or SCOTALE,** is where any officer of a forest keeps an ale-house within the forest, under colour of his office, making people come to his house, and there spend their money for fear of his displeasure. We find it mentioned in the charter of the forest, "Nullus forestarius faciat Scotallos, vel garbas colligat, vel aliquam collectans faciat." The word is compounded of *scot* and *ale,* and, by transposition, is otherwise called *alchest.*

**SCOTALES** were meetings formerly held in England for the purpose of drinking ale, of which the expense was paid by joint contribution. Thus the tenants of South Malling, in Sussex, which belonged to the Archbishop of Canterbury, were, at the keeping of a court, to entertain the lord or his bailiff with a drinking, or an ale; and the stated quotas towards the charge were, that a man should pay threepence halfpenny for himself and his wife, and a widow and cottager a penny halfpenny. In the manor of Ferring, in the same county, and under the same jurisdiction, it was the custom for the tenants named to make a scotale of sixteen pence halfpenny, and to allow out of each sixpence a penny halfpenny for the bailiff.

Common scotales in taverns, at which the clergy were not to be present, are noticed in several ecclesiastical canons. They were not to be published in the church by the clergy or the laity; and a meeting of more than ten persons of the same parish or vicinage was a scotale that was generally prohibited. There were also common drinkings, which were denominated leet-ale, bride-ale, clerk-ale, and church-ale. To a leet-ale probably all the residents in a manorial district were contributors; and the expense of a bride-ale was defrayed by the relations and friends of a happy pair, who were not in circumstances to bear the charges of a wedding dinner. This custom prevails occasionally in some districts of Scotland even at this day, under the denomination of a penny bride-ale, and was very common about half a century ago. The clerk's-ale was in the Easter holidays, and was the method taken to enable clerks of parishes to collect their dues more readily.

**Scotia,** in Architecture, a semicircular cavity or channel between the toes in the bases of columns.

**SCOTISTS,** a sect of school divines and philosophers, so called from their founder Joannes Duns Scotus, a Scottish cordelier, who maintained the immaculate conception of the Virgin, or that she was born without original sin, in opposition to Thomas Aquinas and the Thomists. As to philosophy, the Scotists were, like the Thomists, Peripatetics; only distinguished by this, that in each being, as many different qualities as it had, so many different formalities did they distinguish, all distinct from the body itself, and making as it were so many different entities; but these were metaphysical, and as it were superadded to the being. The Scotists and Thomists likewise disagreed about the nature of the divine co-operation with the human will, the measure of divine grace that is necessary to salvation, and other abstruse and minute questions, which it is needless to enumerate.

Sect. I.—Roman Period.

It will not be expected that in such a sketch of the history of Scotland as is alone suited to this work, we should enter into the great controversy concerning the origin of the Scottish people, a subject upon which much needless acrimony, and many unprofitable volumes, have been thrown away. It will be more suitable to mark the progress of the great events in our national history, and to pass over its minor features; to fix the attention upon results rather than to perplex it with details; to establish a series of points by which an intelligent reader may guide his memory and direct his studies; and occasionally to note those authors from whose pages he may fill up the picture.

It is well known, that our first authentic knowledge of Britain comes from Julius Caesar. Fifty-five years before the Christian era, this extraordinary man invaded the island from Gaul; but his operations were attended with little success, his stay was brief; and it is certain that he knew nothing of Scotland. It was not till nearly a century and a half after Caesar's descent, and during the reign of the emperor Vespasian, that Julius Agricola, at the head of a Roman army, penetrated into the northern parts of Britain. The details of his various campaigns, the resistance which he encountered, and the vestiges of his progress which yet remain, have furnished matter of laborious investigation to our antiquaries. Among their conflicting accounts, it seems certain that he first pushed his conquests as far as the Firths of Forth and Clyde; that in succeeding campaigns he penetrated northwards; and that in his last great expedition, during which his army was accompanied by a numerous fleet, which sailed along the coast, he was opposed by a barbarian chief named Galgacus. A sanguinary battle was fought between this leader and Agricola, the exact site of which has been keenly disputed. There seems to be little doubt, however, that previously to its occurrence the Roman general had passed the Frith of Tay, and that although victorious over the fierce and undisciplined multitudes which opposed him, he experienced a check which compelled him to desist from any further aggression. Two great events marked the last years of the government of Agricola. He explored the northern coasts of Scotland by his fleet; and to him the Roman world, in all probability, owed its first certain knowledge that Britain was an island. He endeavoured, in the second place, to secure his conquests from future attack by a chain of forts connecting the Firths of Forth and Clyde. Having completed these defences, he was recalled by the jealousy of Domitian, and left Britain in the year 85.

From this time till the reign of Hadrian, a period of thirty-six years, we hear little of the Romans, either in southern or northern Britain. Early in the second century, (A.D. 121), this emperor in person made an expedition into Scotland; and about twenty years later, Lollius Urbicus, the Roman Scotland governor under the emperor Antoninus, distinguished himself by the courage and ability which he displayed against Lollius Urbicus, the turbulent and warlike tribes which inhabited the northern parts of the island. Two facts, however, are admitted by the Roman writers, which demonstrate how uncertain was the tenure by which these masters of the world held their northern possessions in Britain. The emperor Hadrian, apparently distrusting the sufficiency of the line of forts already formed by Agricola, constructed a wall or fortified rampart from the Tyne to the Solway. It has been supposed by some antiquaries, that the emperor entirely abandoned to the barbarians the wide country between this new defence and the more ancient Vallum which united the Firths of Forth and Clyde; but the discovery of a succession of coins along the line of this last rampart, belonging to the intermediate emperors, appears to indicate the contrary. From the adoption of this measure it is however evident, that the courage and successes of the barbarians had given much annoyance to the Romans; and this is corroborated by the second fact to which we allude, namely, that between the period of Hadrian's death and the succession of Antoninus Pius, (A.D. 138), the wall between the Forth and Clyde had been so completely destroyed, that Lollius Urbicus entirely reconstructed it. This fact is proved by inscriptions, which the reader may consult in Horsley's Britannia Romana. During the remaining years of his government, this able officer devoted himself to opening up the country by roads; to the construction of various camps and fortalices, of which the site has been traced with much industry and success by the latest writer on the subject; and to the introduction of those useful arts which were best calculated to raise and humanize the character of the northern barbarians. His administration in Britain appears to have terminated with the death of his master, Antoninus Pius, A.D. 161.

From this period till the beginning of the third century, Severus was dark in Britain. But in the year 207, the emperor Severus received intelligence that the Caledonians had invaded the Roman provinces; and with a vigour and alacrity which, considering the distance of the seat of war, and the barren prize to be contested, is not easily explained, he hastened in person to reduce the insurgent Caledonians. This expedition, making every allowance for the exaggeration with which the exploits of an emperor were usually recorded, must have been an extraordinary one. In the comparatively civilized country which extended between the walls of Hadrian and Antoninus, he could meet with little opposition; but when he left this last line of defence, and conducted his army into the wild regions beyond the Frith of Forth, ultimately penetrating into Moray, we must suppose him to have encountered very formidable obstacles. The savage and uncleared state of the country, the extent of the forests, the unhealthy and

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1 The reader is referred to Innis's Critical Essay on the ancient Inhabitants of Scotland, as the best work yet written on this subject. Its arrangement is defective; but its good sense, and the authenticity of the documents upon which its deductions are founded, are highly praiseworthy. Pinkerton's Dissertation on the Seythians or Gorbs, Dr. Jamieson's Dissertation on the Origin of the Scottish Language, and the first volume of the ponderous work of Chalmers, entitled Caledonia, may be consulted with the greatest advantage. In those pages, the critical student who may desire to pursue the subject, will find ample references to all the noted works upon this question.

2 Chalmers's Caledonia, p. 116.

3 Horsley's Britannia Rom., l.l.c. 10; Innis's Critical Essay, vol. i. p. 12. The remains of the wall are popularly called Grim's Dyke. Grym in Welsh and Cornish signifies strong, and is used perhaps metaphorically, as Chalmers conjectures, for a strength or a rampart." Caledonia, vol. i. p. 129.

4 We may here refer the critical reader to Chalmers's dissertation on the actions of Lollius Urbicus, contained in the first volume of his Caledonia. interminable marshes, the mountainous ranges which presented such formidable obstacles to the march of a regular army, the rivers, of which the fords were unknown, and the want of subsistence for his troops, except what he carried along with him, must have combined to throw infinite difficulties in his way. The classical writers who have described his campaign inform us, in general terms, that he was obliged to fell the forests, to drain the marshes, to open up the country by roads, and to construct bridges; and they affirm that the Roman emperor did not retrace his steps till he had proceeded so far north, that the soldiers remarked the extraordinary length of the days and shortness of the nights, in comparison with those of Italy. There seems good reason to believe that the spot where the Roman eagles terminated their flight in this memorable expedition, was the promontory separating the Cromarty and the Moray Firths.

Here, according to Chalmers, the Caledonians sought for peace, surrendered their arms, and relinquished a portion of their country. The critical student must pardon the vagueness of these expressions, as the historians of the time do not enable us to be more definite.

Severus retired to York in a feeble state of health; but it was not to repose upon his laurels, for scarcely had he reached that station when news arrived that the Caledonians were again in arms. Irritated by disappointment and disease, he determined instantly to renew the war; intrusted the leading of the army to his son Caracalla; and issued orders to spare neither age nor sex. But death happily arrested these inhuman projects. The emperor expired at York, and the son does not appear, on any good evidence, to have executed the orders of the father.

Previously to his celebrated northern campaign, Severus is said to have reconstructed the rampart originally built by Hadrian between the Tyne and the Solway; a circumstance from which there arises a strong presumption that the Caledonians had encroached upon the Roman provinces, and regained much of the intermediate country between the walls of Hadrian and Antoninus.

From this period, (A.D. 211), which marks the commencement of the third, to nearly the middle of the fifth century, (446), the Romans appear to have abandoned all thoughts of extending their conquests. The vast fabric of their empire was now, as is well known, in a state of melancholy feebleness and decay; attacked on every side by those fierce tribes who were destined to destroy it; and unable to retain provinces far nearer and more important than those in Britain. For some time, however, an effort was made to defend the northern Romanized Britons from the repeated incursions of the Caledonians. In the commencement of the fourth century, (A.D. 305), Constans revisited Britain for this purpose; in the year 368, after a sanguinary and destructive invasion of the barbarians, a temporary tranquillity was restored by the arms of Theodosius; in 398, Stilicho, alarmed by new excesses and increasing weakness in the northern provinces, sent such effectual aid as enabled the Roman governors once more to repel the enemy; and, lastly, in the year 422, the emperor Honorius, having in vain endeavoured to rouse the provincial inhabitants to a vigorous effort in their own defence, sent a legion to their assistance, by whose efforts the fortifications of the two walls were repaired, and the barbarians once more driven back into their more northern seats. But this was the last relief which could be wrung by her miserable children from a parent who was herself expiring; and it secured for them but a brief period of tranquillity. Imperial Rome, with a tardy and ostentatious justice, conferred freedom on the southern Britons; and restoring a country which she was no longer able to hold, informed them that henceforth they must trust to their own efforts for the defence of their independence. Having given this parting advice to men who appear to have been little able to follow it, the Romans abandoned Britain for ever.

Sect. II.—The Pictish Period.

In the brief sketch which has been given of the Roman dominion in north Britain, which extended from the year 84 to 446, a period of little more than three centuries and a half, we have seen that the Romanized Britons were constantly exposed to the invasions of their more northern neighbours, who threatened at last to wrest from them the whole of the country, which had been fortified by Roman skill and mainly defended by Roman soldiers. The question now arises, who were these fierce and indomitable tribes? And to this inquiry, in which antiquaries have split almost as much ink as the Romans did blood, the research of a laborious writer enables us to give a satisfactory answer. It appears from the investigation of Chalmers that "at the epoch of Agricola's invasion, the ample extent of north Britain was inhabited by one-and-twenty tribes, who were connected by such slight ties as scarcely to enjoy a social state. These were the Ottadini, who appear to have occupied the whole extent of coast from the southern Tyne to the Frith of Forth; the Gaderni, whose seats lay in the interior country, from the Tyne on the south to the Frith on the north; the Selgovae, whose western boundary was the Dee, and their southern limit the Solway Frith; the Norovantes, who inhabited the midland and western parts of Galloway; and the Damnonii, who possessed the shires of Ayr, Renfrew, and Stirling, with a portion of Dunbarton and Perth. Such were the five tribes," says this author, "which occupied, during the first century, that ample region extending from the Tyne and the Solway on the south, to the Forth and the Clyde on the north, varying their limits with the fluctuations of war, conquest, or internal dissensions, during the succession of many ages." Beyond the Forth we find the Horestii, the Venricones, the Taixali, the Vaccomagi, the Albani, the Attaccotti, the Caledonii, the Cantae, the Logi, the Carnabii, the Catini, the Mertae, the Carnocasses, the Creones, and the Epidii. The names of these twenty-one original tribes, which are taken from Chalmers, are by him transcribed from the account of Ptolemy, checked by the ancient treatise and map of Richard of Cirencester. Of the manners of this ancient people, it is impossible, in the absence of all authentic documents, to speak with certainty. From the general account given by Caesar, they were little removed in the scale of social life or of civil government.

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1 Caldonia, vol. i. p. 186, 187. 2 The son of Severus is indeed affirmed to have fought on the banks of the Carron with the heroes of Ossian; but much has yet to be proved before we venture to transplant these shadowy contests into the field of history. 3 Including the half of Northumberland, the eastern portion of Roxburghshire, all Berwickshire, and East Lothian. 4 Caldonia, vol. i. p. 62. 5 It ought however to be stated, that some grave doubts hang over the genuineness of this early writer. Dr. Stukeley's account of him is vague, and the story told by Professor Bertram regarding his discovery of the manuscript and the map is still more suspicious. I have obtained from giving from Chalmers the exact limits of the possessions held by the last sixteen tribes, who inhabited the whole extent of country beyond the Forth to the extremity of Caithness. The research and erudition which he has displayed is entitled to all praise; but it is difficult to believe that the boundaries of these remote, fierce, and wandering aborigines should be ascertainable with as much precision after the lapse of eighteen centuries as the marches of Middlesex or Yorkshire. Two points, however, and these of leading importance, Chalmers conceives that he has established: the first, that Britain, from its extreme southern to its most remote northern point, was peopled from Gaul; and the second, that the aborigines over the whole island were a Celtic race. Scotland, from the rudest savages. They led a pastoral life, living on the milk of their flocks, or the produce of the chase; they were polygamous and idolatrous; their religion, which was Druidical, was stained with human sacrifices; and their rude form of civil government was intimately connected with their religion. They were armed with slight shields, short spears, and daggers; and sometimes fought in small cars, which were drawn by little spirited horses. They rather burrowed in huts than lived in houses, went naked from choice, were brave to excess, capable of enduring all sorts of privation and fatigue, and had such loose ideas of property, that Dio does not hesitate to call them robbers.

This character, with the exception of their Druidical form of worship, exhibits little more than the general features of every savage people; and there seems no reason to believe that the lapse of three centuries created any great change in those fierce and indomitable tribes which, inhabiting the more northern parts of the island from the Forth to Caithness, and latterly wresting from the Romans the provinces which they had subdued, were never brought under the yoke, or humanized by the arts of that great people.

At the period of the Roman abdication, we find that north Britain was inhabited by the descendants of the Caledonian clans which we have enumerated, who, under the name of Picts or Picti, became for four centuries the predominating nation in Scotland. Among these we must be careful to distinguish the five Romanized tribes who possessed Valenta, or the country between the walls of Agricola and Antoninus, not as a race of different descent, but of improved civilization, while their fiercer brethren beyond the Forth bore fresh upon them all the stamp of barbarian life. The name of Picti is conjectured to be derived from Peithi, a British word which characterizes those that are without, or the people of the open country.

It would be a vain, and in a sketch of this nature, an idle labour, to enter upon the obscure and sanguinary annals of the Pictish period; an era upon which, to use a quaint expression of Chalmers, archeology is loquacious, and history silent. From an ancient manuscript, first printed by Innes, and which had belonged to Lord Burleigh, this author has given us a list of their kings, from Drest, who succeeded in the middle of the fifth century, (A.D. 451), to a prince named Bred, who died about the middle of the ninth century, (A.D. 843). During the four centuries which elapsed between the accession of the first and the last of these monarchs, thirty-eight Pictish kings are enumerated. Of their authentic history there is scarcely a vestige; but the blank has been filled up by the fables of Boyce, which unhappily were afterwards embalmed in the elegant Latinity of Buchanan.

Some points in this period, however, have been ascertained, and they are well worthy of notice. We have already seen, that on the entire abdication of Britain by the Romans, the five tribes which inhabited Valenta were declared independent. They were no longer provincial subjects of Rome, but a free, though an effeminate people. The constant attacks of the Picts rendered it necessary for them to unite in their own defence; and from this union arose a new kingdom, denominated by ancient authors sometimes the Regnum Cumbrense, or more frequently the kingdom of Strathclyd. It appears to have included the present Liddesdale, Teviotdale, Dumfries-shire, Galloway, Ayrshire, Renfrew, Strathclyde, the midland and western parts of Stirlingshire, with the largest portion of Dunbartonshire. "The metropolis of this kingdom," says Chalmers, "was Alclyd, a city which they still retained when the pen dropt from the hand of the venerable Bede, in 734, and which is situated on the north bank of the Clyde, at the influx of the Leven. The descriptive name of Alelyd, which signifies the rocky height, Scotland, on the Clyde, was applied to the bifurcated rock, on the summit of which these associated Britons had a strong hill fort, which formed a secure residence for their regali kings. To this fortress the Scot-Irish subsequently applied the name of Duan-Briton, signifying the fortress of the Britons, an appellation which, by an easy transition, has in modern times been converted into Dunbarton." Among the little kings who reigned over Strathclyde, there are none whose names or exploits are worthy of preservation, with the single exception of the semi-poetic Arthur. It is sad King that the severer hand of history should strip this glorious Arthur "Childe" of his many-coloured robes, and reduce him to the cold reality of a Cumbrian Pendragon. At the commencement of the sixth century, Arthur, the chief military leader or Pendragon of the Cumbrian Britons, expelled his sovereign, Huail or Hoel, from Strathclyde, and commenced a reign of which it is impossible to separate the facts from the fictions with which they have become incorporated.

But the Pictish period is not only distinguished by the rise of a new kingdom, it is marked by the arrival in Scotland of a new people, the Saxons, a race of Gothic origin, who invaded and finally effected a settlement in Lothian, A.D. 449. This remarkable event, so important in its remote consequences upon our national history, took place in the middle of the fifth century (A.D. 449). It was not difficult for the Saxons, a people who certainly were far their superiors in courage and in arms, to subdue the feebler race of the Oitudini. They do not at first appear to have attempted to push their conquests to the northward of the Forth, but contented themselves with the occupation of a portion of the province of Valenta. After the lapse of a century, however, Ida, one of the boldest and most adventurous of the sons of Woden, landed at Flamborough, and brought an important accession to the strength and numbers of his countrymen. It was by this great chief that the Saxon kingdom of Northumbria was founded; nor was he arrested Northumbria's victories, till he had extended his dominions from the Humber to the Forth. Ida was succeeded in the Northumbrian kingdom by Aella, and Aella by Ethelred, Aella, under whose reigns occurred no event of importance; but Edwin his successor, who came to the throne in the beginning of the seventh century, appears to have added essentially to the extent of the Saxon conquests, and to have impressed not only the southern Britons, but his fiercer and more northern neighbours the Picts, with the terror of his Edwards' arms. There appears little doubt that Edinburgh or Edinburgh, the present capital of Scotland, owes its foundation to this energetic Saxon chief.

Hitherto, in speaking of the northern inhabitants beyond the Forth, we have designated them by the single appellation of the Picts. We must now mark the arrival of a different people, although probably sprung from the same ancient stock.

At the commencement of the fourth century, we find that the ruling or dominant people in Ireland were the Scots, a Celtic race; and although there is no sufficient evidence that they had formed any permanent settlement in Britain previously to the abdication of the island by the Romans, it is certain that in the year 360 they invaded the Roman provinces in that kingdom, and were repelled by Theodosius.

In the beginning of the sixth century, three Irish chiefs, A.D. 503-Loarn, Fergus, and Angus, sons of Ere, king of Dalriada, by which we are to understand the province of Ulster, led a colony into the ancient province of the British Epidii, and effected a settlement upon the promontory of Kentire. As Scots far as any light is afforded by the Irish annals, in this occupation of Kentire the Scot-Irish met with but feeble opposition. Scotland.

A.D. 503-843

tion; and a long period of obscurity succeeds, in which little more is distinguishable, except the fact that a series of Scot-Irish kings, or reguli, are found in Scotland, from the commencement of the fifth century, (503), when Fergus held the throne, till the accession of Kenneth, the son of Alpin, who reigned from the year 836 to 843, under whom the ascendancy of the Scot-Irish or Scotch, appears to have been established. Upon this portion of our history we are tempted to transcribe the following observations of Chalmers.

"In the records of time, there scarcely occurs a period of history so perplexed and obscure, as the annals of the Scot-Irish kings and their tribes. The original cause of this obscurity is the want of contemporaneous writing. An ample field was thus left open for the contests of national emulation. Ignorance and ingenuity, sophistry and system, have all contributed to make what was dark still more obscure. The series and genealogy of the kings have been involved in peculiar perplexity by the contests of the Irish and Scottish antiquaries, for pre-eminence in antiquity, as well as in fame. And Cimmerian darkness has overspread the annals of a people too restless for the repose of study; too rude for the elaboration of writing." After such an acknowledgment, it would be idle labour to follow this indefatigable inquirer into the twilight-history of these times; but this period is distinguished by one great event which shines brightly amidst the surrounding gloom, namely, the conversion of northern Britain to Christianity.

Already the Romanized Britons of the South had received the true faith, and the Scot-Irish appear to have been converted to Christianity by St. Patrick, previously to their establishment in Kentire. St. Ninian, himself a Briton, though educated as a monk at Rome, had, in the commencement of the fourth century, founded a monastery in Galloway; and in the sixth century, St. Kentigern signalized himself by his pious labours among the Britons of Strathclyde; but the conversion of the northern Picts was reserved for St. Columba. This great and good man was born in Ireland, in the year 521. His descent was royal, and his education was at first carefully conducted under the best masters which his native island, long before this converted to Christianity, could supply. Of these the most noted was St. Ciaran, the apostle of the Scot-Irish of Kentire; and from him, in all probability, Columba imbibed his first desire to introduce the gospel into the desolate and barbarous dominions of the northern Picts. It was in the year 568, that embarking with twelve of his friends, in a boat of wicker work which was covered with hides, he set out upon his benevolent mission, and landed in the Island of Hy, or Iona, which was situated near the confines of the Scottish and Pictish territories. The difficulties which he had to encounter on his first arrival, were of the most formidable kind. He found a people so barbarous that his life was attempted; the king, when the holy man first approached his residence, ordered its gates to be shut against him; the priests, who were druids, and possessed much influence, employed all their eloquence to counteract his efforts; and the nature of the country, woody, mountainous, and infested with wild beasts, rendered travelling most dangerous and painful. It is also said that at first the saint required an interpreter to make himself intelligible, although after a short residence he appears to have found little difficulty in conversing with the barbarians. But none of these obstacles was sufficient to baffle the zeal and courage of Columba; and so blest were his labours, so rapid the effects produced by the example of his virtues, that in a few years the greater portion of the Pictish dominions was converted to the Christian faith; churches were erected, monasteries established, in various places, and Columba, as primate, became an object of the utmost love and veneration among the barbarous tribes, and fierce and warlike princes whom he had called from darkness into light. At that time his monastery was perhaps the chief seminary of learning in Europe. It was from this nursery, that not only all the monasteries, and above three hundred churches which he himself had established, were supplied with learned pastors, but which also gave divines to many of the religious establishments among the neighbouring nations. Columba died in the year 597, in the seventy-seventh year of his A.D. age; a man not less distinguished by his zeal and labour in Death the dissemination of the gospel, than by the simplicity of his Columba manners, the sweetness of his temper, and the holiness of his life.

We have already observed, that it would be foreign to the object of this historical sketch, to involve our readers in the ancient dark and wholly uninteresting annals of the Pictish kings. But one remarkable event must not escape our notice, we mean the disappearance of the Pictish people after the middle of the ninth century. There seems every reason to believe, that the story of the total extermination of the Picts by the sword of the victorious Kenneth Macalpin, is a fable invented at a later period, and certainly supported by nothing approaching to contemporary evidence. A more rational and intelligible account ascribes this event, not to the destruction, but to what may more correctly be denominated the absorption of the Picts by the predominating nation of the Scots. Both were probably a people of the same race, speaking a similar language, and little different in their manners and civil government. Both were animated by the emulation of outstripping each other in power and extent of territory; and this led to protracted struggles, in which the Picts maintained their independence with difficulty, and the Scots, gradually enlarging their dominions, acquired a predominating influence. Such being the relative condition of the two nations, an event took place which united in one person the claim to the Pictish and the Scottish throne.

Achains or Eocha, king of the Scots, who died in the year Kenneth 826, had married Urgusia, a Pictish princess, the sister of Macalpin Constantine and Ungus, successively kings of the Picts. His grandson was Kenneth Macalpin, a prince of great hardihood and ambition, who succeeded to his paternal throne in 836. On the death of Uven, the Pictish monarch, in 839, Kenneth asserted his claim to the Pictish throne, in right of his grandmother, Urgusia. The feeble state of the nation, and the incapacity of the true heir, combined to favour his ambitious designs; and after a struggle of three years, he succeeded in uniting the two crowns in his own person. The observations of Chalmers upon this event, and the important consequences which it drew after it, are well worthy of notice. "During such confusions," says this author, "amidst a rude people, whose forms of government were little fixed, and whose laws were less regarded, the loss of a battle, or the death of a king, was an adequate cause of an important revolution. Of all these events, Kenneth dexterously took advantage; and finding a feeble competitor, he easily stepped into the vacant throne. In his person a new dynasty began. The king was changed, but the government remained the same. The Picts and Scots, who were a congenial people, from a common origin, and spoke cognate tongues, the British and Gaelic, readily coalesced; yet has it been asserted by ignorance, and believed by credulity, that Kenneth made so bad a use of the power which he had adroitly acquired, as to destroy the whole Pictish people in the wantonness of his cruelty. To enforce the belief in an action which is in itself unknown, and so inconsistent with the interest of a provident sovereign, requires stronger proofs than the assertions of uninformed history, or the opinion of vulgar tradition. The Picts continued throughout the succeeding period (from 843 to 1097) to be mentioned by contemporary authors, though they were governed by a new race, and were united with a predominant people.

Sect. III.—The Scottish Period.

The union of the two nations of the Picts and the Scots, under one powerful prince, forms the commencement of the third great division of Scottish history, which extends from the middle of the ninth century (848) to the expiration of the eleventh (1097), a period of two centuries and a half.

For ages before the time of this union, the Pictish dominions were confined by the Forth on the south, Drumalban on the west, and the German Ocean on the east and north; while at the period of its occurrence the Scots possessed the whole western coast, from the Clyde to Loch Torridon, with the extensive kingdom of Argyle, which stretched its arms from the Clyde on the south to Loch Eir and Loch Maree on the north, and reached from the sea on the west to Drumalban on the east. These extensive dominions were now united; the name of Scotia, as marking the whole kingdom, gained ground over that of Pictavia; and from the tenth century (934), when the Saxon Chronicle first mentions Scotland as invaded by Athelstan, this distinctive appellation for the kingdom of North Britain gradually gained ground till it excluded every other.

It has been observed by Sir Walter Scott, "that the descendants of Kenneth Macalpine pass us in gloomy and obscure pageantry, like those of Banquo in the theatre;" and it might have been added, that the impression left upon the mind by the perusal of their various reigns is as shadowy and unsubstantial. To fatigue and perplex the reader, by a detail of historical passages, which led to no great results, is not the purpose of this sketch, but to mark the features which prominently distinguish the period. Nor were these either few or unimportant.

1. The first event which demands our notice, is the commencement of those invasions by the Danes, which for several centuries continued to be the greatest scourge of Scotland. It was under the reign of Constantine, the second monarch in succession from Kenneth, that these fierce pirate leaders, known under the name of Vikingh, or sea-kings, first made their appearance in North Britain. Having established a settlement in Ireland, they soon became acquainted with the commodious havens of the Scottish coasts; and after a partial visit in 866, a more formidable armament sailed from Dublin, under Anlaf and Ivar, in 870. During this invasion, they took Alchuyd, or Dunbar-ton, ravaged the whole extent of North Britain, and returned glutted with slaughter and booty to Ireland. These sea-wolves having once tasted blood, were not slow to return. Thrice under the same reign were their vessels seen on the coasts of the devoted country, in 871, 875, and 876; and at last, in 881, the Scottish monarch met his death on the banks of the Forth, in an ineffectual attempt to defend his people, and repel their ravages. Reappearing under the reign of Donald, who succeeded to the throne in 893, they were defeated on the banks of the Tay, in the vicinity of Scone, and again, in 904, repulsed by the same prince, who lost his life, after he had slain their leader. This, however, did not prevent their return in 907, and afterwards, in 918, under the reign of Constantine the Third, who, with the assistance of the northern Saxons, encountered and repulsed them at Tinmore; a check which appears for a considerable period to have given repose to the kingdom.

In 961, under the reign of Indalf, who had succeeded to the throne in 953, the Vikingh made a descent in the bay repeatedly of Cullen, in Banffshire; and this monarch with difficulty defeated them in a desperate action, in which he lost his life. In 970, Kenneth the Third, who is represented as a A.D. 970. monarch of extraordinary vigour and ambition, succeeded to the throne, and under his reign the Danes reappeared with a numerous fleet in the Tay; but after a sanguinary struggle, in which they at first succeeded, were ultimately defeated by the bravery of the Scots, commanded by Ken-the-Taid neth in person. This contest, which appears to have been attended with an enormous loss on both sides, took place at Luncarty, where many tumuli still remain, to mark the field of battle.

After this the country enjoyed a quiet of nine years; but Danes de- in 1003, the Norsemen, who had now for some time permanently settled themselves in Orkney, again made their appearance in great strength upon the coast of Moray. They seized and fortified the promontory known by the name of the Burgh-head of Moray, where they found a commodious harbour, and from which, in 1010, they led an army to plunder that fertile region. But they were met and defeated with great slaughter by Malcolm the Second, in the battle of Mortlach, where the king, in gratitude for his victory, endowed a religious house, which became the seat of the earliest Scottish bishopric.

These repeated repulses checked and disheartened the Treaty be-pirate kings; but they disdained to relinquish the contest between Malcolms last efforts appear to have been made on the coast of Angus and Buchan, where they were repulsed in succes-sive conflicts, fought at Aberlemno, Panbride, and Slaines Final departure of Castle. At length a convention, or pacific treaty, was entered into between Malcolm, and Sweno, king of Denmark, the Danes in the year 1014, which was followed by the evacuation of the Burgh-head of Moray, and the final departure of the Danes. Thus, after a severe struggle, which at various intervals, and with various success, appears to have continued for nearly a century and a half, (866 to 1014), the energy of the Scots ultimately triumphed over the efforts of the Norsemen; and while the Danish rovers established themselves in some of the finest countries in Europe, and in England alternately fixed themselves as permanent settlers, or extorted an odious tribute as the price of their absence, Sweno, though one of their most powerful princes, found himself at last compelled to desist from the contest.

2. The second event of importance which marked this pe- Acquisition, was the enlargement of the Scottish provinces of Malcolm the First, by the pacific acquisition of Cumberland from Edmund the Saxon king of England. Against this young prince, the Danes, who had established themselves in the northern part of his dominions, declared war, and calling the Norwegians to their assistance, threatened to subdue the whole country. Edmund opposed them with great courage and success, reduced Northumberland, then a Danish province, and next turned his arms against Cum-bria, or Cumberland. After wasting this little country, then inhabited by the Britons, under their king or chief leader, Dunmail, the English prince, aware perhaps of the difficulty of retaining his new acquisition, delivered it up to Malcolm the First, under the condition that he would become his associate (medeortha) in war, or, as the terms are explained by Matthew of Westminster, "that he would de-

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1 Chalmers's Caledonia, vol. i. p. 339. 2 Drumalban, the ridge of mountains which separates the rivers running into the sea on the west coast of Inverness-shire and Argyll from those which run into the sea of Norway. Macpherson's Geographical Illustrations. 3 Chalmers's Caledonia, vol. i. p. 394, 395. Scotland, fend the northern parts of England from the invasions of his enemies, whether they came by sea or by land. It is to be remembered, that this transaction was entered into between two independent princes, the one of Saxon, the other of Celtic race, more than a century before the feudal usages or tenures were introduced into England by the Normans; an observation which might have been deemed unnecessary, had not some ingenious writers affected to detect in the stipulations of Malcolm the acknowledgment of feudal dependence. In this manner did Cumbria, in the middle of the tenth century, become a portion of the Scottish dominions.

3. This treaty was followed by the reigns of Indulf, Duf, and Culen, a dark and sanguinary period, occupied by domestic war and civil commotion; but under Kenneth the Third, who came to the throne in 970, occurred another event of no little moment in the history of the country. This was the conquest of the ancient British kingdom of Strathclyde by the arms of that monarch. We have seen this independent state arise, in the middle of the fifth century, from a union of the Romanized British tribes, who, on the desertion of the island by the Romans, were drawn together by the ties of common danger and mutual defence. From this time, (446), they had, under various reverses and multiplied attacks, enjoyed a precarious independence for upwards of five centuries; nor did they permit themselves to be incorporated in the Scottish monarchy without a determined struggle. The arms and the energy of Kenneth, however, were successful; and one of those gleams of romantic light, which sometimes soften the gloomy annals of these ages, fell on the ruins of Strathclyde. Dunwallon, the last of its kings, after exhibiting the utmost courage and resolution in defence of his people, assumed the religious habit, travelled to Rome, and died a monk.

The last prominent feature which marks this period, was the further enlargement of the Scottish dominions, by the acquisition of Lothian, hitherto a part of England. It took place in 1016, under the reign of Malcolm the Second, the son of Kenneth the Third, to whose conquest of Strathclyde we have just alluded. It was this same Malcolm whose courage we have seen victorious over the Danes at Mortlach, and to whose convention with Sweno Scotland owed its freedom from the ravages of the pirate kings. In the beginning of the eleventh century, (1018), this warlike prince engaged in hostilities with Ughtred, earl of Northumberland. Their forces met at Carham, near Werk, on the southern bank of the Tweed, and a sanguinary battle was fought, which effectually checked the Scottish prince. Ughtred, however, having been assassinated, was succeeded by his brother Badulph, a feebler ruler, who, from a dread of a second invasion, was induced to purchase the friendship of Malcolm, by the cession of the whole of Lothian.

Such are the great features which distinguish the early history of Scotland, from the middle of the ninth to the commencement of the eleventh century, (843 to 1018), and upon which it is both wiser and easier to fix the mind than to crowd and burden it with lists of barbarous and forgotten kings. We see a people, still rude, ignorant, and, except for the sweetening influences of Christianity, little removed from savage life; but we find them able not only to vindicate their freedom against those incessant and cruel invasions, which broke, and for a time subdued the neighbouring country of England, but animated by an ambition which, under successive princes, largely extended their dominions, by the successive acquisitions of Cumberland, Strathclyde, and Lothian. Nor is the remaining portion of the Scottish period, from 1018 to 1097, unmarked by some great events. In 1031, under the reign of Malcolm the Second, Canute, the Danish king of England, invaded Scotland. This prince, the most powerful monarch of his time, as he possessed not only England, but Denmark and Norway, led an army against Malcolm. The cause of the war Malcolm involved in much obscurity. It was however connected with some claim or dispute regarding Cumberland, and it terminated in Malcolm retaining the possession of that province, and performing the conditions upon which it had been transferred to him.

In the historical romance of Boyce, and the classical pages of Buchanan, Malcolm the Second figures as the first and one of the greatest of Scottish legislators. It was referred for the learning and acuteness of Lord Hailes to detect his apocryphal laws as the forgery of a much later age.

Malcolm the Second, whose severe and vigorous reign had been marked by many sanguinary domestic feuds, not necessary to be detailed, was succeeded in 1033 by his grandson Duncan, the "gracious Duncan" of Shakespeare, whose imperishable drama is founded upon a fictitious narrative, which Holinshed copied from Boyce. Let us for a moment, in a spirit rather of homage than of criticism, disentangle the dross of fact from the ore of fiction. Lady Macbeth was the Lady Gruoch, and had regal blood in her veins. She was the grand-daughter of Kenneth the Fourth. Her husband, Macbeth, was the son of Finlegh Maormor, or the supreme ruler of Ross. The real wrongs of the Lady Gruoch, the root of her implacable revenge, were even more deep than those of her mighty counterpart. She had seen her grandfather Kenneth dethroned by Malcolm, her brother assassinated, and her husband burned, griefs amply sufficient to turn her milk to gall. Macbeth, on the other hand, had wept a father slain also by Malcolm; and thus revenge and ambition were equally roused in both their bosoms. The purpose which had been arrested by the superior vigour and courage of Malcolm, was executed on his more feeble grandson. Duncan, in 1039, was assassinated at Bothgowan, near Elgin; and Macbeth seized the sanguinary sceptre, which he held with a vigorous grasp for fifteen years, until he was defeated and slain by Macduff, in 1054.

On his death, a contest for the throne arose between Lulach, the son of the Lady Gruoch, and great-grandson of Kenneth the Fourth, and Malcolm Ceannmore, great-grandson of Malcolm the Second; and this struggle terminated in son 1057, by the defeat of Lulach; and the accession of his rival, Malcolm, who was contemporary with Edward the Confessor.

The accession of Malcolm Ceannmore to the Scottish throne was soon afterwards followed by an event, which, although taking place in the sister country, produced the most important effects upon the history of Scotland. This was the invasion and conquest of England by the Normans, and the establishment of an entirely new dynasty in that country. The first consequence of this change was favourable to Malcolm, as Malcolm it led to his marriage with a Saxon princess, whose character had a marked and favourable influence upon the ruder manners of her husband and his people. This lady was sister of Margaret, who was the sister of Edgar Etheling. It is important to trace her lineage. Canute, the Danish king of England, had banished Edwin and Edward, the children of Edmund Ironside, the last of the pure Saxon dynasty, for Edward the Confessor was half a Norman. They found a retreat in Hungary, where Edwin died; but from this country Edward, in 1057, was recalled by Edward the Confessor. This prince had three children, a son, Edgar, commonly called Edgar Ætheling; the heir of the Saxon line, and two daughters, Margaret and Christian. On the conquest of England, the nobles of Northumberland, who were principally of Danish origin, led by two chiefs, named Maerleswegen and Gospatric, becoming disgusted at the Norman tyranny, fled to the court of Malcolm, taking with them Edgar and his two sisters. Edgar was weak, almost to imbecility; and in the event of his dying, or being found incapable of filling the throne, his claims as heir of the Saxon line descended to his sister. She was beautiful, accomplished, and pious; and a union which perhaps, at a distance, had been suggested to Malcolm by ambition, on a nearer view was perfected by love.

The marriage of the Scottish monarch was soon followed by an invasion of England, in which Malcolm mercilessly ravaged the bishopric of Durham. The manner in which this predatory inroad was conducted marks the ferocity of the times. Malcolm and his subjects were Christians; yet even the churches were destroyed and burnt, while the unhappy persons who had fled to them for sanctuary were massacred, or consumed in the flames. During the occurrence of these savage scenes in England, Gospatric, one of the most powerful of the Northumbrian barons, whose assistance William the Conqueror had secured, swept through Malcolm’s territory of Cumberland, and laid waste the country in a miserable manner, upon which the Scottish prince returned home, leading captive, says an English historian, such a multitude of young men and maidens, “that for many years they were to be found in every Scottish village, nay, even in every Scottish hovel.”

There seems to be little doubt that this expedition of Malcolm was intimately connected with the determined stand made against William the Conqueror by the Northumbrian earls who had carried Edgar Ætheling into Scotland. Combining in 1069 with their brethren, the Danes, who brought a powerful fleet to their assistance, they advanced as far as York, where they put the Norman garrison to the sword; and here it is probable they expected to be joined by Malcolm, but being disappointed in their hope, they made peace with William, who had the address to dissolve the confederacy. Malcolm alone continued faithful to the cause of the Saxon prince; and, though deserted by his confederates, yet by invading England fulfilled his agreement.

This incursion led to a dreadful retaliation on the part of William. “To punish the revolt,” we use the words of Lord Hailes, “and to oppose a wilderness to the invasions of the Danes, he laid entirely waste the fertile country which lies between the Humber and the Tees.” “At this time,” says William of Malmesbury, “there were destroyed such splendid towns, such lofty castles, such beautiful pastures, that had a stranger viewed the scene he might have been moved to compassion; and had one inhabitant been left alive, he would not have recollected the country.” Of this fine district the inhabitants seem to have been almost wholly exterminated. Many who escaped the sword died of famine, many sold themselves for slaves, while those of higher quality, Norman as well as Saxon, sought an asylum in Scotland, and found at the court of Malcolm a favourable reception.

William having secured peace at home, prepared an armament against Scotland, and in 1072 he invaded that country, both by sea and by land. Malcolm wisely met superior power by an offer of submission. He sought and obtained peace, gave hostages, and performed homage. So far all is certain; but a question arises, for what was this homage performed? The answer may be given in the words of one of the most able inquirers upon the subject: “According to Scotland, the general and most probable opinion, this homage was done by Malcolm for the lands which he held in England.”

We have already met with Gospatric, the powerful Nor-Gospatric thumbrian earl who fled from the Conqueror to the court settles in Malcolm, bringing with him the heir of the Saxon line, Scotland, with his sisters. Proving treacherous to Malcolm, Gospatric obtained from William the government of Northumberland; but on his return from his successful expedition against Malcolm, the Norman conqueror, from jealousy or disgust, degraded his Northumbrian ally, who once more fled to the Scottish king. Malcolm, on his part, not only forgave him, but presented him with the lands and castle of Dunbar, and the castle of Cockburnspath. He who held these estates, lying on the borders between the two countries, might be said to have the keys of Scotland at his girdle; and the circumstance is worthy of remembrance, not only as marking the origin of a potent family, destined to act a leading part in the future history of the country, but as indicating the policy of Malcolm, who, conscious of the inferiority of his own Celtic race, manifested a wise anxiety to prevail on strangers, whether Normans, Danes, or Saxons, to settle in his dominions.

The remaining portion of the reign of this energetic A.D. prince (1079–1093), is chiefly distinguished by a struggle 1079-1093. with William Rufus, who, upon the death of the Conqueror, William had succeeded to the English throne. This prince appears Rufus to have withheld from Malcolm part of the English possessions to which he claimed a right; and with the view of compelling a surrender of them, the Scottish king invaded England, and penetrated as far as Chester, on the Wye. Rufus led against him a superior force; and Malcolm, aware of his approach, prudently declined a contest, and by a timely retreat, secured his plunder and his captives.

This appears to have taken place in May 1091; and in Rufus in the autumn of the same year, the Norman prince, having equipped a fleet, and levied a numerous land force, led his army in person against Scotland. He continued his march to the shores of the Forth; but here his progress was stayed, in consequence of his receiving intelligence that his fleet had been destroyed by a tempest. There were no vessels to transport his troops across the Forth. The Scots, with a policy which they early learned, and repeatedly practised, had driven away their cattle, and cleared the country of its provisions; and at this crisis, when his soldiers were perishing from famine, Malcolm led his army against the English, crossed the Forth, and advanced into Lothian; a territory originally, as we have seen, acquired from the Angles, and therefore esteemed a part of England, although now subject to the Scottish king. Here having chosen a strong position, he encamped, and avoiding a battle, harassed the enemy, proposing to cut off his supplies, and expel him by famine. While both parties were thus situated, Edgar Ætheling, now with Rufus, and Robert, the king’s brother, exerted themselves to conciliate a peace. The English monarch, notwithstanding his fiery temper, knew how to bend his fury to his interest; and Malcolm, perceiving that he could obtain his purpose by treaty, wisely preferred this to the risk of a battle. It is Peace be-important to mark the conditions of the agreement. William Rufus, we find, consented to restore to Malcolm twelve manors, which the Scottish prince had held under the Conqueror, and to make an annual payment to him of twelve marks of gold. Malcolm, on his part, consented to do homage to William, and to hold his lands under the same tenure of feudal service and obedience to him, as he had formerly paid to his father the Conqueror.

Here pausing for a moment upon a subject which has Scotland given rise to some discordant opinions, and which, now that the bitterness of national rivalry is at an end, may, we trust, be calmly considered, we would remark that, taking the testimony of English historians as our guide, all as yet seems clear, as to the much debated subject of homage. Simeon of Durham expressly declares that Malcolm agreed to obey William Rufus on the same conditions as those on which he had obeyed William the Conqueror. Under the Conqueror it is certain that Malcolm held twelve manors in England. These Rufus had seized; but he now restored them, and Malcolm renewed his obligation of homage. On a former occasion when, as we have seen, the Scottish king, in 1072, paid his homage to the Conqueror in person, the ground upon which he paid it is equally clear. Previously to the battle of Hastings, the Scottish monarchs had obtained from the Saxon kings some possessions in England. This was before the introduction of the strict feudal tenures, which came in with the Normans; but there is no doubt that these possessions were held under the condition of aiding the Saxon princes in repelling the incursions of the Danes. When William the Conqueror established himself in England, Malcolm, as we have seen, considered him as a usurper of the rights of his brother-in-law, Edgar Ætheling; and, on this ground, as well as perhaps from an indisposition to embrace a system which must have been new to him, he had at first refused to pay his homage for the lands he held in England. Circumstances, however, made him change this resolution. The prevailing power of William, the acquiescence of the English under his government, and the inactivity and imbecility of Edgar Ætheling, his brother-in-law, induced him to desist from a conflict in which he ceased to have an interest. A more intimate acquaintance with the feudal tenures introduced into England taught him that, in the acknowledgment of superiority for the lands which he held in that country, there was no sacrifice of dignity as an independent monarch; and as all idea of restoring Edgar was abandoned, he paid his homage to the conqueror.

The point of homage seemed thus prudently settled; but the proud and fiery temper, which appears to have been an infirmity of both princes, soon led to a new contest between Malcolm and Rufus. A jealousy of the incursions of the Scots had formerly led the Conqueror to build two strong castles, the one at Durham, the other at Newcastle. To these his successor now added a third at Carlisle; a barrier which, however necessary, might possibly be considered as encroaching on the freedom of the lands which Malcolm held in Cumberland. A dispute arose, and a personal interview between the two kings having been considered the best mode of settling their differences, Malcolm repaired to Gloucester, where Rufus met him and proposed that he should do homage in presence of his English barons. This the Scottish monarch refused; although he was ready, he said, to perform his homage on the frontiers of both kingdoms, as had been the ancient usage. The reply was angrily received, and the two kings having parted with expressions of defiance, Malcolm assembled an army, and advancing with a speed whetted by the indignity with which he had been treated, burst into Northumberland, which he wasted with fire and sword. Sweeping onwards to Alnwick, he was about to possess himself of the castle, when the Scottish army was attacked by Robert de Mowbray. In the battle which ensued Malcolm was slain, and Edward, his eldest son, shared the fate of his father.

We have already observed that the mild and gentle disposition of his queen, St. Margaret, had an admirable influence over the fierce and impetuous character of this prince. Of her life we have an interesting account from the pen of Turgot her confessor; and we cannot resist borrowing a few touches from this early specimen of biography. When the king set out on his last expedition against England, Margaret was suffering from a fatal and lingering complaint. She only lived to hear of the death of her husband and her son. Her last moments are thus described by that faithful minister, who related what he saw: "During a short interval of ease, the queen devoutly received the communion. Soon after, her anguish of body returned with redoubled violence; she stretched herself upon her couch and calmly waited for the moment of her dissolution; cold, and in the agonies of death, she ceased not to put up her supplications to heaven." These were some of her words: "Have mercy upon me, O God; according to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out mine iniquities; make me to hear joy and gladness, that so the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice." At that moment," continues Turgot, "her son, Edgar, returning from the army, approached her couch. 'How fares it?' said she, 'with the king and my Edward?' The youth stood silent. 'I know all,' I know all. By this holy cross, by your filial affection, I adjure you to tell me the truth.' He answered, 'your husband and your son are both slain.' Lifting up her eyes and her hands to heaven she then said, 'Praise and blessing be to thee, Almighty God, that thou hast been pleased to make me endure so bitter anguish in the hour of my departure, thereby, as I trust, to purify me in some measure, from the corruption of my sins; and thou, Lord Jesus Christ, who, through the will of the Father, hast enlivened the world by thy death, oh deliver me.' While pronouncing the words 'deliver me,' she expired."

"In reviewing the reign of Malcolm the Third," says Lord Hailes, "we may discern a character of steady persevering courage. From his early youth to his last invasion of England, his conduct was uniform. He maintained his throne with the same spirit by which he won it. Though he was the ruler of a nation uncivilised, and destitute of foreign resources, and had such antagonists as the Conqueror and William Rufus to encounter, yet, for twenty-seven years, he supported this unequal contest, sometimes with success, never without honour. That he should have so well asserted the independency of Scotland is astonishing, when the weakness of his own kingdom, and the strength and abilities of his enemies are fairly estimated."

Malcolm's eldest son had fallen, as we have seen, with his dear father. His remaining sons, Ethelred, Edmund, Edgar, Alexander, and David, were all under age; and his brother Donald, who, on the usurpation of the throne by Macbeth, had taken refuge in the Hebrides, appears to have remained in that distant retreat during the whole reign of the late king. These islands were then independent of the Scottish crown. They were inhabited by a warlike race, whose chiefs yielded to the Norwegian king a fluctuating submission; and many of these leaders having joined him, Donald, with a powerful fleet, invaded Scotland and seized the crown; but it was for a very brief season. Duncan, a son of Malcolm, but illegitimate as is generally believed, had, in 1072, been delivered to William Rufus as a hostage for his father's fidelity. He had received his education at the Norman court, and having been knighted by the English monarch, was retained in his service. With permission of William, he now invaded Scotland, and assisted by a hand.

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1 Caledonia, vol. i. p. 394. 2 In this account of the expedition of William Rufus into Scotland, and in the remarks on the disputed point of the homage, we have been induced to treat the subject a little more in detail, availing ourselves of some manuscript notes of the late David Macpherson, a writer of great research and judgment. This seemed the more necessary, as the subject of Rufus's invasion of Scotland, and Malcolm's stipulated homage, has been considered by high authority as one involved in extreme obscurity. 3 Hailes's Annals, vol. i. pp. 40, 41, 4to edit. We have availed ourselves of Lord Hailes's translation of the passage from Turgot describing the queen's death. 4 Ibid. vol. i. pp. 25, 26, 4to edit. Scotland of English and Norman adventurers expelled Donald Bane. He, in his turn, after a reign of little more than a year, was assassinated, and Donald once more ascended the throne, from which, in 1097, he was again expelled by William Rufus, who dispatched Edgar Ætheling with a powerful army into Scotland. By this prince the aged usurper was defeated, and Edgar, the son of Malcolm and Margaret, the nephew of Edgar Ætheling, ascended the throne. This event took place in the close of the eleventh century; and, with the captivity and death of Donald Bane, who is the last of the race of Scooto-Irish kings, the Scottish period expires.

And here, after having passed over a portion of our history which extends from the middle of the ninth to the end of the eleventh century, let us pause to say a few words on the condition of the church, the state of the laws, and the manners of the people. To every critical student of this period one thing appears certain. Throughout its whole extent, we find the predominant people a Celtic race. The laws were Celtic, the government Celtic, the usages and manners Celtic, the church Celtic, the language Celtic. "It," says Chalmers, "Malcolm Canmore, a Celtic prince, who did not arrogate the character of a lawgiver, had been disposed to effect a considerable change in this Celtic system; he would have found his inclination limited by his impotence. The Scottish kings, during those times, seem not to have possessed legislative power. Whenever they acted as legislators, they appear to have had some coadjutors; either some maormors, a term by which we are to understand the chief civil ruler of a district, or some bishops." We shall see, when we pursue our inquiry into a later period, that the children and grandchildren of this Celtic monarch, when they attempted to introduce new maxims of government, were opposed in Galloway and in Moray by frequent insurrections.

Looking now first to that most important and interesting point, the state of the church, we have already seen that, at the commencement of the Pictish period in 446, Christianity had been introduced into North Britain. Of the exact constitution, discipline, and orders in the early Scottish church, from the conversion of the Scots to the commencement of the Scoto-Pictish period (843), much has been written; and it is well known that the advocates of episcopacy and the supporters of presbyterianism have each endeavoured to deduce, from an examination of these remote ages, irrefragable arguments for their peculiar opinions. Into this discussion it belongs not to our plan to enter. We deal with general results, and dare not embark in controversy; but we may be permitted to observe, from the authentic monuments which still remain in our own times, and it seems difficult to avoid the conclusion, that the primitive and most ancient form of church government in Scotland was episcopal. At the memorable epoch of the union of the Picts and the Scots, we find a bishopric of Lindisfarne extending far into Lothian. In Lothian itself, the religious houses of Melrose, Coldingham, Tynningham, Pefferham, and Abercorn, had been long established. In Galloway, the bishopric of Whithorn, which we have seen founded by St. Ninian, had fallen soon after the commencement of the ninth century. Looking beyond the Friths, we find that, at the same period, various religious cells had been settled by the disciples of Columba; and that not long afterwards, Kenneth Macalpin, anxious to testify his respect for the relics of this apostle of the Scots, removed his relics from Iona to Dunkeld, where he built a church, which became not only the seat of a bishop, (849), but, till supplanted by St. Andrews, the seat of the primate of the Scottish church. There is an ancient legend quoted by Spottiswood from the register of St. Andrews, which, if any credit is to be attached to it, gives the honour of founding the see of St. Andrews to Hungus king of the Picts, who died in 833. This prince, it appears, had invaded Northumberland, and upon his return was overtaken by Athelstan, king of the West Saxons, at the head of a powerful army. "Having given order for battle against the next Church day," says the historian, "Hungus betook himself to prayer, spending most part of the night in that exercise. A little time before day, falling into a slumber, it seemed to him that the apostle St. Andrew stood by him and assured him of the victory, which vision being related to the army, did much encourage them. The history addeth that, in the joining of the battle, there appeared in the air a cross in the form of the letter X, which so terrified the enemies as presently they gave back, king Athelstan himself being killed. Hungus, to express his thankfulness for the victory, gave to the church of Regulas, now called St. Andrews, divers rich gifts, as chalices, basons, the image of Christ in gold, and of his twelve apostles in silver. He gave likewise a case of beaten gold for preserving the relics of St. Andrew, and restored to the spirituality the title of all corn, cattle, and herbage within the realm, exempting them from answering before any temporal judge; farther he did appoint the cross of St. Andrew to be the badge and cognizance of the Picts, both in their wars and otherwise, which, as long as that kingdom stood, was observed, and is by the Scots as yet retained."

This extract we have given rather as a curious example of the earliest tradition as to the national emblem of the cross of St. Andrew, than from any high opinion of the authenticity of king Hungus's devotion. The following list of the Scottish bishoprics, according to the date of their foundation, is taken from Keith's Catalogue. It is to be observed, however, that in some of its dates we must regard it rather as an approximation to the truth, as far as it can be ascertained from authentic sources, than as fixing the exact years of the erection.

| Bishopric | Date | |--------------------|----------| | See of the Isles | 447 | | See of Galloway | 450 | | See of Glasgow | 560 | | See of Dunkeld | 729 | | See of St. Andrews | 892 | | Mortlach | afterwards | | See of Ross | 123 | | See of Brechin | 1150 | | See of Caithness | 1150 | | See of Dunblane | 1160 | | See of Moray | 1162 | | See of Argyle | 1200 |

Of these episcopal sees, the reader will observe, that Parishes only the bishoprics of the Isles, Galloway, Glasgow, Dunfermline, St. Andrews, and Mortlach, afterwards Aberdeen, belong to the period of which we now treat, from 843 to 1097; although the remaining sees are added, to afford the reader some idea of their comparative antiquity. "The united kingdom of the Picts and Scots," says Chalmers, "was formed under the regimen of parishes, though neither the times nor the circumstances of this formation can be clearly ascertained amid the gloom which hangs over the Scotian church during the Scottish period. We may easily suppose that those ecclesiastical districts were gradually established subsequent to the great epoch of 843. They were pretty generally settled during the Scottish period, though they were inconveniently large. They were established by private persons, rather than by public authority. But that parishes existed during the reign of Malcolm Canmore, is certain from unquestionable records. Thus, in the charter of David the First to the monastery of Dunfermline, this monarch uses these words: Preterea pater meus (his father was Malcolm the Third,) et mater mea dederunt ecclesiae Sanctae Trinitatis parochiam totam de Fotheriff." It seems equally certain," he continues, "that when churches were erected, parishes laid out, and parochial duties statedly performed, ecclesiastical dues must have been incident- ally paid. In the charters of Alexander the First, and of David, tithes are mentioned as if they were familiarly known, and had been long established. It is clear that tithes were paid to the clergy during the reign of Malcolm Canmore, and probable that such ecclesiastical dues were payable as early as the commencement of the tenth century (910), when Constantine the king, and Kellach the bishop, solemnly vowed to observe the faith, discipline, and rights of the churches. During the reign of Malcolm Canmore, according to the high authority of Innis, several national councils were held in Scotland for the establishment of ecclesiastical discipline, and the reformation of the rude and fierce manners of the people. Some extracts from the canons passed in these councils are inserted by Turgot, the confessor of Malcolm's pious consort St. Margaret, in the interesting life which he has given us of this princess.

During this obscure period, we meet with frequent mention of an order of religious men named Culdees, who first appear in the beginning of the ninth century. They seem to have been a kind of secular presbyters or monks, the Gaelic term Culdee meaning a recluse or hermit. With the exception of the form of the tonsure and the rule of observing Easter, they professed the same rites and ceremonies as the rest of the church. It has been erroneously pretended that the Culdees rejected bishops. So far was this from being the case, that we have repeated instances of the colleges of these Celtic monks having been instituted and ordained by the bishops themselves, while they, wherever they had a college about the see, possessed a vote in the election of the bishop. Of this distinct order, we find that there existed in North Britain, during the Scottish period, religious houses at Abernethy, Dunkeld, St. Andrews, Dunblane, Brechin, Mortlach, Aberdeen, Monymusk, Lochleven, Portnoak, Dunfermline, Scone, and Kirkcaldy.

It remains to say a few words on the laws, manners, and language of the Scottish period. To affect to speak with certainty upon the laws which regulated the government, restrained the crimes, or directed the succession of a fierce and barbarous people who have left no written monuments, would betray presumption and ignorance. As far as can be conjectured, we find the crown neither strictly hereditary nor strictly elective, but directed in its descent by what has been termed the law of Tanistry; an institution by which the person in the family of the reigning prince who was judged best qualified, whether son, brother, or even more remote relative, was chosen under the name of Tanist, to lead the army during the life of the king, and to succeed him after his death. Chalmers has asserted, that, at this era, the tenure of land throughout the country determined with the life of the possessor; an opinion requiring some modification, as it indicates a state of barbarism even greater than is discovered by the few glimpses of light which sometimes shoot athwart this twilight of our history. By a custom which the Scots evidently brought with them from Ireland, denominated in Irish gáthail-cine, meaning literally family settlement, it appears, that the fathers of families divided their lands among their sons, sometimes in equal, sometimes in unequal portions, and strictly excluded females from any share in this appropriation. As to their legislative code, there seems to be little doubt that the nearest approach we can make to the laws or usages of Celtic Scotland, must be by the study of such fragments as remain to us of the brehon laws of Ireland. "This brehon law," says Cox, "was no written law, it was only the will of the brehon or lord; and it is observable that their brehons or judges, like their physicians, bards, harpers, poets, and historians, had their offices by descent and inheritance. These hereditary judges or doctors," continues he, "were but very sad tools. The brehon, when he administered justice, used to sit on a turf or heap of stones, or on the top of a hillock, without a covering, without clerks, or indeed any formality of a court of judicature." This state of law, observes the author of Caledonia, may be traced among the Sco-Irish in Scotland till recent times. Every baron had his mote-hill, whence justice was distributed to his vassals by his baron bailie. There seems to be little doubt that Malcolm, from his marriage with a Saxon princess, and his frequent intercourse with the Saxon and Norman people, was an admirer of their superior civilization, and anxious to introduce their usages among his own ruder subjects. But that he succeeded to any material degree is extremely problematical; and the notion that he introduced the complicated system of the feudal law into Scotland, has been long ago exploded.

In a rapid sketch of this nature, little room can be given to any detailed description of the manners of the people during the Scottish period. The natural state of the Celtic tribes in Scotland was similar to that which we find existing among them in Ireland, namely, a state of constant war; and to those who consider how slow is the progress of improvement, and how strong the principle of imitation and tradition among a savage people, it will be no subject of wonder that we find little change produced by the lapse of centuries upon the manners of the ancient British, whether we look to Wales, Ireland, or North Britain. Their marriages, their mode of burial, their dress, their war cries, were similar. Armorial bearings, during this whole period, were unknown; seals, and coined money they had none; and it has been remarked by Chalmers, that the Gaelic people of Scotland borrowed their very terms for the several denominations of money from the Sco-Saxon inhabitants. Thus, the Gaelic peiglin, a penny, is from the Saxon penig.

In those rude ages of which we now write, stones of memorial were frequently employed, and many of them still remain; yet as they are found without inscriptions, and only occasionally ornamented by rude hieroglyphics, the memory of the events which they describe has perished, and the field is left open to antiquarian conjecture. Inaugural stones also were used by them, upon which not only the Irish and Scottish kings were placed on their accession to the crown; but the chiefs of septs or petty regalia, were accustomed on the same to take the oaths to their vassals, when they succeeded to the power of the former chief. To the same class of inaugural stones belongs, as is well known, the famous coronation stone of Scotland. Tradition reports this singular relic to have been brought from Ireland by Kenneth; it was undoubtedly carried off from Scone by Edward the First, who inserted it into a chair, which he placed before the shrine of Edward the Confessor in Westminster Abbey. It is almost impossible to speak with any precision of the state

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1 Innis, p. 785. Chronicle. Codex Colberttions. See also Innis, 603. 2 And here having spoken of St. Margaret, we cannot refrain, in these brief remarks on the early state of the Scottish church, from alluding to a beautiful picture preserved by this same worthy Bishop Turgot, in which he describes the love of Malcolm for St. Margaret, and the influence which the mild piety of the Saxon princess acquired over the fiery temper of her Celtic husband. "Malcolm," says he, (see note Lord Hailes's translation), "respected the religion of his spouse, was fearful of offending her, and listened to her admonitions. Whatever she loved or disliked, so did he. Although he could not read, he frequently turned over her prayer-books, and kissed her favourite volumes. He had them adorned with gold and precious stones, and presented them to her in token of his devotion. She instructed him to pass the night in prayer, with groans and tears. I must acknowledge, that I often admired the works of the divine mercy, when I saw a king so religious, and such signs of deep compunction in a layman."—Hailes, vol. i. p. 15. 3 Goodall's Introduction to the History and Antiquities of Scotland, p. 117. 4 Chalmers, vol. i. p. 434. 5 Caledonia, vol. i. p. 308. Thus, in Adamnan's life of Columba, which was written only eighty years after the saint's death, we find frequent mention of houses of wattle, similar probably to those which the Constable Richard de Moreville, in a charter of the twelfth century, denominates claustrum niscate. Even the abbey of Iona was built of the same rude materials. The clothing of the monks seems to have been often composed of the skins of beasts, though latterly they had woollen stuffs and linen; the first probably manufactured by themselves, the linen imported from the continent. Venison, fish, milk, flesh, and wild fowl, were the common food of the people.

"The monks of Iona," says Chalmers, "who lived by their labour, cultivated their fields, and laid up corn in their garner." But it is to be recollected that the monks were everywhere, for ages, the improvers themselves, and the instructors of others in the useful arts. Even Iona had its orchards in the rugged times of the ninth century, till the rikanghr, or pirate kings, ravaged and ruined all. Looking to their shipping, we find that their little vessels were constructed by covering a keel of wood and a frame of wicker work with the skins of cattle and of deer. These were denominated currachs. Afterwards they were enlarged and made capable of containing a respectable crew. It was in a vessel of this description, a wicker boat covered with hides, that Columba, accompanied by twelve of his friends, embarked from Ireland, in the year 563, and landed in Iona. With these few remarks, we close the Scottish period of our national history.

Sect. IV.—Scoto-Saxon Period.

We have already seen, that the death of Malcolm Canmore at Alnwick gave rise to a temporary usurpation of the throne by Donald his brother, that he was expelled by Duncan, an illegitimate son of Malcolm, who had been educated at the court of William Rufus; and this Duncan having been assassinated, Edgar Atheling led an English army into Scotland, and placed Edgar, the son of Malcolm Canmore, on the throne.

Edgar's reign was brief, pacific, and of little interest; but his successor, Alexander the First, the eldest surviving son of Malcolm, was a prince of a powerful and vigorous character. From his accession to the throne, in the commencement of the twelfth century, (1105), to the death of Alexander the Third (1285), in the close of the thirteenth, a period little short of two centuries, the nation was progressive and prosperous in a degree unequalled during the whole course of its future history. Under a succession of six monarchs, Alexander the First, David the First, Malcolm the Fourth, William the Lion, Alexander the Second, and Alexander the Third, it maintained its independence against foreign aggression, and not only preserved the integrity, but extended the boundaries of its dominions. Its commerce, its manufactures, its agriculture, and all the arts which improve and humanize an ignorant and fierce people, were encouraged; and throughout this long period, in the personal characters of each of these successive princes, though varying in their shades, there was that ingredient of energy and boldness which communicated itself to their people, and maintained the nation at the standard to which each ruler in his turn had raised it.

Let us for a moment pursue our system, and like a traveller gazing from a mountain height, and noting the landmarks of a new country, endeavour to detect the leading and influential events in this division of our national history. In the character of Alexander the First, everything seems to have been in excess; but happily the qualities which were so overcharged, were most of them of the better sort. He is traditionally remembered by the epithet of the fierce; and though humble and courteous to his clergy, whom he deemed entitled to this homage as God's servants, not his, he was, to use the words of an ancient and authentic writer, "terrible beyond measure to his subjects." The leading event of his reign was the struggle which he maintained for the independence of the Scottish church against the pretended rights claimed, first for the see of York, and afterwards by that of Canterbury, On the election of Turgot, a monk of Durham, to the bishopric of St. Andrews (1109,) the archbishop of York insisting on his having the right of consecrating him. To this the Scottish king declared he would never agree; and a compromise having taken place, by which the point was left undecided, Alexander, on the death of Turgot, altered his ground, and chose for his successor Eadmer, a monk of Canterbury. The same right of consecration, and founded on the same ground of the alleged dependence of the Scottish church upon the primacy of England, was now advanced by Canterbury; but it was still more haughtily and persistently refused by Alexander. A compromise again took place. Eadmer accepted the ring from the king, and took the pastoral staff from the altar, as if receiving it from the Lord; but finding his authority weakened, and the countenance of the monarch withdrawn from him, he intimated his resolution of repairing to Canterbury for advice. This Alexander violently opposed, declaring that as long as he lived, the bishop of St. Andrews should never be subject to that see. Nor did he fail here, as in all his other enterprises, to keep his word; Eadmer remained an elected but unconsecrated bishop. At length weary of the contest, and trammeled in its usefulness, he desired permission to resign, restored the ring to the king, replaced the pastoral staff on the high altar, and returned to Canterbury. Robert, prior of Scone, was elected to fill the vacant see, and the king's determined efforts to maintain the independence of the Scottish church were crowned with success. It had continued for fourteen years, and Alexander survived its termination only a single year. He died in 1124, leaving no children by his wife Sybilla, a natural daughter of Henry I. the First, and was succeeded by his brother, David the First.

Edgar, the brother of this prince, had, on his death-bed, bequeathed to him that portion of Cumberland which was possessed by the Scottish kings. The legacy had two good effects. It called the young prince early to the cares and labours of administration; and it removed him from Scotland to a country where he became acquainted with a more advanced civilization and with better regulated government. These advantages were not thrown away upon David. His natural dispositions were excellent; his love of justice, his capacity for labour, his sense of the national honour and independence, his affection to every class of his people, his tenderness to his children, his piety to God, were all so conspicuous in his character, that Buchanan, an author who cannot be suspected of adulation, pronounces him the perfect exemplar of a good king; and the progress made by the country during the twenty-nine years of his reign goes far to justify the assertion.

His reign was contemporary with that of Henry the First War with and of Stephen in England, and it opened with many difficulties. The question of the independence of the church was again started; and before it could be brought to a termination, the forcible seizure of the English crown by Stephen, who deposed Matilda, the daughter of Henry the First, involved him in a war with that usurper. During the life of Henry the First, David and Stephen had sworn Scotland: to maintain the right of Matilda; and the Scottish monarchs, in obedience to his oath, invading England, compelled the barons of the northern portion of that kingdom to swear fealty to this princess. His efforts however were more honourable than successful; and after a war which lasted three years, David was ultimately defeated in the great battle of the Standard, fought on Cutton Moor, in the neighbourhood of Northallerton. Peace was now concluded, and the terms to which Stephen consented, indicate that, although defeated, the Scottish king was but little humbled.

The earldom of Northumberland, with the exception of the two castles of Newcastle and Bamborough, was ceded to Prince Henry, David's eldest son. As an equivalent for these fortresses, lands were granted to him in the south of England; the barons of Northumberland were to hold their estates of Henry the Prince of Scotland, reserving their fealty to Stephen; and in return, David and all his people became bound to maintain an inviolable peace with England.

Character of David I. The remaining years of the reign of this wise monarch were pacific and prosperous. The war had convinced him that the English were far superior to his people in arms and discipline; it had been undertaken in fulfilment of his oath to Henry, not from any love of conquest, and having satisfied his conscience, he devoted his life to the arts of good government. "During the course of his sage administration," says Lord Hailes, "public buildings were erected, towns established, agriculture, manufactures, and commerce promoted. The barbarities of his people in their invasions of England, had affected him with the deepest anguish, and believing that religion was the only agent which could humanize and improve the savage multitudes whom he had led, but could not restrain, he endowed the church with new privileges, enriched it with extensive grants of land, founded various bishoprics, built many monasteries, and exhibited in his own person so fine an example of royal greatness, chastened and purified by Christian humility and devotion, that it could not fail to have the best effects upon his people."

Towards the close of his reign, it was his misfortune to lose his eldest son, Prince Henry, just as he had reached manhood, and exhibited many of the excellent qualities of his father. The blow sunk deep into his heart; but David's first care had been for his people, and he roused himself to provide for the pacific succession of his grandson, Malcolm, a child in his twelfth year. By his orders, this boy, the son of Prince Henry, was carried in a progress through his dominions, to receive the homage of the barons and the people, and was solemnly proclaimed heir to the crown. Having performed this wise but mournful duty, the aged king within a year followed his son to the grave. It is a remarkable and beautiful circumstance, that he was found dead in an attitude of devotion. "His death had been so tranquil," says Aldred, who knew him well, "that you would not have believed he was dead. He was found with his hands clasped devoutly upon his breast in the very posture in which he seems to have been raising them to heaven."

The reign of Malcolm the Fourth, which lasted only twelve years, offers little for our observation. It began with those evils which so invariably attend a minority; war without, and insecurity within the kingdom. Somerled the thane of Argyll, strengthened by the naval powers of the Isles, invaded Scotland, and for some years continued to harass the country by repeated attacks, which at length terminated in an amicable agreement. The transactions of Malcolm with Henry the Second of England impress us with an unfavourable notion of this young prince. It had been a promise of the English monarch made to David the First, in 1149, that if he succeeded to the crown of England, he would cede to Scotland for ever the territory between the Scots, Tyne and the Tweed. Instead of insisting on this, Malcolm, overreached by the superior sagacity of Henry, or betrayed Malcolm by the treachery of his councillors, abandoned to England IV. his whole possessions in the northern counties, and received in return the honor of Huntingdon; a measure which created universal discontent in the nation. These feelings of disgust were imprudently increased by an expedition of the young prince into France, where he joined the army of Henry, claimed from him the distinction of knighthood, and outraged the feelings of national jealousy, by forgetting his station as an independent prince, and fighting under the banner of the English monarch. A deputation from the Scots was sent into France to remonstrate against this conduct, nor did they hesitate in bold language to reproach their king for the desertion of his duty. Galloway rose into rebellion; the inhabitants of Moray about the same time threw off their allegiance; and Somerled the thane of Argyll invaded the country with a formidable fleet. Although the obstinacy of the king had brought these disasters upon himself, his energy and decision met and overcame them. He hurried from France, conciliated his nobles, invaded and subdued Galloway, repulsed Somerled, and after suppressing the rebellion in Moray, adopted the extraordinary measure of dispossessing its ancient inhabitants, compelling them to settle in more distant parts of his dominions, and planting new colonies in their room. These energetic measures were his last, for he died immediately after, at an early age, and was succeeded by his brother William the Second, son of Henry, prince of Scotland, and grandson of David the First.

The administration of this prince presents us with the longest reign in the range of Scottish history, extending from 1165 to 1214, nearly half a century. In this protracted division, the most important event was, the disgraceful surrender of the national independence to Henry the Second in 1174, and its recovery by William in 1189. Both transactions require our serious notice. It was the weakness of William to be guided by impulse. Smitten with admiration for the warlike qualities of Henry the Second, and uninstructed by the misfortunes of his predecessor Malcolm, he first courted this prince, and being disappointed in his object of procuring from his justice the restitution of Northumberland, he imprudently defied him. War ensued; and the king of the Scots having advanced with his army to Alnwick, was surprised, made prisoner, and shut up in the castle of Falaise in Normandy. His impatience under captivity, and the longing of the barons and clergy for their king, led to a pusillanimous treaty, which will ever remain a blot upon the national honour. With consent of his barons and clergy, given at Valognes on the 8th of December 1174, William agreed to become the liegeman of Henry for Scotland, and all his other territories; to deliver up to the English monarch the castles of Roxburgh, Berwick, Jedburgh, Edinburgh, and Stirling; to give his brother David and some of his chief barons as hostages, and to receive in return his liberty. In this treaty, it is remarkable, that while little care was shown as to the independence of the people, a prudent, and, as it has been well denominated, a memorable clause was introduced, which left entire the independence of the Scottish church; and this clause, the bishops and clergy took the first opportunity of asserting before the Papal legate in a council held at Northampton (1176).

On his return to his dominions, William appears to have devoted himself with much energy and success to the cares of government. His dominions were weakened and distracted by repeated insurrections in Ross and in Galloway. In these wild and remote districts, the native chiefs claimed almost a royal sway; and the people, ferocious in their habits, and jealous of all intercourse with England, were ready, upon the slightest provocation or encouragement, to A pretender to the crown also appeared in Galloway, in the person of Donald, the grandson of Duncan, commonly called the bastard king of Scotland. This adventurer having seized Ross, and wasted Moray, William led an army against him; nor was it till after a desperate struggle that Donald fell near Inverness, and by his death restored tranquillity to the country.

We have already seen how firmly the Scottish church had renounced the idea of any dependence upon the metropolitan sees of York or Canterbury; we have adverted to that careful reservation of their rights at the moment when the king and the nobles bartered away what was not theirs to give, the national independence. In this resolute conduct the clergy were supported by the king; and in 1188, Clement the Third pronounced a solemn decree, by which he declared the "church of Scotland to be the daughter of Rome, and immediately subject to her; and that to the Pope alone, or his legate de latere, should belong the power of pronouncing any sentence of excommunication against that kingdom."

This important declaration was soon followed by another event still more memorable, in which the kingdom recovered its independence. On the death of Henry the Second, Richard Cœur de Lion, his successor, then intent upon collecting money for his expedition to the Holy Land, invited the king of Scotland to his court, and upon William's engagement to pay to him the sum of ten thousand marks, agreed to restore his kingdom to its independence, reserving the homage formerly due by the Scottish kings for the lands which they held in England. The instrument by which this transaction was completed, declares, that Richard had delivered up to William king of Scots, his castles of Roxburgh and Berwick, had granted to him an acquittance of all obligations which had been extorted from him by Henry the Second, in consequence of his captivity, and had ordained the boundaries of the two kingdoms to be re-established as they existed at the date of William's imprisonment. The Scottish king was at the same time put in possession of all his fees in the earldom of Huntingdon; and all the charters of homage done to Henry the Second by the Scottish barons were delivered up, and declared to be cancelled for ever. We are to ascribe it to the wise regulations of this treaty, and the fidelity with which they were observed on both sides by its authors and their successors, that for a century after its date, there occurred no national quarrel or hostilities between the two countries. The remaining portion of the reign of William demands little notice. During the latter years of it, the succession of John to his brother Richard the First threatened to dissolve the pacific relations between the two countries; but war was happily averted, and the Scottish monarch reserved his energies for the pacification of his own realm, disturbed by a rebellion in the northern counties. In 1214, the king died at Stirling, after a reign of forty-eight years, the longest, as already stated, in Scottish history. His name of William the Lion was probably owing to the circumstance, that before his time, none of the Scottish kings had assumed a coat armorial. The Lion rampant first appears upon his shield.

William was succeeded by his son Alexander, a youth of seventeen, to whom the Scottish barons had sworn homage in 1201, and who was one of the wisest of our kings, whether we regard the justice of his administration, the seasonable severity with which he subdued all internal commotions in his kingdom, the firmness exhibited in his maintenance of the rights of the church, or the wisdom, forbearance, and vigour which marked his policy towards England. His reign was one of constant action, and full of incident. It commenced with his joining the English barons who resisted the tyranny of John. This conduct drew down upon him and his kingdom a sentence of excommunication (1216); but the papal terrors appear to have been little dreaded at this time; and in 1218, Honorius not only abrogated the sentence pronounced by his legate, but confirmed the liberties of the Scottish church.

On the accession of Henry the Third to the English throne, Alexander, who was occupied with quelling the repeated insurrections in the northern parts of his dominions, showed every disposition to cultivate amity with England; and his marriage to the princess Joanna, sister of Henry, had a favourable effect in strengthening the ties between the two monarchs.

One of the striking features which mark the reign of this Increase in monarch, is the gradual increase that is to be observed in the power of the nobles, and the corresponding decrease in the authority of the crown; but if this had injurious effects upon the general prosperity of the kingdom, and distracted it by internal private feuds, it encouraged a feeling of independence, and fostered that warlike spirit, which proved the best safeguards against the encroachments of their more powerful neighbours. This was strikingly shown on the occurrence of a rupture between England and Scotland in 1244. Some time before this, Alexander had claimed from Henry, in right of inheritance, the counties of Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmoreland; and although the English king did not grant him his full demand, he admitted its justice, by transferring to him an equivalent in certain lands, which he accepted in full of all claims. For these lands the Scottish king did homage; and both monarchs remained on friendly terms for some years, when jealousies suddenly arose, and Henry, alleging that homage had been unjustly withheld, led an army against Scotland. Under these threatening circumstances, the Scottish king, although he had recently experienced the resistance of his nobles to his personal requests, found himself strongly supported by the same barons against the meditated attack of England. They raised in a short time an army of a hundred thousand foot, and a thousand horse, and this demonstration of the national strength had happily the effect of restoring peace without bloodshed. It is worthy of notice, that when a papal legate visited Scotland under this reign, and held a provincial council in the capital, the king manifested the same jealousy of such a proceeding as had been exhibited by his predecessors. He seemed afraid lest the admission of a papal messenger, whose message regarded England alone, should be deemed derogatory to the independence of the Scottish church; and although, at the request of the nobility of both countries, he consented to his coming into the kingdom, he declined a personal meeting, and stipulated that this permission should not be drawn into a precedent.

Having engaged in a maritime expedition against Angus of Argyll, one of those petty island chiefs, whose dubious allegiance, in those remote times, oscillated between Norway and Scotland, Alexander had conducted his fleet as far as the Sound of Mull, when he was seized with a fever, and died in a small island there named Kerraray, in the 35th year of his reign. He was succeeded by his son, Alexander the Third, a boy in his eighth year; and the kingdom, which had enjoyed under his father's wise and vigorous administration, an uncommon degree of prosperity, became immediately exposed to the many evils of a minority. Two parties divided the nobility; the one led by Walter Comyn, earl of Menteith, the other by Durward the high Justiciar; and Henry the Third secretly wrote to the Pope, requesting him to interdict the coronation of the young king. Scotland, he said, was a fee of England, Alexander his vassal, and his permission as superior had not been obtained. The Pope appears to have rejected his demand with promptitude, as derogatory to the rights of a sovereign Prince; and the ceremony of the coronation was performed at the abbey of Scone, the coronation-oath being read first in Latin, and afterwards in Norman-French.

Alexander soon afterwards, in fulfilment of a former treaty, Scotland espoused Margaret, the youthful daughter of Henry at York, and exhibited a spirit and intelligence superior to his years, in refusing to pay homage for his kingdom of Scotland. "I came," said he to the artful monarch who made the proposal; "I came into England on a joyful and pacific errand, not to answer to an anxious question, which belongs to the states of my kingdom." He at the same time made no objection to take the oath of fealty for the lands which he held in England.

Defeated in this attempt to overreach a minor sovereign, Henry commenced a series of intrigues with the Scottish nobles, with the object of obtaining an entire control over the affairs of the sister kingdom; and the country was divided and distracted by two factions, the one acting under English influence, and the other more honestly contending for the freedom of their prince and the independent administration of the government. These scenes of civil faction and foreign interference continued till the monarch, having arrived at manhood, and developing a character of much energy and judgment, took the reins into his own hand, and compelled his nobility to respect the laws and support his measures.

Scarcely had this happy change occurred, when the kingdom, which had already suffered from the vicinity of the fleets of Norway, was threatened with invasion by Haco, one of its most warlike princes. The dispute which led to this menace originated in a circumstance already noticed; the precarious homage paid by the petty piratical chiefs of the Western Isles, who, as circumstances pressed on the one side or the other, acknowledged a feudal dependence on Scotland or on Norway. To support them in their independence on Alexander, Haco made a descent on the western coast of Scotland with a mighty fleet, but sustained a signal defeat at Largs, and on his return with the shattered remains of his ships, sickened and died at Orkney. The results of this victory were highly favourable to Scotland. It fixed the chiefs of the Western Isles in their allegiance, secured to Alexander the homage of the king of Man, and convinced Norway that Scotland was not to be so easily subdued or overawed as its piratical princes had anticipated.

The remainder of this reign was prosperous, as far as the circumstances of the kingdom are considered, but unfortunate for the monarch, who found himself suddenly deprived by death of all his children. His eldest son, Alexander, died soon after his marriage, and his only daughter Margaret, the wife of Eric, king of Norway, was cut off in childbirth, leaving an infant daughter, Margaret, commonly called the Maiden of Norway, the heiress of the Scottish throne. These calamities induced the king, who was a widower, to make a second marriage. Having selected Iolenta de Coney, daughter of the Count de Dreux, the nuptials were celebrated at Jedburgh; and the nation, under a wise monarch still in the prime of life, flourishing at home and at peace abroad, looked forward to a long season of prosperity, when all its hopes were overcast in a moment. Alexander, when riding in a dark night, on the brink of a dangerous rocky ledge near Kinghorn, was precipitated from the top to the bottom, and killed on the spot.

The death of the king was deeply lamented, and not without cause, for he left the kingdom in most difficult circumstances, exposed to the ambition and attack of Edward the First, one of the ablest princes who had ever reigned in England, and its happiness at home dependant upon the precarious life of an infant. To fill the cup of Scotland's calamity, this child, Margaret, the Maiden of Norway, when on her passage from that country to take possession of her throne, sickened and died in Orkney; and on her death arose that celebrated competition for the Scottish crown, which threatened to plunge the kingdom into all the miseries of civil war.

The moment was favourable to the designs of Edward the First, who determined to make himself master of Scotland. While in that country the various competitors collected their forces and prepared to support their claims, the English monarch having given orders for assembling the strength of his kingdom by a certain day, invited the nobility and clergy of Scotland to meet him at Norham, for the purpose of deliberating upon the succession to the crown. It has been made a subject of dispute, whether Edward was invited by the Scottish people to be umpire in the contest for the crown, or whether he proposed himself as judge, and the subject is involved in some obscurity. It is by no means improbable, that English intrigue and a regard to their own interest, had induced some of the competitors, if not to invite, at least most readily to accept the mediation of the English monarch; but it is equally true, and the point is of far greater importance, that there is no evidence to prove that there was any invitation of this kind, either by the people of Scotland, or even by a majority of its nobles and clergy. Be this as it may, the competitors for the crown, with a large proportion of the nobility and clergy of Scotland, accepted the mediation of Edward, and met this monarch at Norham, (May 1291).

Of these claimants for the crown the two principal were Claimed John Balliol and Robert Bruce. It was quite apparent that the question lay between them, the rights of the other competitors being evidently inferior to theirs. The title of these two chiefs arose out of the circumstance, that on the death of all descendants of Alexander the Third, the crown reverted to the descendants of David, earl of Huntingdon, brother of king William the Lion. This David left three daughters, Margaret, the eldest, who married Alan, lord of Gallochow; Isabella, the second, who married Robert Bruce, father to the competitor Robert Bruce, lord of Annandale; and Ada, the third daughter, who married John de Hastings. It was evident, therefore, that the question lay between Balliol and Bruce. Balliol pleaded that he was entitled to the crown as the descendant of the eldest daughter, being great-grandson to David, earl of Huntingdon. Bruce admitted that he sprung from the second daughter, but contended that, being grandson of the earl of Huntingdon, and therefore a degree nearer, his claim was superior.

Edward's scheme against the independence of Scotland was now ripe for execution; and announcing his determination to give a just decision, he, to the dismay of many present, required the Scottish barons to swear fealty to him as their Lord Paramount. It was in this character alone, he said, that he was entitled to give, and as such alone that he would pronounce a judgment. The scene which now ensued was a humiliating one. The right of Edward was admitted; and Bruce, Balliol, the remaining competitors, the barons and the clergy, set their hands to an instrument, in which they acknowledged that the English king was feudal superior of Scotland. There can be little doubt that they knew this claim of Edward to be untenable upon any ground of truth or justice, but they saw it ready to be enforced by a determined prince at the head of the whole strength of his dominions, and they did not dare to resist it. Edward, accordingly, having received their oaths of homage, proceeded to investigate the contending claims, and awarded the crown to John Balliol.

It was probably part of the plan of the English monarch to quarrel with his vassal king. It is at least certain, that he availed himself of the earliest appearance of spirit and resistance in this unfortunate prince to summon him, in terms of reproach and indignity, to his court in England, and at last goaded him and his people into what he termed rebellion. In the war which ensued, Edward found it an easy matter to overrun a kingdom unprepared to resist so formidable an enemy. The town of Berwick was carried by storm; Scotland, Dunbar, the key of the borders, surrendered; Balliol was taken prisoner and sent to the Tower; while the English prince concluded what he deemed the conquest of Scotland, by removing from Scone to Westminster the sacred stone upon which the long line of its kings had been crowned and anointed. But at this sad moment Scotland, which in vain looked for a deliverer amongst its feudal nobles, found one in a man of far inferior rank.

William Wallace was the son of Sir Malcolm Wallace, who held the estate of Ellerslie, near Paisley. Having been outlawed by the English for an alleged murder, committed on one by whom he had been grievously injured, he fled into the fastnesses of his country, and assembling round him a small band of followers, who were weary of their servitude, commenced that kind of predatory warfare, which led from one success to another, till he saw himself at the head of a formidable force. With this he boldly descended into the low country, and after having defeated the English in the sanguinary battle of Stirling, was soon after chosen Governor of Scotland. This title he only accepted as acting in the name of John Balliol, whom he had always acknowledged as his hereditary king. Into the exploits and career of this great man it is impossible, within our limits, to enter; but making every allowance for the passionate admiration of his countrymen, and regarding him as reflected in the cold glass of history, rather than invested with the brilliant hues of romance, there will still be found all that constitutes a heroic character, if the accomplishment of the greatest results with the most confined means, an entire devotion to his country, a contempt of power for its own sake, unextinguishable hatred of oppression, and a personal courage which nothing could shake for a moment, were ever entitled to such an epithet.

It was however impossible for Wallace, with all his great qualities, to reconcile the Scottish nobles to his envied elevation, or to compose the feuds and jealousies which divided and weakened their efforts. Edward, who had been absent in Flanders when his officers were defeated at Stirling, hurried back to England, and once more invading Scotland at the head of an immense army, encountered and defeated Wallace in the battle of Falkirk. The result of this victory was the temporary subjugation of a country, whose allegiance expired the moment its invaders retired. Wallace voluntarily resigned the office of Governor, Robert Bruce and John Comyn were chosen Guardians, and for five years the war was continued with various success; but Edward, who in this interval had thrice invaded the kingdom, by these unceasing efforts and superior numerical strength, at last subdued the spirit, and appeared to have completed the conquest of this devoted people. The Guardians submitted and were pardoned; sentence of outlawry was pronounced against Simon Fraser and the few followers of Wallace who still held out; and at last this great chief himself was betrayed into the hands of the conqueror, and executed at London. It was at this crisis, which seemed to seal for ever the fate and liberty of the Scottish people, that a deliverer arose in the person of Robert Bruce.

SECTION V.

A.D. 1306 TO 1436.

Nothing could be more extraordinary, or apparently more unpropitious to the cause of freedom, than the circumstances which led to this great result. Robert Bruce, earl of Carrick, and grandson of the competitor for the crown, had acted a dubious and interested part during the years that Wallace, and the few patriotic barons who adhered to him, made their stand for the independence of their country. He inherited, with vast landed estates, the right to the crown possessed by his grandfather; but, had he urged Scotland's claim, it might have been at the risk of the forfeiture of these possessions, which made him one of the most powerful barons in Scotland; and, although, in his early career, we can detect occasional outbreaks of the patriotic feeling, he preserved his allegiance to Edward the First, and appears to have been treated with confidence by that monarch.

The injuries inflicted on the country seem at last to have aroused both Bruce and Comyn, and they formed a secret agreement to rise against the English. But Comyn's heart failed him. He betrayed the purpose to Edward, and meeting Bruce, who had been made aware of his treachery, in the church of the Grey friars at Dumfries, that proud baron reviled him as an informer, and stabbed him to the heart on the steps of the high altar. He was instantly proclaimed a traitor by Edward, excommunicated as a sacrilegious murderer by the Pope, a price set upon his head; and from the first and most influential noble in the kingdom, he felt that he must either assert his right to the crown, and trust to his sword for its defence, or be content to sink into the condition of an outlaw and a fugitive. His decision was Bruce's instantly taken. He rode with his little band to Scone, and claims himself there solemnly crowned; but being aware of the advance of an English army, he hastily concentrated his forces, and after ravaging Galloway, marched against Perth, then in possession of Edward.

But the early portion of Bruce's career was disastrous; he is at those military talents, which afterwards conducted him through a course of unexampled victory, were nursed amid untimely defeat and hardship. He was put to flight at Methven, his small army dispersed, and he himself driven an almost solitary wanderer through Lennox and Kintyre, to seek an asylum in Rachlin, a little island on the northern coast of Ireland. Here he remained during the winter, unaware of the execution of his faithful followers, who had fallen into the hands of Edward; of the imprisonment of his queen and daughter, and the extraordinary severity with which the English monarch seemed determined to rivet the fetters upon his native country.

In the spring he passed over from Rachlin to Arran, accompanied by his brother Edward Bruce, Sir James Douglas, the glas, and about three hundred men. His own castle of Eaglesham at Turnberry, on the coast of Carrick, was then occupied by Loudon Lord Percy, an officer of Edward. Bruce attacked it, put the English garrison to the sword, and, after a variety of minor enterprises, in which, although often repulsed, he and his followers gained experience and confidence, he ventured, although at the head of only six hundred spearmen, to meet the earl of Pembroke, with three thousand cavalry, at Loudon Hill, (May 1307). The result of this conflict, owing to the admirable dispositions of Bruce, was the entire defeat of the English; and from this point, the crisis of his fortune, to the hour when the liberty of his country was for ever secured on the field of Bannockburn, the career of this extraordinary man presented an almost continued series of success.

It was perhaps fortunate for Scotland that he was opposed, Bruce's not by Edward the First, who had died when on his march west policy, to Scotland, (1307), but by his son, Edward the Second, a prince of far inferior talent; yet the military resources of England were so formidable, and the barons who wielded them such experienced leaders, that Bruce, who had to struggle against domestic enemies, as well as foreign invasion, may well be praised for the admirable judgment with which he wielded the strength of his little kingdom. It was his policy to avoid a general battle, and to starve and distress the formidable armies which England repeatedly sent against him, by wasting the country, retiring slowly before his enemies into the woods and fastnesses, and when they were compelled by famine or the season to retreat, by hanging on their rear, and cutting them off in detail. Convinced that, from the poverty of Scotland, it was in vain to attempt to rival the mounted chivalry of England, he turned his whole attention to the formation and discipline of his infantry. They were armed with a spear eighteen feet in length, a sword and battle-axe at their girdle, a short cut-and-thrust dagger, a steel bonnet, and a back and breast-piece buckled over a tough leather jerkin. They were trained to form sometimes in squares, sometimes in circles, more or less deep, according to the nature of the ground and of the service. Such was the main army of Bruce, his pikemen; but after he had restored peace and security to his kingdom, and began in his turn to act upon the offensive, he often employed the only kind of cavalry which Scotland could raise, the border prickers, who, lightly armed, mounted on hardy little horses, and carrying as their provisions a bag of meal slung at their saddle-bow, darted upon the richest districts of England, or stripped them of their wealth, and scoured like a whirlwind across the border, ere the force of the country could be raised in its defence.

To pursue the details of his obstinate contest with England, is impossible. It was during the first years a war of defense, in which Bruce struggled for existence. This secured, it became aggressive; but his efforts were confined to the recovery of his dominions out of the hands of those Scottish barons who had embraced the service of the enemy, or his castles from the English governors to whom they had been entrusted. At last, when Edward the Second, at the head of an army a hundred thousand strong, composed of the flower of his kingdom, and led by his most experienced officers, had penetrated into the country, Bruce found himself driven from his favourite maxim, and compelled to hazard a battle. On the field of Bannockburn, near Stirling, thirty thousand Scottish foot, and five hundred horse, led by the king in person, and under him commanded by Douglas, Randolph, and the Steward of Scotland, encountered and entirely defeated the formidable array of England. Edward fled from the field to Dunbar, and the broken remains of his army, in dispersed bodies, made their retreat in much disorder into England, (June 24, 1314).

In this memorable victory it may be said, without exaggeration, that a lesson in the history of liberty was taught, not only to Scotland, but to the world; to every people who have felt the misery of servitude, or tasted the sweets of freedom. It proved that a country may be, as Scotland was under Edward the First, brought by oppression and cruelty to the very brink of despair; its cities sacked, its fields laid waste, till famine was the consequence; its best leaders executed or imprisoned, its hearths left desolate, its very offerings of praise proscribed, and its refuge in religion attempted to be cut off; but that, till exterminated, a free-born people cannot be said to be subdued.

The immediate effects of this great victory upon the spirit of the respective countries, were not less remarkable. It convinced the Scots, that, with a good heart and skilful leaders, their squares of infantry, with their long pikes, were a match for the English horse, however superior in arms and numbers; it taught the king, that what he had most to dread was the discharge of the English bowmen; and admonished him, that, however complete had been the defeat, however glorious the consequences of the victory, his favourite military maxim, to avoid a general battle, was still his best and safest course. It affords a striking view of the character of this great man, that his success at Bannockburn led neither to presumption, nor, much as he had suffered, and deeply as he had been injured in his tenderest relations, to a cruel retaliation. On the contrary, it was followed up by Bruce with an immediate proposal for peace; but he would consent to treat only on the footing Seals of an independent king, and the offer was rejected.

From 1314 to 1328, an interval of nearly fourteen years, Robert the war was continued with almost uninterrupted success on the part of the Scots; while a series of reverses were endured by England, which are chiefly to be ascribed to the pusillanimous character of the monarch, and the great military ability not only of Bruce, but of the officers whom he had trained, Sir James Douglas, Randolph earl of Moray, the young steward of Scotland, and many others. It may convey some idea of Bruce's incessant occupation in the field, when it is mentioned, that during this interval, England was twelve times invaded, either by the king in person, or by his officers, its border counties were exposed to ravages, and on frequent occasions the fires which marked the Scottish march were seen burning beside the gates of York; nor were the Scottish king's proposals for a peace accepted, till the English districts, which were compelled to purchase safety by the payment of a heavy tribute, threatened in their misery, to throw themselves into the arms of Scotland. The At last, on the first of March 1328, an English parliament assembled at York. Bruce was acknowledged king of Scotland, A.D.1328. Scotland itself recognised as a free and independent kingdom, and peace established, after a sanguinary war of twenty years.

This great consummation was not long survived by him Death to whom, under God, the result was chiefly due. The Bruce, king, whose constitution had been broken by the fatigues and exposure of his early life, began to droop soon after he saw the liberty of his country permanently established; and he died at Cardross on the 7th of June 1329.

The death of Bruce was a severe trial to Scotland. His only son David, who succeeded him, was a boy of six years old; and while the nation was thus exposed to all the evils of a long minority, Edward the Third, one of England's most warlike monarchs, was just commencing his career, which soon developed uncommon talents, and great ambition. Randolph indeed, who was chosen Regent, and the good Sir James Douglas, with other veteran officers, still remained; but Douglas was slain in Spain, whither he had proceeded on his way to Jerusalem with his master's heart; and the earl of Moray only survived the death of Bruce for three years. To add to these calamities, the monarchs who successively filled the Scottish throne, and on whose personal character, in these rude times, much of the success and vigour of the government depended, were little similar to their great predecessor. From the death of Bruce till the reign of James the First, the first prince who in any measure was worthy of a comparison with him, a period of nearly a century elapsed, in which the sceptre passed into the hands of three princes, David the Second, Robert the Second, (the first sovereign of the house of Stewart, being the son of the Steward of Scotland, by Marjory, Bruce's only daughter,) and, lastly, Robert the Third. Contemporary with these Scottish princes were Edward the Third, Richard the Second, Henry the Fourth, and Henry the Fifth, all, with one exception in Richard, wise, warlike, and fortunate monarchs. The odds, therefore, were infinitely against Scotland, a country far inferior in its population and resources to England, and torn by domestic feuds; and yet against reiterated attacks it maintained the contest for its liberty. Unable to descend into minute detail, we take a summary of the larger portion of this calamitous interval of Scottish history, from another work. "A period of sixty-four years elapsed between the death of Robert Bruce and the birth of James the First, during which time, although torn by anarchy and domestic faction, the country maintained a remarkable struggle for its liberty. It

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1 We date not from the birth of James, but his return from captivity in England. It may be proper to mention, that the authorities for this sketch, from Alexander the Third to the reign of Mary, are the same as those followed by Mr. Tytler, in his History of Scotland, now in the course of publication. was in this period, eight times invaded by a foreign force; it was betrayed and deserted by David the Second, the unworthy son and successor of Bruce; it saw, on many occasions, the most powerful of its nobles enlisted under the banner of its enemies; it had to struggle against the military genius and political talents of Edward the Third, and Henry the Fourth and Fifth; and yet, with limited resources, and divided councils, so tenaciously did the people cling to their liberty, that, though sore oppressed, they were never conquered. Amid almost constant war, and its dreadful accompaniments, famine and the pestilence, they still preserved their freedom, preferring the prospect of living in a country reduced by repeated invasion to a solitude or a desert, or even the last alternative of being totally exterminated, to the most flattering offers of being united to England, when coupled with the condition that they should renounce their national independence.

We have above alluded to the degeneracy of David the Second, whose long reign of forty-two years was divided into a minority, the greater part of which was passed in France; a captivity in England, the result of his calamitous defeat in the battle of Durham; and a train of subsequent reverses all occasioned by his headstrong character and devotion to his selfish pleasures. But the darkest stain upon David, was his intrigues with Edward the Third, in which he hesitated not to sacrifice the independence of the country, to swear homage to the English prince for his kingdom of Scotland, and even to propose to his parliament, that the order of succession solemnly settled by his heroic father, should be altered in favour of an English prince. It is needless to say that so degrading a proposal was indignantly repelled, and that the death of the prince who had offered the insult was regarded as a national deliverance.

In Robert the Second, who succeeded him as the first of the house of Stewart, and his son, Robert the Third, the nation, though still exposed to the repeated attacks of England, experienced a short breathing time, owing to the death of Edward the Third, and the incapacity of Richard the Second; but neither of these Scottish princes possessed the vigour or the talents requisite to wield the sceptre with success, in the midst of the difficulties by which they were surrounded. The second Robert came to the crown when age had chilled his vigour; and his son and successor, Robert the Third, was of too indolent and gentle a character to hold his part against a fierce feudal nobility, led by his brothers, the Earls of Fife and Buchan, the first a man of great ambition, the second a monster of crime, who gave himself up to every species of lust and rapine, and has been traditionally remembered as "the Wolf of Badenoch."

All this led to great disorder. The king, unwilling to burden himself with the cares of government, devolved the administration upon his son, the duke of Rothesay, a young man of violent passions, though of considerable ability, who had made himself particularly obnoxious to his uncle, the earl of Fife. This led to a fatal collision. Fife, whose authority was increased by being made duke of Albany, proved too strong for the young prince. His father, the king, was persuaded that the excesses of his son required restraint, and the unhappy youth was hurried to Falkland, and shut up in a dungeon, where he was intrusted to the care of two ruffians, who starved him to death. It was at first reported that he had been cut off by a dysentery; but the horrible tale of his sufferings soon after transpired. A poor woman in passing through the palace garden, had been attracted by his groans, and had found means to support him by thin cakes which she slid into the grated window of his prison, and it is said by her own milk, conveyed through a reed; but she was detected, and put to death by his keepers; and after fifteen days, the body of the miserable captive was found in a state too shocking to be described.