must not be confounded with the district of
Dalriada in Scotland, the territory of the Scots in Britain prior to the
ninth century. The name of Arragaidhil is nowhere applied in the Irish
Annals to that district, nor is it mentioned till the twelfth century.
It ifl a name of later origin, and expressed a much larger extent of
territory. Ergadia extended from the Clyde to Lochbroom, and was
used to designate the whole western seaboard of the Highlands of Scot-
laud, and it was divided into three districts. The most southern, nearly
co-extensive with the older Dalriada, was " Ergadia, quae pertinet ad
Scotiam." That extending from Loch Leven to Loch Alsh was
" Ergadia, qua) ad Moraviam pertinet," and the most northern was
" Ergadia borealis, qua) est comitis de Ros." — (Chron. Picts and Scots,
p. Ixxxvii.) According to the history of the clan contained in the
book of Clan Ranald, by M'Vurich, it was with the central district, or
" Ergadia, quae pertinet ad Moraviam," that Somerled was paternally
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 431
connected. The isles came into the family through his marriage with
the daughter of Olave Bitlingr, the Norwegian king of the Isles.
Ergadia appears in the Norse Sagas under the name of Dali and
Dolum, or the Dales, and Somerled and his family are termed the
Dalveria aet, or family of the Dales.
Gallwallia or Galwedia is termed in the Irish Annals Gallgaedhel, a
name also applied to the people of the Isles. The name of Galwedia
in its more extended sense consisted of the districts extending from
Sol way to the Clyde ; but in its limited sense, in which it is used
here, it is co-extensive with the modern counties of Wigton and Kirk-
cudbright. In the Norse Sagas it is termed Gaddgeddli.
Both districts of Ergadia and Gallwallia appear to have been to a
great extent occupied by the Norwegians, down to the period when
these "reguli" first appear. At the battle of Cluantarf in 1014, there
is mention of the Galls or foreigners of Man, Sky, Lewis, Cautire, and
Airergaidhel {Wars ofGaedel with the Galls, p. 153). Torfinn, the Earl
of Orkney, when he conquered the nine "rikis" in Scotland in 1034,
included in his possessions Dali or Ergadia, and Gaddgedli or Galloway,
and in the same year the Irish Annals record the death of " Suibhne
mac Cinaeda ri Gallgaidel." Though Thorfinn's kingdom in Scotland
terminated in 1064, when it is said that "many rikis which he had
subjected fell off, and their inhabitants sought the protection of those
native chiefs who were territorially born to rule over them " {Coll.
de Reb. Alb. p. 346), the Norwegians appear to have retained a hold
of Ergadia and Galwedia for nearly a century after, as we find in the
Irish Annals mention made in 1154 of the fleets of Gallgaedel, Arann,
Cintyre, Mann, and the Centair Alban, or seaboard of Alban, under the
command of Macscelling, a Norwegian. — {Annals of the Four Masters,
1154.) MacVurich likewise states that before Somerled's time, "all
the islands from Mannan (Man) to Area (Orkneys), and all the bordering
country from Dun Breatan (Dumbarton) to Cata (Caithness) in the
north, were in the possession of the Lochlannach (Norwegians), and
such as remained of the Gaedel of those lands protected themselves in
the woods or mountains ; " and in narrating the exploits of Somerled, he
says " he did not cease till he had cleared the western side of Alban
from the Lochlannach."
It seems probable, therefore, that the natives of Ergadia and Gall-
wallia had risen under Somerled and Fergus, and had finally expelled
the Norwegians from their coasts, and that owing to the long posses-
sion of the country by the Norwegians, all trace of their parentage had
disappeared from the annals of the country, and they were viewed as
the founders of a new race of native lords.
The two districts appear, however, closely connected with each other
in the various attempts made by the Gaedheal against the ruling autho-
rity in Scotland.
432 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
IV. The statement that Malcolm removed the whole population
of Moray and replaced them with strangers, is no doubt an exaggera-
tion, but there seems so far foundation for it, in so far as regards the
districts of Moray adjacent to Scotia proper, and separated from it by
the Spey, as in the same year we find Malcolm granting a charter to
Beroald the Fleming of the lands of Innes between the Spey and the
Findhorn ; and other strangers may have been planted there to form
a bulwark against the incursions of the inhabitants of the more moun-
tainous regions.
In the Appendix to vol. i., No. v., will be found a curious poem,
giving a contemporary account of the defeat and death of Sumerled,
the failure of his expedition being attributed to the merits of Saint
Kentigern, the patron saint of the diocese he had invaded.
VI. The original of the "visio" in this chapter will be found
in the Appendix to vol. i., No. vi. Fordun seems to have intended
eventually to add these first six sections to Book v., and to have com-
menced Book VI. with the accession of William the Lion.
VII. The coronation of William the Lion at Scone is shortly noticed,
without further detail than that he was named king by all the
" pr£elati et proceres Scotise," and received the blessing in the royal chair
from the Bishop of St. Andrews, assisted by other bishops ; but the
recital of the Celtic pedigree of the king probably now formed a part
of the ceremony, as it makes its first appearance in the first year of
his reign.
VIII. Line 1, for redita read reddita ; line 20, for universus read
universis.
X. The epithet of Bruti or Brutes, applied by Fordun to the High-
landers, is singular. Bower has " qui Catervani seu Caterarii vocantur,
quos etiam quidam Brutos vocant."
XI. What place Fordun meant by Waynilandia it is difficult to say,
unless it is a corruption for Westmerlandia. Bower has Waimerlandia.
In title, for reges read regis. Line 1, the date here given of mclxiiii.
should be mclxxiiii.
XIV. The last part of this chapter, beginning Vinianus, or rather
Vivianus, is taken from the Chronicle of Melrose. Line 11, for con-
siliati read conciliati.
XVI. This is the first appearance of the descendants of William Fitz
Duncan aa claimants of the crown. William himself married Alice
de Rumelli, through whom he obtained possessions in England, and
had by her an only son, William, commonly called the boy of Egre-
mont, who died young, and three daughters, by whom the English
estates were carried into other families. Of the boy of Egremont it is
said in the Orkneyinga Saga, " that all the Scots wished to take him
for their king." Donaldbane here mentioned must have been his son
by a second marriage, or possibly illegitimate. William Fitz Duncar
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 433
is said to have obtained from David i. a grant of the earldom of Moray,
and hence the support his son obtained there. The two castles re-
erected by King William in Ross can be identified. Dunscath lies on the
north side of Cromarty, and so guarded that entrance. Ederdone, or
rather Etherdover, was in the Black Isle, on the site of a castle termed
Redcastle, and guarded the passage into Moray. The moor termed
here Macgarvy is called in the Chronicle of Melrose, Mamgarvy, but can-
not be identified. The two events narrated in this chapter are taken
from the Chronicle of Melrose, under the years 1179 and 1187.
Line 19, for pagas we should read pagos.
XVII. This Gillicolin is termed in the Chronicle of Melrose, Gille-
colm, and the learned editor of the Chartulary of InchafFray con-
jectures that he is the Gillecolm Marescallus who witnesses a charter of
Gilbert Earl of Stratherne, and whose lands of Maderty were forfeited
for felony done against the king, in that he rendered up the king's
castle of Heryn, and traitorously went over to his enemies. — {Chartulary
of Inchaffray, p. vi.)
XX. line 24, for emunitas we should read immunitas.
XXI. line 31, for thesaurus read thesauris.
XXII. Fordun here inverts the order of events, which he has
taken in the main from the Chronicle of Melrose. The battle in Moray,
near Inverness, took place, according to the Chronicle of Melrose, be-
fore the expedition into Caithness. The river Oykell separates the
earldom of Ross from Sutherland. The two provinces of Cathanesia
are Sutherland and Caithness. By Mached, Malcolm Macbeth is
meant.
XXIV. lines 18 and 19, for accusaforem read accusatorem.
XXVII. This Gothred appears to have been the son of Donald
Bane Macwilliam mentioned in § xvi.
XXVIII. line 2, for Ad vinculam read Ad vincula.
XXIX. At the coronation of Alexander ii. the seven Earls of
Scotland are recorded for the first time as taking part in the nomination
and crowning of the king, and the Chronicle of Melrose says that " more
regio et digna celebritate regni Scotia gubernacula suscepit." The
seven Earls are the Earls of Fife, Stratherne, Atholl, Angus, Menteth,
Buchan, and Lothian. This specification of seven earls is suppressed
by Bower — a sufficient indication of its significance. It has been sup-
posed by those who consider that there was really such a constitutional
body in Scotland, that the privilege of belonging to it was inherent in
each of certain earldoms, and passed with the earldom to its possessor
for the time ; but there is nothing to establish this. The real character
of the body is indicated by the statutes passed by Alexander at Scone
in the same year, and probably at the same time. The statutes are
decreed by the king, " communi concilio comitum suorum, pro utilitate
patriae." They relate exclusively to the tillage of the land by the
VOL. II. 2 E
432 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
IV. The statement that Malcolm removed the whole population
of Moray and replaced them with strangers, is no doubt an exaggera-
tion, but there seems so far foundation for it, in so far as regards the
districts of Moray adjacent to Scotia proper, and separated from it by
the Spey, as in the same year we find Malcolm granting a charter to
Beroald the Fleming of the lands of Innes between the Spey and the
Findhorn ; and other strangers may have been planted there to form
a bulwark against the incursions of the inhabitants of the more moun-
tainous regions.
In the Appendix to vol. i., No. v., will be found a curious poem,
giving a contemporary account of the defeat and death of Sumerled,
the failure of his expedition being attributed to the merits of Saint
Kentigern, the patron saint of the diocese he had invaded.
VI. The original of the "visio" in this chapter will be found
in the Appendix to vol. i., No. vi. Fordun seems to have intended
eventually to add these first six sections to Book v., and to have com-
menced Book VI. with the accession of William the Lion.
VII. The coronation of William the Lion at Scone is shortly noticed,
without further detail than that he was named king by all the
" prailati et proceres Scotise," and received the blessing in the royal chair
from the Bishop of St. Andrews, assisted by other bishops ; but the
recital of the Celtic pedigree of the king probably now formed a part
of the ceremony, as it makes its first appearance in the first year of
his reign.
VIII. Line 1, for redita read reddita ; line 20, for universtcs read
universis.
X. The epithet of Bruti or Brutes, applied by Fordun to the High-
landers, is singular. Bower has " qui Catervani seu Caterarii vocantur,
quos etiam quidam Brutos vocant."
XL What place Fordun meant by Waynilandia it is difficult to say,
unless it is a corruption for Westmerlandia. Bower has Waimerlandia.
In title, for reges read regis. Line 1, the date here given of mclxiiii.
should be mclxxijii.
XIV. The last part of this chapter, beginning Vinianus, or rather
Vivianus, is taken from the Chronicle of Melrose. Line 11, for con-
siliati read conciliati.
XVI. This is the first appearance of the descendants of William Fitz
Duncan as claimants of the crown. William himself married Alice
de Rumelli, through whom he obtained possessions in England, and
had by her an only son, William, commonly called the boy of Egre-
mont, who died young, and three daughters, by whom the English
estates were carried into other families. Of the boy of Egremont it is
said in the Orkney inga Saga, " that all the Scots wished to take him
for their king." Donaldbane here mentioned must have been his son
by a second marriage, or possibly illegitimate. William Fitz Duncar
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 433
is said to have obtained from David i. a grant of the earldom of Moray,
and hence the support his son obtained there. The two castles re-
erected by King William in Ross can be identified. Dunscath lies on the
north side of Cromarty, and so guarded that entrance. Ederdone, or
rather Etherdover, was in the Black Isle, on the site of a castle termed
Redcastle, and guarded the passage into Moray. The moor termed
here Macgarvy is called in the Chronicle of Melrose, Mamgarvy, but can-
not be identified. The two events narrated in this chapter are taken
from the Chronicle of Melrose, under the years 1179 and 1187.
Line 19, for pagas we should read pagos.
XVII. This Gillicolin is termed in the Chronicle of Melrose, Gille-
colm, and the learned editor of the Chartulary of Inchafftay con-
jectures that he is the Gillecolm Marescallus who witnesses a charter of
Gilbert Earl of Stratherne,'and whose lands of Maderty were forfeited
for felony done against the king, in that he rendered up the king's
castle of Heryn, and traitorously went over to his enemies. — {Chartulai'y
of Inchaffray, p. vi.)
XX. line 24, for emunitas we should read immunitas.
XXI. line 31, for thesaurus read thesauris.
XXII. Fordun here inverts the order of events, which he has
taken in the main from the Chronicle of Melrose. The battle in Moray,
near Inverness, took place, according to the Chronicle of Melrose, be-
fore the expedition into Caithness. The river Oykell separates the
earldom of Ross from Sutherland. The two provinces of Cathanesia
are Sutherland and Caithness. By Mached, Malcolm Macbeth is
meant.
XXIV. lines 18 and 19, for accusaforem read accusatorem.
XXVII. This Gothred appears to have been the son of Donald
Bane Macwilliam mentioned in § xvi.
XXVIII. line 2, for Ad vinculam read Ad vincula.
XXIX. At the coronation of Alexander ii. the seven Earls of
Scotland are recorded for the first time as taking part in the nomination
and crowning of the king, and the Chronicle of Melrose says that " more
regio et digna celebritate regni Scotia gubernacula suscepit." The
seven Earls are the Earls of Fife, Stratherne, Atholl, Angus, Menteth,
Buchan, and Lothian. This specification of seven earls is suppressed
by Bower — a sufficient indication of its significance. It has been sup-
posed by those who consider that there was really such a constitutional
body in Scotland, that the privilege of belonging to it was inherent in
each of certain earldoms, and passed with the earldom to its possessor
for the time ; but there is nothing to establish this. The real character
of the body is indicated by the statutes passed by Alexander at Scone
in the same year, and probably at the same time. The statutes are
decreed by the king, " communi concilio comitum suorum, pro utilitate
patriae." They relate exclusively to the tillage of the land by the
VOL. II. 2 E
434 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
rustics or " agrestes." The seven Earls were therefore rather a council
of the whole Eiirls of Scotland, and it does not follow that they were
at all times the same. This subject will be alluded to again in a sub-
sequent note.
XXXII. The last passage in this chapter is taken from the
Chronicle of Melrose, but the persons there named " Douenaldus Ban
filius Makwillelmi et Kennuah Macaht " are here more correctly called
Dovenaldus Bane filius MacwTlliam et Kenp^ach mac Ath. The first
was probably son of the previous Donald Bane, called Macwilliam, and
the second was probably a descendant of Malcolm Macbeth, the
two families of disturbers of the peace of ScotlanHT* who seem
both to have had the united support of the people of Moray and
Ross. Makentagart, that is, Macant-sagart, means the sonofihe
priest. His name appears to have been Ferchard, and he was, for his
services in suppressing these rebellions, afterwards made Earl of Ross.
From him descend the subsequent Earls of Ross. Notwithstanding
his name, he was in reality a powerfiiljighland chief, possessing a
large tract of country on the west coast of Ross-shire. Early in the
eighth century the church of Applecross was founded, by Saint Mael-
ruba, an Irish missionary, of Scottish descent by the paternal, and of
Pictish by the maternal line. The possessions of this church were
very large, extending along the west coast of Ross-shire from Loch
Carron to Loch Broom. As was the case in other richly endowed
churches, these possessions became hereditary in the family holding for
the time the ofiice of herenach or farmer of the abbey lands, originally
an ofiice of a clerico-secular charactef7~Hut which became eventually
entirely secular, and they were married. This ofiice, with the posses-
sion of the lands, became hereditary in a family called O'Beollan, and
Ferchard Macant-sagart, or the priest's son, was the head of this family,
and, in point of fact, regular lord of the whole of the extensive districts
belonging to the church of Maelruba. — {Proceedings of Society of Aid. ^
vol. iii. p. 275.)
XXXIII. line 20, for concederat read concederet.
XXXIV. line 6, for riictariis we should read rutariis.
XXXIX. line 24, for exactione we should read exactioni ; and line
1^^ for noluerat we should read noluerant.
XL. The first expedition to Argyll, when the king was driven
back by storm, seems to have taken place in 1221, the second and suc-
cessful one in 1222. These expeditions were probably connected with
the attempts in favour of the family of Macwilliam, as they again
break out in a difterent quarter in the following year.
XLII. Gillascoph, of the race of Macwilliam, with his sons and
Roderic, again break out in rebellion " in extremis Scotiae finibus "
in the year 1223. This was probably in Galloway, as he is no doubt
the Gilluscoppe Mahohegan who appears in the statutes of Alexander ii.
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 435
as being tried at Edinburgli by the judges of Scotland and of Gal-
loway, because he had not given the hostages he had undertaken to
deliver into the king's hands. — (^Acts of Pari. i. p. 68.) He was in
Galloway prior to the year 1223, as a charter by "Thomas de Colvile
cognomento Scot" to the Abbacy of Melrose of lands in Galloway,
is witnessed by " Alan filius Rolandi de Galweia " and other Galloway
names, and also by "Gileskop macihacain," — {Chron. of Melrose^ i. p.
172); along with him are several Celtic names belonging probably to
his followers, and among others " Gilleroth filius Gillemartin," who is no
doubt the Gilroth mentioned in the succeeding chapter. " Gillroid mac
Gillemartan" appears in an old Highland pedigree as ancestor of the
clan Cameron. The name Mahohegan or Macihacain is properly
Maceochagan, or the son of Eochagain. The Rodoricus here men-
tioned was probably Roderic or Ruardhri, son of Ranald, Lord of the
Isles, and grandson of Somerled. In the Annals of Ulster he appears
in 1213 along with Thomas, son of Uchtred of Galloway, as plundering
Derry. — {Chron. Fids and Scots, p. 373.)
Bower inserts in an interpolated chapter, " Anno millesimo ducen-
tesimo vicesimo octavo, Scotus quidam, nomine Gillescop, succendit
quasdam munitiones ligneas in Moravia, et occidit quondam latronem
nomine Thomam de Thirlestan, nocte ex improviso munitionem ejus
iuvadens. Postea succendit magnam partem de Invernes ; et de terris
domini regis circumvicinis abduxit praedas, circa festum nativitatis
beatse Marise. Dominus autem rex cum paucis suorum illuc festinans,
cum aliquamdiu illuc moram fecisset, commisit custodiam terrse Moravise
Comiti de Buchan justiciario suo, tradens ei magnam peditum multitu-
dinem ;" and in the following year " Hoc anno Gillescop, de quo superius
dictum est, interfectus est, et duo filii ejus et capita eorum allata
fuerunt domino regi." He seems"tcr'i)e a different person from the
Gillascop Mahohegan mentioned in 1223, asHSower repeats Fordun's
account of him, and designates this Gillascop " Scotus quidam." He
w^as probably Lord of Badenoch, as Waite^-^myn,ttie 'eldest son of
the fiarl of Buchan, appears immediately after in possession of Bade-
noch.— {Ch. Mor. 82.) Thomas de Thirlestane also appears in 1225 in
possession of the lands of Abertarf, adjoining Badenoch on the north.
— iChartulary of Moray, p. 20.)
XLVII. Two days in each month were termed Dies ^gyptiaci, in
which it was considered unlucky to commence any work. Various
explanations of the name have been given. See Du Cange suh voce.
XL VIII. For a commentary on the coronation of Alexander ii.,
the reader is referred to the editor's tract on the Coronation Stone.
The pedigree here given does not appear in one of the mss. of the first
compilation of the Gesta Annalia. It is probable that Fordun in-
serted it afterwards, when he obtained a copy of it.
XLIX. Fordun here describes the translation of the bones of
436 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
Saint Margaret by Alexander, in the second year of his reign, that is
1250, on the 19th of June, in presence of the " episcopi et abbates,
comites et barones et alii viri honesti, tarn clerici quam laici," that is,
the feudal " coramunitas regni," but on turning to the Chartulary of
Dunfermline, p. 235, we find, from an Inquisition taken in 1316, that
the translation took place at Dunfermline " in presentia domini Alex-
andri regis Scottorum, scilicet Alexandri tertii, septem episcoporum et
septem comitum Scotise." The presence of the seven Bishops and the
seven Earls of Scotland was essential to the ceremony, and this leads to
the suspicion that they also played the same part at the coronation of
Alexander iii., though not mentioned by Fordun, as they did at that
of Alexander ii. There does therefore seem to have been a con-
stitutional body, termed the Seven Earls of Scotland, and their con-
junction with a body of Seven Bishops seems to point to the old
division of Albania into seven provinces, as the source of their con-
stitutional privileges. AVhen we compare the charters of David i. with
the few charters of their predecessors, Alexander and Edgar, we see that
a very important change in these charters commenced with David, The
charters of Edgar relate to land south of the Forth, and therefore not
in Scotland proper, and are usually addressed simply "omnibus suis
hominibus, Scottis et Anglis," or " omnibus suis fidelibus per regnum
suum, Scottis et^Anglis ; " those of Alexander relate to land within Scot-
land proper, his kingdom having been confined to the territory north of
the Firths of Forth and Clyde. They are addressed "omnibus per
regnum suum, Scottis et Anglis," and also "episcopis et comitibus
necnon fidelibus suis totius Scotise;" and the foundation charter of
Scone is granted " honesto proborum virorum consilio," and is confirmed
by Gregorius episcopus (of Moray) and Cormacus episcopus (of Dunkeld).
Then follows "Ego Alexander nepos regis Alexandri dehiis testimonium
perhibeo, ego Beth comes similiter, ego Gospatricius Dolfini assensum
prebeo, ego Mallus comes assensum prebeo, ego Madach comes assensum
prebeo, ego Rothri comes assensum prebeo, ego Gartnach comes assen-
sum prebeo, ego Dufagan comes assensum prebeo;" but the charters of
David and his successors are addressed " Episcopis Abbatibus Comitibus
Baronibus Vicecomitibus Propositis Ministris et omnibus probis homini-
bus totius terras suae." That is the feudal Baronage and otiiciaries of the
Crown. In the same manner, when the consent of the community is
required, David grants his charters to Dunfermline "regia auctoritate et
potestate, Henrici filii mei assensu et Matildis reginse uxoris mei, Episco-
porum Comitum Baronumque regni mei confirmatione et testimonio ; "
that is, the feudal "communitas regni," consisting of the "tenentes in
capite " of the Crown, which thus comes in place of the Bishops and Earls
who gave their consent in the charter of his predecessor King Alexander i.
In this charter Gospatrick is not designated comes, but he is placed
■econd in the list and was at that time an Earl, aa appears from
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 437
his own charters. The consent given is therefore by seven Earls, and
of those which can be identified we find that four, viz., Gospatric
of Lothian, Mallus of Strathern, Madach of Athol, and Gartnach of
Buchan, possess the same earldoms with four of the seven Earls who
took part in the coronation of Alexander ii., but as Rothri in the Scone
charter was certainly Earl of Mar, and no Earl of Mar appears among
the seven Earls at Alexander ii.'s coronation, while the Earl of Mar
again appears among the seven Earls who supported the cause of
Robert Bruce, it is plain that while the number constituting the " con-
cilium comitum" always consisted of seven, the individual earldoms
there represented were not always the same.
That there was a similar Council of seven Bishops may also be in-
ferred from the inquisition in the Chartulary of Dunfermline, and we
seem to find them in a " Concilium" held at Edinburgh between 1250
and 1253 by "David, Willelmus, Petrus, Clemens, Albinus, Robertus,
Willelmus, Sancti Andrese, Glasguen., Aberdonen, Dunblayn, Brechyn,
Rossen, Katanen, ecclesiarum Ministri." — (Acts of Pari. i. p. 83**.)
For the subsequent notices of the seven Earls, reference is made to Sir
Francis Palgrave's Records of the Tower. It seems hardly possible to
avoid the conclusion that these seven Earls represented a constitutional
body in Scotland before the appearance of the feudal "communitas" which
formed the " curia regis" and the " magnum concilium regni," and that
they claimed to exercise certain privileges, and occasionally did exercise
them, long after they were superseded by the latter body. The Earl of
Fife seems always to have held the foremost position among the old
traditionary Earls of Scotland, and to have belonged to this body, and
it was probably from his position at the head of that body that he
possessed the privilege of placing the king in the royal chair. Line 7,
for ahiegeno read abiegno.
LVIIL line 4, for ipse read ipsi.
LXVIII. In the title, the scribe has written regine for regimine.
LXIX. Fordun seems to have intended to close Book vi. with
the death of the Maid of Norway, and to have completed his work in
seven books.
LXXIII. The account here given by Fordun of the descendants of
Malcolm Canmore and his wife, Saint Margaret, is correct so far as it
goes, with the exception that the wife of Roger de Quinci was the
daughter of Alan of Galloway by a former wife, and not by Margaret of
Scotland. The table on p. 439 contains these genealogies.
CVII. line 10, for protentiam read potentiam.
CXXI. line 15, for perdicta read perdita.
CXXII. In the title, for Slevach read Slenach. This was the old
name of Slains.
CXXV. The " insula " meant here was probably Isla, the principal
seat of Donald of the Isles.
438 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
CXXXII. In the title, the scribe has written Angliam for Hiherniam.
CLIX. The Dnimlie Sands are in the mouth of the Firth of Tay.
Fordun states that William Bulloch was detained captive, " in Malimo-
ram ;" some mss. read " cum Malmoram," and Bower has " cum
Molmaran et aliis iniquis deputatus in Lochindorb custodise manci-
patur." The place meant is probably Mammore in Lochaber, called
in old charters Mawmor and Morimare. — {Orig. Far. ii. p. 171.)
CLXII. line 1 6, for adduxerunt we should read ahduxerunt.
CLXIX. In title, for soholce read sohole.
CLXXII. In title, for captatione read captione.
CLXXIV. line 26 , for sciciente read sitiente ; line 47, for autem-
canonici read avtem canonici.
CLXXX. line 3, for industrihus we should probably read illustrihus.
CLXXXVII. line 4, for infrat reugas read infra treugas ; and line
7, for terra probably turri.
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APPENDIX.
TRIBE COMMUNITIES IN SCOTLAND.
When Fordun, in the forty-third chapter of his Fourth Book, states
that the whole land in Scotland was at one time divided into Thanages,
he was talking of a thing which existed in his own day. He was not
referring to that mythic state of matters described in a previous chapter
when Thanes were supposed to be the governors of provinces and to
have had an Abthane over them, but the "Thanagium" was a thing of
which he well knew the meaning, and which, as it existed in his own
day, he has very accurately described.
In Fordun's time, land in Scotland may be classed under three heads.
There was first the proper demesne of the Crown ; secondly, the Church
land ; and thirdly, land held by the feudal tenures of ward and blench,
either in capite of the Crown or of the Church. Under the feudal
forms, it is difficult to trace the appearance of any older mode of tenure,
and the tendency undoubtedly was to extend the feudal holdings over
the country generally ; biit, in the Crown and the Church lands, we can
trace the existence of a more ancient state of society, and of older kinds
of tenure, when not superseded by the feudal tenure, though these more
ancient forms of holding are sometimes concealed under a modern
nomenclature.
Fordun appears mainly to have had in view what may be called
Scotland proper, the more ancient Scotia, which extended from the Forth
to the Spey, and consisted of the north-eastern Lowlands. It was here
that the monarchy had its main seat and the Crown its greatest posses-
sions. In the outlying provinces, viz., that of Moravia and Cathanesia
on the north, Ergadia on the west, and Lodoneia and Galwedia on the
south, the Crown was only gradually extending its power, and these
districts were by degrees being incorporated with the kingdom, but
they were still considered, even in the nomenclature of Fordun's time,
as distinct from Scotia.
Fordun, then, in the Crown and Church lands of Scotland proper,
found certain portions of land, more or less extensive, held by a
tenure which was not feudal, and which were called "Thanagia,"
442 APPENDIX.
and' his statement is that at one period the whole land was divided into
such "Thanagia." He is referring, therefore, to a state of matters
prior to the introduction of feudal holdings, and we may not unrea-
sonably conclude that, under this nomenclature, was veiled the remains
of an older social system of land tenure, which prevailed among the
earlier inhabitants before the introduction of the Normans brought in
the feudal system.
The older population consisted of three elements, Saxon, British, and
// Gaelic, and to the laws of these three races we must look for a clue to
the meaning of Fordun's statement. These we fortunately possess.
For the Gaelic race, we have the Irish Brehon Laws, now in course of
publication. For the British and Saxon races, we have the Ancient
Laws and Institutes of Wales, and the Ancient Laws and Institutes
of England, both published by the English Record Commission ; and
for Scotland we have a short code attached in some mss. to the Regiam
Majestatem, and termed "Leges inter Brettos et Scottos." In this
fragment, there is such a mixture of Welsh and Gaelic nomenclature,
that it is probable that it is not so much a fragment of ancient law
which has come down to us from Celtic times, as an attempt, made
probably in the reign of David i., to frame a written code, containing
such of the ancient Celtic customs as it was necessary still to recognise,
which should be applicable both to the British and the Gaelic races in
Scotland.
There is a wonderful similarity in all of these laws, and they disclose
a social state in each race which bears a great resemblance to each
other. They all point especially to the possession of land by the tribe
or community, as preceding its property by individuals — to a joint pro-
perty in the tribe or community, out of which individual property
gradually emerged.
Taking the Brehon laws and the customs of Ireland as our guide, we
find that in most cases the names of territories and of the tribes in-
habiting them were the same. Dr. O'Donovan states in his Introduc-
tion to the topographical poems of John O'Dubhagain and GioUo-na-
naomh, that the tribe names were formed from those of their ancestors
by prefixing the following words : —
1. Cinel — kindred, race, descendants ; as, Cinel Eoghain, the race of
Eoghain, etc.
2. Clann — children, race, descendants ; as, Clann Colman, the race
of Colman, etc.
3. Core, Corca — race, progeny ; as, Corca Baiscinn, the race of
Baiscinn, etc.
4. Dal — tribe, progeny ; as, Dalriada, etc.
5. Macu, in ancient Mss., in the sense oifiliorum.
6. Muintir — family, people ; as, Muintir Maoilmordha, the tribe of
the O'Reillys of East Brefney, etc.
TRIBE COMMUNITIES. 443
7. Siol — seed, progeny ; as, Siol Muiredhaigh, the tribe name of
the O'Conors in Roscommon, etc.
8. Tealach — family ; as, Tealach Eachdach, the tribe name of the
Magaurans, etc.
9. Sliocht — progeny ; as, Sliocht Aedha Slane, in Meath, etc.
10. Ua — grandson, descendant ; plural Ui ; dative or ablative Uibh;
as, Ui Neill, the descendants of Mall, etc.
Most of these denominations for the tribe and its territory appear to
have existed in Scotland. Thus for Cinel, we have a charter by David it.
"anent the clan of Kenelman" (R. I. 57. 28), and by Neil Earl of
Carrick to Roland de Carrick, constituting him head of the tribe or
clan in all matters pertaining to "KenkynoU" (Reg. Mag. Sig., 114.
115). In Dalriada, there was the Cinel Loam and Cinel Gabhrain,
and part of Morvern was termed Cinelbadon.
For Clann, we have, in the Book of Deer, Clann Morgaind and Clann
Canan. We have also a charter, in Robertson's Index, by David ii.
to Donald Edzear, of the captainship of Clanmacgowin (39. 54). There
is no appearance of Core or Corca in Scotland. For Dal we have
Dalriada in Scotland. For Muintir there is, in Robertson's Index,
" Carta anent the clan of Muintircasduff, and who should be captain
thereof" (57. 29). There is no mention of Siol in Scotland.
Tealach, in names of places in Ireland, is corrupted into Tully, from
the genitive Tealaigh, and there are innumerable Tullys and Tillys in
Scotland. Some of them come no doubt, from Tulaigh, the genitive
form of Tulach, a little hill, but a great proportion, as in Ireland, and
specially those combined with a personal name, are from Tealaigh, the
genitive form of Tealach, a family. Of Sliocht there is no appearance
in Scotland. Ua, corrupted into 0, is probably the first syllable in
such names as Obriachan in Inverness-shire, Obeyn in Mar.
But the generic terms applied to the territory of a tribe are two,
Tuath and Cinement. Of these, Tuath is the most common. Thus, in
an ancient life of Brian Borumha, king of Ireland, who reigned from
1002 to 1014, it is stated, "And it was during his time surnames were
first given, and territories (duthadha) were allotted to the surnames,
and the boundaries of every Tuaithe and Trichaced were fixed." The
Trichaced will be noticed afterwards. The word Tuath means liter-
ally a family, and came to be applied to the district occupied by a
tribe. Harris observes that, in the table to the Red-Council Book,
the word Tuogh or Tuath is made synonymous to barony. In a tract
preserved in ms. in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, written
in 1683 by the Rev. John Keogh, containing an account of the County
of Roscommon, is the following : — " Connaught (and, I suppose, other
provinces) was anciently distinguished into countries called Doohie
(Tuatha) or Tyre, named from such and such families or nations inha-
biting them, as in the Barony of Athlone, Doohie Keogh, the country
444 APPENDIX.
or nation of the Keoghs, etc." We find also the district of Corco-
laidhe, in Munster, divided into Tuaths named after the tribes which
occupied them, and so of many other districts.
We can trace, however, the existence of similar districts called
Tuatha in Scotland. Thus in the Ainra Cholhimchilli it is said that
when " he raised his church at first, that is, Eu (Hi), he was very
reserved towards territories (Tuaithibh) or external country (Thir
anechtair)," and again that he sought " five territories (tuatha) of Erin,
and two territories (tuatha) in Alban or Scotland," and in the account
of Corca Laidhe there is mention made of the " two tuaiths in Alban,
id est, Tuath Fore and Tuath Iboth."
The word Cinement is derived from Cine, a family, and the old Irish
word Mendat or Minnat, a habitation.^ Thus Harris observes, " The
word Cine, from whence Cinement is formed, signifies no more than a
family, and so Cinement is the habitation or district of such a family."
The district of North Clandeboy in Ulster consisted of thirteen tuaths
and seven cinements ; that of Glynnes had six tuaths and one cinement,
and in the Book of Deer we find mention of the burdens that fall " on
the chief tribe residences of Alban (Ardmandaidib Alban-) generally and
on chief churches (Ardcliellaib)."
The Tuath, then, was the possession of a tribe the technical name
for which, in the Brehon Laws, was Fine (the Cinadyl of the Welsh
Laws), and according to these laws " It is no tuath without three noble
privileged persons, Eclais, or church, Flaith, or chief, and File, or poet.
Succession is in the Fine, or tribe, power in the Flaith, or chief, wisdom
in the Eclais, or church." By the common law of the tribes, the land
which made up the Tuath consisted first of the Fechtfine or tribe land
(the Tir Cyfrif of the Welsh laws, the Folcland of the Saxon), and
secondly, of the Orba or inheritance land (the Tir Gwelyawg of the
Welsh, and the Bocland of the Saxons).
These lands were occupied by the Fine or tribes thus. The Indfine,
or commonalty of the Fine or tribe, possessed the tribe land. The
arable land was distributed at stated intervals among the Ceile, or free
members of the tribe, each having their share, and a redistribution taking
place as fresh claimants for a share appeared ; the pasture land Wiis
pastured in common, according to the number of cattle possessed by
each, and the waste land sepai-ated each tuath from one another. The
Orba or inheritance land was possessed by the Flaith or nobles of the
Fine, as individual property; of these there were two classes, viz.,
Flaith of the superior grade consisting of five degrees, the Aire For-
^ Cormac's Glossary, voce Mendat.
• In the edition of the Book of Deer by the Spalding Club this expression
is erroneously translated monasteries. It is rightly translated residences by
Mr. Whitby Stokes. The Columban monastery and the cell or church
were the same.
TRIBE COMMUNITIES. 445
gill. Aire Ard, Aire Tusa, Aire Echta, and Aire Desa. These had
rank from their dignity, that is, their descent and pedigree {B. L. iL
154). The inferior grade consisted of two degrees, the Bo-Aire and the
Oc-Aire, who were estimated according to their possession of cows and
other property. The Flaith of the superior grade, however, bore the
general name of Tigheam in respect of their lordship over land, and
Toisech in respect of their leadership or captaincy of the clan or tribe.
Their land was held partly as demesne, and cultivated by the lower
class, whether bond or free, and partly under tenantry, under a tenure
similar to the old Scottish steelbow. Besides the members of the
Fine, who were under them, there was another class, consisting either
of stranger septs who took refuge with the tribe and obtained land
from the Flaith, or who had been subjugated by them, as distinguished
from the Fine or tribe. These were termed Fuidhir, and from these
foreign septs were formed the bodies of Galloglach or Galloglasses, who
followed the chiefs and added to their power. Besides the kind of
holdings above specified, a part of the tribe land was set apart as tribe
demesne, and formed the mensal land for the support of the office-
bearers of the tribe, as the Toisech or leader, the Tanist, the File or poet,
and the Brehon or judge, and a part of the Orba or inheritance land
was Termon or church land for the support of the church of the Tuath.
The homestead or residence of a family, with as much land as was
required for their subsistence, was the unit, the aggregate of which
made up the Tuath. The homestead was termed usually a Rath. To
constitute a legitimate rath five things were required by the Brehon
Laws, viz., a dweUing-house, an ox-stall, a hog-sty, a sheep-pen, and a
calf-house, and they were surrounded by a ditch or rampart. They
were distinguished into Fine-rath, a homestead occupied by the original
kindred ; Mer-rath, rented by stranger tenants ; lar-rath, occupied by
stranger serfs on the chiefs demesne lands, and others. They varied
also in size and importance from the homestead of the chief to that of
the smallest tenant. Thus the Bishop of Dunkeld grants to the Abbey
of Scone the church of Logymahedd, with its pertinents, viz., Rath
quae est caput comitatus (fih. Scone^ p. 35). Alexander Stewart, Lord
of Badenoch, cites "omnes et singulos tenentes qui aliquam terram
tenent infra metas nostre regalitatis de Badenoch," to appear before
him " apud le Standand Stanys de le Rathe de Kyngucy" (CA. of
M&ray, p. 184), and Willelmus filius Bemardi grants to the Abbey
of Arbroath " duas bovatas terre quae vocantur Rath de territorio de
Katerlyn " {Ch. Arh. p. 44). The word Rath enters largely into the
topography of Scotland in the hard form of Raitt and in the soft
form of Ra, as in Ramore (Rath-mor or great rath), Ratref (Rath-
trebh or tribe-rath), and of Rothy, as in Rathmorcus, now Rothy-
murchus. The law which regulated the succession of the Flaith to
their own Orba is somewhat intricate and obscure, and for this purpose
446 ArrENDix.
they were grouped into three classes, called Geillfine, Deirbhfine, and
larfine ; but it is unnecessary to enter into this question here.
The succession to the Toiseachacht or leadership was regulated by
the law of Tanistry. It was hereditary in certain families, and elective
in persons. There were a certain number of persons qualified to hold
the office, and of these the tribe usually elected the senior or oldest
representative of the oldest line of the stock, if not disqualified by age
or infirmity, as chief, and the next qualified person as Tanist or suc-
cessor. The revenue of the chief arose from the produce of his
mensal lands, in which he had a life interest and certain claims of
entertainment for himself and his household followers, besides the
revenue of his Orba or private property. He had besides an official
dominion over the tribe land.
The Fine or tribe, therefore, consisted of a community deriving a real
or supposed descent from a common ancestor, and were distinguished
into Flaithe and Feine ; the former possessing land in private property,
and exercising lordship over the occupiers of such land ; and the latter
having a joint right of property in the tribe land, which they cultivated
and pastured in common. The leader or Toisech of the tribe was
elected from the order of Flaiths or nobles, and, distinguished from the
Fine or tribe proper, were foreign septs who obtained land from the
Flaith and were subject to them. The Toisech was always of the same
race as the tribe ; the Oglach, or leader of the Galloglasses, usually
belonged to a diff'erent tribe. This appears very clearly in the descrip-
tion of the Tuaths of Corcolaidhe, where the Toisech appears as bearing
the same name with the tribe, while the Oglach bears a different name.
For the ranks above the Flaithe or chiefs of the tribe, the first had
but one common name, that of Ri or king. There was the Ri Eiinn
or Ardri — the supreme king of Ireland ; the Ri Cuice, or king of the
provinces, and the Ri Mortuath, or king of the great district (£. L. ii.
147). But in Scotland the intermediate rank between the Ardri and
the Toisech, though occasionally called Ri, came to be termed Mormaer.
Thus Tighernac mentions, in 976, three Mormaers of Alban as join-
ing in a foray in Ireland, and the Annals of Ulster, in recording an
invasion of Alban by the Danes in 918, says that neither the king of
Alban nor any of the Mormaers fell in that battle, and mentions, in 1014,
the Mormaer of Mair, and, in 1032, the Mormaer of Moray. In the
JBook of Deer we have the Mormaers of Buchan, and we find through-
out, the Toisech, as the head of the tribe community, and the Mormaer,
as the head of the aggregate of tribes forming a province, concurring
in the grants to the church of Deer of parts of the tribe lands. We
also have the Toisechs connected with their tribes in two instances,
wliere the Toisech of Clancanan and the Toisech of Clanmorgund are
mentioned.
Such being the state of the tribe communities, when we are first able
TEIBE COMMUNITIES. 447
to recognise them in Scotland, we soon find them undergoing consider-
able modification ; the cause being the increasing influence and power
of the Crown.
We have seen in the Book of Deer that the grants of tribe land to
the Church were made by the Toisech and the Mormaer ; but as in
Saxon England, so in Scotland, the king soon claimed, as the head and
representative of the nation, the right to convert tribe land into inherit-
ance land, with the concurrence of the great council of the nation. We
have one instance in the Book of Deer where Malcolm ii. exercises this
right. And, as the authority of the Crown over these communities in-
creased, and the influence of Saxon institutions, which appears to have
commenced in his reign, attained greater power when the kings of the
race of Crinan were placed on the throne by Saxon armies and, by the
marriage of Malcolm Canmore with Margaret, the sister of Edgar
jEtheling, came to represent the old Saxon royal line, maintaining their
position by the weight of the southern provinces possessing a Saxon
population, a corresponding change took place in the nomenclature,
which became assimilated to the Saxon — a change which the sub-
stantial identity of the institutions of the two races rendered one of
great difficulty.
The Mormaer passed over into the Comes. Thus RugJldji-Mormaer of
Mar appears as a witness to a deed in the Book of Deer, and the same
person appears in the foundation charter of Scone by Alexag(^--fc*
as Rothri^^5fla«s. In the same way the Toisech became the Thanus.
0' Flaherty observes in his Ogygia^ " Taisius (Toisech) apud nos idem est
sensa literali ac Capitaneus seu praecipuus Dux ; officio et honore con-
venit cum prisco Thano Anglosaxonico." Sir John Skene, in his notes
to the Regiam Majestatem, B. iv. c. 31, says: "Thanus apud priscos
Scotos sive Hybernos dicitur Tosche est Maktosche, filius Thani ;" and
this is confirmed by the deeds connected with the thanage of Glentilt,
where we have in 1457 a retour of Andrew de Glentilt, as heir to his
father, Johannes le thane de Glentilt j in 1467 a notarial instrument by
Finlaius le thane de Glentilt filius et hseres quondam Andree le thane
de Glentilt ; and in 1502 two charters by John Earl of Atholl as
superior of the " Thanagium Abnathie sive le thanedom de Glentilt "
which belonged to " Finlaius Tosschoch thanus de Glentilt," and in a
procuratory of the same date he calls himself " Finlaius Tosstheouth
Thanus de Glentilt." — {Atlwll ChaHers.)
It is at this stage of the process of change, that the fragmentary code
termed " Leges inter Brettos et Scottos " seems to have been framed for
the purpose of recognising, as law, some of the customs of the old
Celtic tribe communities, and we obtain from it the following grades in
the chain from the king to the tiller of the soil : —
Statuit Dominus rex quod le Cro domini Regis Scotise est mille
vaccse vel tria millia orarum aurearum scilicet tres orse pro vacca.
448 APPENDIX.
Item le Cro filii Regis vel unius Comitis Scotiae est septies viginti et
decern vaccse vel tres orse pro vacca.
Item le Cro filii unius Comitis vel unius Thani est centum vaccse.
Item le Cro filii Thani est sexaginta sex vaccse et duse partes unius
vaccse.
Item le Cro nepotis unius Thani vel unius Ogthiern est quadraginta
quatuor vaccse et viginti unus denariorum et duse partes unius denarii.
Et omnes bassiores in parentela sunt Rustici. — (Acts of Pari. i. 299.)
The word Cro does not occur in the Welsh or Irish laws, but it is
identified in a subsequent clause with Gaines and Enach. Gaines is
the Welsh Galanes, which appears in their laws as the compensation for
slaughter, and Enach is the Irish Enechlann or honorprice of the Brehon
Laws. The same ranks are repeated with regard to other fines. Here
the Ogthiern is placed as the grade immediately above the Rusticus,
and corresponds to the inferior grade of the Flaiths, consisting of the
Bo-Aire and Oc-Aire. Skene in voce Ochiem rightly calls it " ane name of
dignity and of ane freehalder," as indeed the word tighearn which enters
into the name implies. Sir George Mackenzie observes on this : '' This
Ochiem is by Skeen called a freeholder ; but I find by many old evidents,
that an Ochiern is a chief of the branch of a great family, who has a
considerable command." Both are no doubt right ; and this grade
seems to be represented by the later denomination of " Liberetenentes "
or freeholders of " tenandia" under the superior.
The Thanus and Filius Thani correspond to the superior grade of
Flaiths, among whom the chief was termed the Toisech. The Comes
corresponds to the Mormaer of Scotland, and to the inferior Ri, or king
of the Irish.
The next step in the process, as in England, was that the land pos-
sessed by the tribe communities came to be viewed as terra regis^ or
. Crown land, and the king became the dominies or superior. The tribe
'' land occupied by the commonalty was considered royal demesne, and
the inheritance land became the Thanagium holding of the king. Thus
in the Acts of Alexander ii. we find the Thanes ranked with the Barons
and knights who held of the Crown — " de terris Episcoparum, Abba-
turn, Baronum, Militum, Thanorum^ qui de rege tenent, debet solus rex
habere forisfactum." In the same statute the fine of the Ochiern is
divided between the king and the " Thanus vel miles," from which it
may be inferred that he was a sub-vassal, holding under them. The
earls thanes are also mentioned in terms which show that they held
under the earl, and they seem to correspond to the class equal in rank to
the " Filius unius Thani " in the " Leges inter Brittos et Scottos." —
{Acts of Pari, i. p. 68.) In another act the crown lands are said to be
either demesne or thanage, " dominica vel thanagia." — {Acts of Pari. i.
p. 69.) Of the demesne, the waste land, where it existed, became the
royal forest. Thus the district of the Boyne consisted of the Thanagium
TRIBE COMMUNITIES. 449
de Boyne and the Foresta de Boyne. In Kintore, the king deals separ-
ately with the Thanagium de Kintore and the Foresta de Kintore, and
so of many others. There is also an instructive notice preserved in
Robertson's Index (28. 6) as follows : — "Inquisitio terrarum forrestse
de Kinross facta apud Kinross 23 September 1323, terra forrestse de
Kinross segregata erant a Th magio de Kinross."
This change from the Celtic to the Saxon nomenclature appears only
to have taken place in Scotland proper, that is, in the north-eastern
Lowlands, extending from the Forth to the Moray Firth, where the
power of the Crown had been consolidated. Over the semi-independent
provinces lying to the north and west of it the influence of the Crown
was too weak to effect it. The few Thanages south of the Forth, such
as that of Haddington, are the remains of the old Saxon Thanages
which existed when David Comes, afterwards David i., addressed a
charter " Tegnis et Drengis de Lodoneio et de Tevegadale," but which
rapidly disappeared before the spread of the feudal holdings.
The Crown land with its Dominicum or demesne ; its Thanagium or
Thanage ; its Foresta, and its occupants of Thanes, Ochierns and Rustici
thus replaced the older Tuath, or tribe community with its tribe land
and Orba or inheritance land, its Flaith or gentry, Toisech or Captain,
and its tribe members, free and unfree, in so far as they had not been
extinguished by the feudal holding ; and as every Tuath had its
church, it in many cases was nearly identic with the subsequent parish
and gave its name to it. The extensive Thanage of Kintore, with its
church of Kinkell, and its territory embracing several modern parishes ;
with its Thanestown, its tenandria, and its foresta, its liberetenentes, its
bondi, bondagii, nativi et eorum sequeli, its burdens of Can and Ferchane,
was probably a fair representative of what had been an Ardmandat or
chief tribe residence, with its Ardcell or chief church. It formed part
of the Crown lands till granted as a feudal holding " in libera Baronia"
in the reign of Robert ii.
It will be necessary now to say something as to the land measures
and the burdens which affected it at this time.
Although the Tuaths differed in extent according to the size of the
community which possessed them, both the Gaelic and the Welsh races
possessed definite and fixed measures of land. In Ireland the unit was
the Ballybetagh or township bound to furnish provisions, which con-
sisted of four quarters, and each quarter contained, according to one
denomination, four taths of sixty acres each, and according to another,
three seisraichs or Bally boes of 120 acres. The Ballybetagh thus
contained either 960 or 1440 acres. In some parts of Ireland there
was still greater variety ; but thirty Ballybetaghs constituted the
Triochaced or original barony. In Wales the Tref or township was the
unit, and contained four gavaels, each gavael four randirs, each randir
four tyddyns or menshouses, each of which contained four Welsh acres.
VOL. II. 2 F
450 APPENDIX.
The tref thus contained 256 Welsh acres, equal to about 64 English
acres. There were fifty trefs in a Cymmwd, and four trefs in a Maynaul
or Maenawr. The Cymmwd therefore contained twelve Maynauls and
two trefs, and each Maynaul contained 1034 Welsh acres, or about
256 English acres.
In Scotland we find that in Lothian and the Merse, which formed
xhe ancient district of Lodoneia, the unit is the carucate or ploughland,
which contained four husbandlands, and each husbandland, two oxgates
of thirteen acres each of arable land. The carucate thus contained
104 acres of arable land, besides pasture. In Orkney and Caithness,
the unit was the oer or ounce, which contained either eighteen or
twenty pennylands. This seems to have been a Scandinavian measure,
and the pennyland to have been so called because, under the Norwegian
rule, each homestead paid one penny as Scat.
In the rest of Scotland, viz., in the country extending from the
Forth and Clyde to Caithness, we find only one denomination common
to the whole, viz., the Dabhach or Davach, the Latin form of which was
Davata, but in the eastern half of this part of the country it is combined
with the system of carucates and bovates. Four carucates forming a
davach, which thus contained 416 acres of arable land, besides pasture,
but in some parts of the country we find the bovate or oxgang contained
twenty acres, which would give the carucate 160 acres and the davach
1640 acres. (See Antiq. Aberdeen and Banff ^ vol. iv. p. 690, where a
dimidia carucata is said to contain " quater xx acras cum crofta vii
acras et communi pastura.")
In the ancient Ergadia, or Airergaidhel and the Western Isles, as
well as in Sutherland, the Davach is the same as the terung or ounce
land, and contained twenty pennylands ; thus in a charter quoted in
the Origines Parochiales (ii. 374), we have " the Davach called in
Scotch le terung of YUera," etc. In other charters the terung is
latinized unciata. In another charter (ii. p. 363) the ten pennylands
of Keilbakstar are said to be a half teirunge, and in a charter in 1583
(ii. 829) we have " the ten pennylands of Arnistill called a half
Davach," etc., and " the ten pennylands of Moilachunry and ten of
Moillockinaig called a Davach." It is clear therefore that the Davach
was the old Celtic unit, combined in the eastern districts with the
Saxon denominations, and in the western with the Norwegian. There
were probably in the eastern districts subdivisions denominated Bals,
Boths, or Pettes, which in many cases appear to have been a half
Davach.
The Thanages in these districts were of different sizes, but the smaller
Thanages in many cases contained six davachs. Thus we have the six
davachs of the thanage of Conveth (Antiq. Ahei\ and Banff ^ ii. 217),
the six davachs of Rathmorchus {Ch. Mor. 189) ; and that this was a
determinate quantity appears from the Chartulary of Scone (p. 42) where
TKIBE COMMUNITIES. 451
Alexander ii. grants to Scone the lands of Magna Blar et Parva Blar,
which appear from the charter to have extended to six davachs.
Others of the Thanages were of much greater extent. Thus the Thanage
of Abirbuthnot, if it was, as is probable, co-extensive with the parish,
contained fifty-four ploughgates, which makes the Thanage equal to
13| davachs, and if the davach, as is probable, corresponded with the
Welsh Maynaul or Maenawr, makes the Thanage about equal to the
Welsh Cymmwd.
It has been supposed that the word Dabhach comes from Damh, an
ox, and ach, a field, but this etymology is untenable, as in the oldest
form of the word it is spelt Dabach, and the Book of Deer shows that
the last syllable, ach, is a nominative termination, and is inflected in the
oblique cases. The word Dabhach is also applied in Ireland to the
largest measure of quantity, and appears in the old Irish glosses in
this sense " Caba, i.e. Cavea, Dabach," genitive Dabhca. — {Ir. Glosses,
p. 63.)
The burdens upon the land held by the community seem both in
Ireland and Scotland to have been principally five, four of which are
mentioned in the Amiu Collumchilli as existing in the sixth century. At
the council of Drumceat held in the year 573, one of the chief questions
was whether Scotch Dalriada was to be considered as a province sub-
ject to Ireland, or as an independent kingdom. The judgment was
" Their Fecht and Sloged with the men of Erin always, for there is
Sloged with territories always. Their Cain and Cobach with the men
of Alba." We have here four burdens mentioned, Cain, Cobach, Fecht,
Sloged, of which the Cain and Cobach are surrendered to Scotch
Dalriada, and this judgment probably led to the solemn inauguration of
Aedan as king of Dalriada by Saint Columba in the same year. In the
Book of Kells (Misc. Ir. Arch. vol. i. p. 139) there is a memorandum
of a grant by which Conchobhar 0 Maelsechlainn " gave Celldelga with
its territory and lands to God and to Columbkille for ever, no king (rig)
or chieftain (toisig) having Cis, Cobach, Fecht, [Sjluaged, Choinnim,
or any other claim on it." Here we have the same four, Cis being
the same as Cain, with the addition of a fifth, Coinnim. In a grant
by Sir Ewin of Erregeithill to the Bishop of Argyll in 1251 of lands in
Lismore they are granted free of all duties, including " Cain, Coneveth,
Feact, Slagad, and Ich." — (Orig. Far. ii. p. 164.) In a charter in the
Chartulary of Dunfermline, the lands of Dufcupar are granted, " libera et
quieta a Can et Cuneveth et exercitu et auxiliis et ab omni servitio et
exactione seculari." — {Chart. Dun. p. 45.) A grant with a similar
clause occurs in Chartulary of St. Andrews, p. 4.
The first, then, of these burdens is the Cain, for which in Ireland
Cios is sometimes used as an equivalent. Sir John Skene, in voce
Canum, gives a correct enough definition when he says, " In sindrie
charters and infeftments of lands, specially balding of the kirk, is
452 APPENDIX.
commonly used for the duety and revenue quhilk is paied to the superior
or lord of the land." But when he derives it from the Irish word
heane, signifying the head, and identifies it with the Roman capitatio,
he is misled by a false etymology. The word Cain can have no etymo-
logical connexion with the word Ceann^ a head. It is, in fact, merely
the Gaelic equivalent of the Latin word " Canon," and has the same
meaning. In Cormac's Glossary we have, " Canoin, quasi Cain-on."
The primary meaning of Canon is a rule or law, and we find Cain used
in this sense as in Cain Phatraic and Cain Adomnan, invariably trans-
lated " Lex Patricii" and "Lex Adomnani."
A secondary meaning, as given by Du Cange, is Pensitatio, and he
gives many instances in which it expresses the annual return from lands,
adding, "sed et practicis nostris Canon emphiteotique etiam nunc
dicitur vectigal annuum ex fundo emphyteutico solvendum." In the
same way it expresses feu-duty, as our action for the forfeiture of a
feu-holding for non-payment of feu-duty is termed a declarator "ob
non solutum canonem.'" Cain has also the same meaning. In the
chartularies it appears as the equivalent of Redditus. Thus in the
Chartulary of Arbroath (p. 1 1 8), there is a contract bearing the title
of " Cirographum W. episcopi s. Andreas de cano et coneveto," but
in the body of the deed it is " de redditibus et conevctis." Again,
in a charter by Malcolm, son of Morgund, Earl of Mar, to the church
of St. Andrews, there is this clause : " Concedo etiam eis in elemo-
sinam perpetuo decimam totius redditus mei de tota terra mea, vide-
licet, de coriis, de blado, de caseo, de farina, de brais, de martis, de
multonibus, de porcis, et de meis venationibus cum carne et coriis"
(Antiq. Aberdeen and Banff ^ ii. 17); and in a composition, in 1242,
in which this grant is narrated, it is expressed thus, " de cano de coriis,
de blado, de caseo, de farina, de braseo, de martis, de multonibus et
porcis," etc. (p. 22). In a rental of the Comitatus of Fife we
find, " quadam firma quae vocatur Canus cum decem solidis de Cano
de Abernethy." It is, therefore, the return from land, whether
in kind or in money, and mainly of land held "ad feodofirmam."
A third meaning of the word is given in the old Irish glosses,
where we have Emenda, a fine, glossed by "Cain" (98). In this
sense it is a fine paid in lieu of a privilege, which the superior
can exact. One of the superior's privileges in Ireland was his right
of pre-emption of goods about to be sold by the farmers of his land,
the fine for which was termed Caine-eacht, and of all merchandise
landed in their ports. The latter we find in Scotland, where Cain,
termed " Can navis," was exacted as the fine for this privilege.
The word seems also used in expressing what is termed in English
law rent-service, that is, rent paid by the service or labour of a man.
In the Brehon Laws this is termed Manclutincy defined by O'Donovan,
** gifts, tributes, services rendered in any way, work of the hand and
TRIBE COMMUNITIES. 453
generally service rendered by way of manual labour." In Scotch
charters it is usually called " Bondagium," and this was first relaxed
on the Church lands where it was commuted for a money payment.
Thus, in the rental of the Bishopric of Aberdeen in 1511 {Chart, of Ah.
i. 356), we find the return from each portion of land consists of rent
partly in money and partly in kind, to which is added a fixed sum,
" pro bondagio, cum servitiis solitis," the rate being twenty pence for
each ploughgate ; and in the same way we have a grant of the lands
of Thaynston in Thanagio de Kyntor, " et omnes canas tam ordei
quam casei et pecunia ratione Ferchaine de terris de Kynkell et Dyce
infra Thanagium." These were church lands in which the Bondagium
was commuted for a money payment, the word Ferchaine being equiva-
lent to the Irish Manchaine. When such bondage ceased in Scotland,
many of the great landowners and highland chiefs endeavoured in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries to renew the obligation of service, by
voluntary contract for the purpose of strengthening their feudal force.
These were termed bonds of manrent or of manred, and numerous
specimens are preserved. This word manrent or manred, is simply
the English equivalent of Ferchaine, — Fear meaning Man, and Cain
signifying, as we have seen, Redditus or Rent, whether firma ox feodi-
firma.
Coneveth is the Irish Coinmedha or Coigny, derived, according to
O'Donovan, from Coiumhe, which signifies feast or refection. Coigny
was originally " a night's meal " upon the land, when the superior
passed through with his troops, but in time came to be a fixed food
contribution charged upon the land, and payable to the superior. It
was the subsistence of the superior or chief, when out of his own demesne,
and in Ireland, where systematically due, was named " the Custom of
Cuddikie," that is, " Cuid oidche," a " night's share," and warranted the
chief, according to Sir W. St. Leger, in coming " with such company
as pleaseth him to the lands charged with that tenure, and in taking
meat and drink of the inhabitants thereof for the space of four meales,
at four tymes in the year." Accordingly, in the Book of Kells, we
find that the race of Laogaire " had a certain tribute on the church
(of Ardbreacain), viz., one night's Coinmhe every quarter of a year,"
and that the king of Loeghaire sold *' this night's Coinmhe for ever,
for three ounces of gold." In Scotland we find in a grant by Malcolm
IV. to the Abbey of Scone {Glmrt. of Scone^ p. 7) the following clause :
"Et ex singulis aratris totius terrse prefatse ecclesise de Scon ipsis
canonicis singulis annis pro suo coneveth ad festum omnium sanc-
torum unara vaccam et duos porcos et quatuor clamnos farinse et decern
travas avense et decem gallinas et ducenta ova et decem manipulos
candelarum et quatuor nummatas savonis et viginti dimidias melas
casei," and in the Decreet of the Synod of Perth in 1206 (^Misc. Spald.
Cluhj V. p. 213), in which an inquiry is made into the rights of the
456 APPENDIX.
the west, twenty of which made a davach, and on carucates or plough-
gates in the east, four of which constituted the davach ; thirdly, of the
servitium Scoticanum or Sluagad, the burden of attending the king's
army and the courts ; fourthly, of the expedition or Fecht^ the burden
of joining in his expeditions, both of which were assessed on the
davach ; and fifthly, the tribute, Cohach or Ich, paid by subject septs
in acknowledgment of superiority ; and of all these burdens the various
grades of the Flaith had their share or Cuid in definite proportions
from the Toisech to the Ri or king.
Such being the burdens on the land in ante-feudal times, they were
naturally affected by the spread of the feudal tenures, which gradually
superseded the Thanages and led to their assimilation to feudal nomen-
clature. They were now regarded as crown land held in feodofirma of
the king, which had come to be considered one of the recognised modes
of tenure of Crown lands. Thus in England, in the reign of King John,
we find in the articles of the barons presented in 1215 a clause
beginning " Si aliquis tenet de rege per feodifirmam, per sokagium vel
per benefacium et de alio per servitium militis," etc. After the death
of Alexander iii. many of the Thanes disappear, and we find the
Thanages in the hands of the Crown, while the reign of Alexander
is frequently referred to in any renewed tenure as regulating the
customary nature of the holdings. The war with England which
followed his reign and the accession of kings of Norman race naturally
led to the conversion of Thanage holdings into holdings for military
service, and this was usually followed by their being converted into a
barony, and, with the Thanage, the old Celtic burdens on the land also
disappeared. Thus in an agreement between the Bishop of Moray and
Thomas de Thyrlestan in 1225 there is a clause regarding *' decimis
cani regii quae ante infeodationem predicti Thomse de terra de Abyrtartf
solvi consueverunt." — {Ch. Mor. p. 20.) In another agreement between
the bishop and James, son of Morgund Earl of Mar, " super quibusdam
terris in feodo de Abyrnethy in Strathspee," there is a similar clause,
" et super decimis de cairn qui solvi consuevit regibus de predicto feodo
ante predicti Jacobi infeodationem.^^ — {Ch. Mor. p. 76.) Other in-
stances might be quoted.
In the western districts, and in the Highlands generally, we find no
thanages, except in those districts bordering upon the Lowlands which
were half Highland and half Lowland. This probably arose from the
power of the Crown having been extended over these outlying districts
at a period subsequent to that in which the old Celtic holdings were
assimilated to a Saxon nomenclature; but while the increasing power of
the Crown was accompanied in these districts by the spread of feudal
tenures, the old tribe communities were substantially preserved in the
later clan system, in which its main features may be traced ; the
relations between the cliief and the clans, which were independent of
TRIBE COMMUNITIES. 457
those between superior and vassal ; the position of the gentry of the
clan ; the existence of subject tribes not of the same race, who granted
their bonds of manrent in which they agreed to pay their calpes as a
mark of subjection ; and the old Highland township or clubfarm, in
which a farm was held jointly by several families, varying in number,
whose houses were placed together forming a sort of village, who culti-
vated the arable land in runrig, and who pastured the hill or perma-
nent pasture in common. Such townships existed in the Western
Highlands and Islands even down to the present century, though in
general they have disappeared under a process, the first step of which
was the crofting of the arable land, that is, the arable land was
divided into separate lots assigned permanently to each family ; and
the second was, that the hill pasture was taken from them for the pur-
pose of being thrown into grazing farms, — a process which has led to
the evils of squatting and to the general pauperization of this part
of the population.
In the preceding remarks I have been dealing mainly with Toisechs
and Thanes by tenure, but, in investigating the meaning of such desig-
nations, it is necessary to bear in mind that the etymology of a word
which has come to be used in a technical sense, is a very unsafe guide
to its subsequent application, and to the meaning of what it has then
come to indicate, and this is especially the case if it is viewed in the
light of more modern notions. Thus our word ' lord ' has come to be
the technical equivalent of the Latin word ' dominus,' but it is derived
from the Saxon Hlaford, meaning " giver of bread." We can see how a
word with such a meaning originally, came eventually to mean a feudal
superior, but its etymology in no way indicates the character of the per-
son to whom it is subsequently applied. So Thanus or Thane (Thegn)
comes from the Saxon word thegnian, to serve, and is rendered in Latin
by " Minister." It was originally applied to the ' Gesidt' or "comitatus,"
who were the personal followers of the king and other great leaders.
From them originated a territorial nobility, who retained the name long
after they had ceased to have anything in common with its original
meaning, while at the same time it was still used, in conjunction with
qualifying terms, to designate personal offices. Thus, while the Thane
par excellence, or king's Thane, was a territorial noble, who ranked with
the baron, and whose connexion with the land had become so close, that
the possession of five hydes of land was held to give a ceorl a right to
the designation of Thane, the word was used in combination with
others to indicate personal offices ; thus the name of Burthegn was
stiU given to the chamberlain, Discthegn to the grand carver, Hrcegel-
thegn to the keeper of the wardrobe ; the privy-councillor was the Thegn
at roede and at runan, and we find the designation of Tegn applied tor
the " prepositus" of the church lands of Hexham.
Among the Gaelic tribes etymology is an equally unsafe guide to the
VOL. II. 2 G
458 APPENDIX.
meaning of the thing to which the name is applied. Personal offices
in the modem sense were unknown to them. Among the Gaelic people
all such offices, from the Ardrigh or king of the whole nation down to
the lowest, were connected with the land and tribe system of the
country, their functions pertained more to the land than to the person,
and they were hereditary according to the law of succession which
regulated them. If the holder of them belonged to the Grad Flath or
gentry of the tribe or clan, he possessed his private land of inherit-
ance, which was unconnected with his office ', but his dignity as a func-
tionary was supported by the mensal lands and the rights of Can and
Conveth appropriated to it.
The word Ri or Righ, a king, has obviously the same derivation with
the Latin rex^ but was applied to all chiefs and heads of large tribes.
The Ardri or Ardrigh, the high king, was the designation given to the
king of the whole country. From Righ is formed Rioghachd, a
kingdom. The word Maor, the equivalent of the Welsh Maer, may fairly
enough be translated steward, though it had a wider signification ; but
the name of Mormaer, or great steward, was applied in Scotland to the
rank between the Ri and the Toisech, and he invariably appears as the
great military chief and hereditary leader of the clans which formed the
tribe of one of the larger districts into which the county was divided,
and as the possessor of rights of property and superiority in these pro-
vinces, which afterwards formed the earldoms of Scotland. The word
Toisech is derived from Tuisy beginning ; and is defined by O'Donovan
to mean " a leader, a guide," and by O'Brien to mean " a chieftain, a
general," and from Toisech is formed Toisigheacht^ a leadership ; but
while applied in this sense to the Tighearn in his character of chief or
leader of the clan, we also find it used in combination with qualifying
terms for other functionaries, somewhat in the same manner as the word
Thane was used among the Saxons. Thus in the Customs of Hy Many
we find mention of the Toisigeacht scuir, or chief command of horse ;
the Toisigeacht allaid, or of dogs ; Toisigeacht co-moil, or of banquets ;
and the Toisigeacht eallaigh, or of cattle.
In Scotland we find the word Toisech entering into the designation
of two offices. The first was the Toiseachdor, or coroner. This desig-
nation occurs mainly in the Isle of Man, and in the districts of Argyle
south of the Linnhe Loch. The Isle of Man was divided into six
sheadings, and each sheading had two officers. The first was the
coroner. According to Mr. Train (Ilistory of the Isle of Man, ii. p.
209), " The office of Coroner is of the highest antiquity in the Island.
He is called in Manks, Toshiagh Jioarey, or chief Man of the law." Ho
possessed a quarterland free, and received a payment of 4d. from each
bther quarterland. The second officer was the Mair. Mr. Train says,
" There is likewise an officer of unknown antiquity in every parish, called
a Maor, who collects all escheats, deodands, waifs, and estrays. His
TRIBE COMMUNITIES. 459
quarterland, cottages, and intact fees, were similar to those received by
the coroner."
These two officers appear also in Argyll. In 1550, we find Archi-
bald Master of Argyll, with consent of the Earl his father, granting to
Colin Campbell of Ardkinlas certain lands in Cowall, with the office of
coroner, alias Thochisdoir, of all the lands of Cowall from Claychin-
toskycht to the point of Toward and Ardlawmond, and, in 1592, John
Campbell of Ardkinlas grants to his son 80 merks lands in Cowall,
with the office of coroner or Tosichdore of all the lands of Cowall from
Lachintoskich to the point of Toward and Ardlawmont. — {Ori^. Far.
ii. pp. 65, 824.)
This word Tosichdore is obviously the same as the Manks Toshach-
Jioarey, and is derived from Toisech and JDior, an old word signifying
" of or belonging to law ; " and as Toiseach forms Toisigheacht, a
leadership, so Toiseachdor forms Toisichdoracht, the office of Toiseach-
dor or coroner.
The following are the Toisichdorachts mentioned in the west of
Scotland : —
NiTHSDALE. — The office of Tothia Daroche in Niddisdale.
Lennox. — Officium quod dicitur Tosheagor de Levenax.
Cowall. — Office of Coroner alias Tosichdore "of all the lands of
Cowall, from Lachintoskich to the point of Toward and Ard-
lawmond.
KiNTYEE. — Office of Toshichdoir of all Kintyre from Mull to
Altasynnoch.
Knapdale. — Office called Toshachdeora of the lands of Knapdale.
Ckaignish. — Office of Steward, Tosachdor, and Mair of the whole
lands of Craignish, and office of Tosachdor ex parte regis
within the same bounds.
LocHABEK. — Office commonly called Tocheachdeora of all Lochaber,
except the lands belonging to Maclean of Doward.
We find the second office of Maor also mentioned in Argyll under
the name of Sergeant or Mair of fee. Thus in the Craignish charters
mention is made of the " officium Sergeandise sen Mauri tenandrise seu
balliatus de Craignish." The word Toisech, however, appears to
enter into the designation of this office in Aberdeenshire, where we
find mention of the office of Tosechdera, and under this name the
office of Sergeant or Mair of fee is apparently meant.
Thus in a charter of the demesne lands of Davachindore, now Achin-
dore, in the parish of Kildrummy, they are granted " sine aliqua cus-
tuma danda Fabrisdera vel Toshachdera," and a charter of Belhelvie
in the same county mentions the " officium fabri et officium Sergeandi,"
from which we may infer the identity of the Toshachdera with tlie
" officium Sergeandi ;" in the laws of William the Lion, a citation is
directed to be made " per sergandum vel coronatorem vol Tosordereh,"
460
APPENDIX.
and in 1476, Walter Stewart grants to Alexander Crom Makalounen
the lands of Innercabomore " et de officio Tochoderatus de Strathawin'*
{Spald. Misc., p. 135).
The " officium Derethy," mentioned in a charter of Tarves in Aber-
deenshire, was probably the same office, and in the Thanage of Fetter-
cairn we find mention of " the Derayis lands."
The limited space afforded me in this volume does not enable me to
do more than touch very generally upon the subject of the early land
tenure in Scotland, and the offices connected with it, but I shall hope
ere long to have an opportunity of entering upon the subject more fully
and in detail.
WILLIAM F. SKENE.
^
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