The Scottish Nation
Alexander

ALEXANDER I., king of Scotland, surnamed the Fierce, from his vigour and impetuous character, has hitherto been represented as the fifth son of Malcohn III., surnamed Canmore, or great head, by Margaret, daughter of Edward, nephew of Edward the Confessor, king of England, but it is now admitted that Ethelred, who had been believed to be the third, was the youngest son of that marriage, and consequently Alexander was not the fifth but the fourth son of Malcolm and Margaret. It is also placed beyond a doubt that by a previous marriage with Ingibiorge, the widow of Thorfin, a powerful Norwegian earl,—who for thirty years, during the reigns of Alexander’s father Malcolm and his predecessor Macbeth, ruled over all Scotland north of the Grampians, and part of the present county of Forfar,—Malcolm had two sons, Duncan, afterwards king of Scotland, and Malcolm, both of whom were alive at the time of his death, so that Alexander was in reality the sixth of the sons of Malcolm Canmore. (See life of Duncan, king of Scotland, post.) There is no earlier instance in Scottish history of the name of Alexander having been borne by king or noble, although it afterwards became one of the most common and familiar Christian names in Scotland. Lord Hailes has supposed that it was bestowed in honour of Pope Alexander II. If so, it was given to him after the death of that pontiff, which occurred in the year 1073, as no calculation from family or other events can place the birth of Alexander, of which the precise date is unknown, earlier than about the year 1078.

      Alexander was educated with great care, not only in letters but in religious principles, and the solemn injunctions of his excellent mother, on her death-bed, to Turgot, prior of Durham, her confessor and biographer, which have descended to us in his interesting memoir of that good queen, prove how great was her solicitude in the latter respect in regard to all her children. Alexander partook of those vicissitudes of the family, after the death of his father, which are detailed in the lives of his uncle Donald Bane and of his brothers Duncan and Edgar, and which serve to exhibit, in a strong light, the peculiarities of the law of succession to the throne among the Celtic or Pictish races of that age, and they no doubt contributed to form and give a direction to his character and future government, when he became king.

      On the death of his brother Edgar, 8th January 1107, Alexander succeeded to the throne, but not to the enjoyment of the same extent of possessions as his predecessor. For the conquest of the western portion of the ancient principality of Cumbria—a region extending between the Roman walls of Agricola and Antoninus—having sometime previous been effected, by David his younger brother, with an army of Norman chivalry from England, the government of the province was also bestowed upon him, and Edgar, on his death-bed, bequeathed him all those extensive lands in those regions held by him and Malcolm his father which formed the subject of that homage rendered to the Norman conqueror and his son William Rufus so frequently referred to in English history. (Lord Hailes’ Quotations from English contemporary writers, compared with the narrative of the inquisition into the lands of the see of Glasgow, and existing charters of that epoch.) All Scottish historians, from the fourteenth until within the present century, have concurred in stating that the province of Cumbria corresponded exactly in territory with the present English county of Cumberland, but charters, and Saxon as well as earlier Scottish writers, when correctly understood, leave it beyond doubt that the portion of country so called comprehended the district extending from the Clyde to the Solway, and included all the present Scottish counties of Ayr, Galloway, Wigton, Kirkcudbright, and Dumfries, with perhaps part of Cumberland; the district of Lothian, comprising the three counties which still bear that name; and the shires of Renfrew and Lanark, with part of Lennox now Dumbartonshire. Such distributions of the royal possessions amongst the members of their family were not uncommon with the monarchs of that age.

      Whatever were the motives that led to this disjunction from the Scottish crown, it proved a fortunate arrangement for the nation. By the subsequent death of Alexander without issue, and the consequent succession of David to the northern throne, the danger of contention between rival farniiies for these possessions, and of their permanent separation from the ancient kingdom, was averted, and a united kingdom was afterwards formed, able, with more or less success, to withstand the powerful neighbouring southern state; which, if it had continued disjoined, would most probably have fallen to it by piecemeal a comparatively easy prey. While, on the one hand, the happy genius of David for government, and for attracting towards himself the love and affection of all classes of people committed to his care, enabled him to introduce amongst them order and civilization, and to combine Saxon law with Norman refinement, as well as the still higher blessing of religious instruction, and while his amiable qualities and the accident of his birth endeared through him the family of Malcolm to the Saxon race, so that nearly four hundred years afterwards an English writer resident in Scotland thus commemorates one of them:

"Our soverane of Scotland
Quhilk sall be lord and ledar
Oer broad Brettane all quhair
As saint Mergarettes air;"
(Duke of the Howlat, st. xxix, printed for the Bannatyne Club.)

the sterner rule of Alexander was made available to keep under the dissatisfied feelings of the warlike tribes of the north, not less averse to that deviation from the ancient rule of succession by which the descendants of Margaret were placed on the throne, than jealous of the innovations of Saxon law and Saxon settlements. It was not, however, to be expected that to this disposition of lands Alexander would at once quietly accede. On the contrary, he at first disputed its validity, and would willingly have annulled it, had he not found that the powerful barons of the province in question, and of the northern English counties, as Gospatrick, Baliol, Bruce, Lindesay, Areskine, and others, whose descendants afterwards occupied the first rank among the Scottish nobility, and by the aid of whose arms his brother Edgar had been placed and sustained on the throne, were entirely favourable to this arrangement. He therefore prudently desisted from the attempt, and confined himself during the remainder of his reign to the northern portion of the kingdom. (Speech of Walter l’Espec at the battle of the Standard, in AEldred.) It has been inferred by modern writers who have recognised the foregoing as the territorial limits of Cumbria, that David held this government as a fief in subordination to Alexander, but this does not appear to have been the case. David seems to have regulated the affairs of his government as an independent prince. The motto of his seal during his brother’s lifetime bears that he styled himself ‘David, Comites Anglorum Regene Fratris, (contracted into Fris); that is, David the count, brother of the Queen of the English. At right is a representation of David’s seal.

Several of his public instruments, too, after he ascended the throne, when relating to matters affecting the southern districts, are addressed to the "Francis et Anglicis," Normans and English, (Anderson’s Diplomata et Numismata, No. 17, 1 and 2); and at a later period, or when referring to matters of more importance, to the "Francis et Angilcis, et Scottis et Galwensibus," that is, the Normans, English, Scotch, and Galwegians, which latter style was uniformly adopted by his successor and grandson Malcolm IV., (Idem, plates 19, 23, 25,) whilst the public instruments of Alexander are simply addressed to the Scots and English, "Scottis et Anglis" (Idem, page 9), showing that he only ruled over the northern portion of the kingdom in which these nations lived in the proportion of the order in which they are placed.

      It was fortunate both for Alexander and David, and for the tranquillity of the government of the former, that during the entire period of his reign an unbroken peace was maintained with England. The marriage of their sister Matildis in 1100, during the life of their brother Edgar, with Henry  king of England the brother of William Rufus, greatly facilitated this harmony, and it was further cemented by the union of Alexander with Sybilla, natural daughter of that monarch. Such an alliance, says Lord Hailes, was not held dishonourable in those days.

      The people of the north were not reconciled to the sovereignty of the sons of Malcolm. According to their notions of the law of succession to the throne, both the family of Donald Bane, and that of Duncan the eldest son of Malcolm, had a prior right to it. Edgar had bestowed upon his cousin Madach, son of Donald Bane, the maormordom of Athol, erected by him into an earldom, and on his death, towards the end of the reign of David the First, it was obtained by Malcolm, the son of Duncan, the eldest son of Malcolm Canmore, "either," says Skene, "because the exclusion of that family from the throne could not deprive them of the original patrimony of the family, or as a compensation for the loss of the crown," (Skene’s Highlanders, vol. ii. p. 139,) and thus this branch of the rival family were induced to remain in quiet, although various attempts were afterwards made to recover their rights, not only in the reign of Malcolm IV., but for nearly a hundred years after they were excluded from it.

      The descendants of Donald Bane appear to have enjoyed another portion of the hereditary possessions of the family in the person of Ladman his son, and along with them some title which does not appear. Even the descendants of Macbeth seem, in the person of Angus the son of the daughter of Lulach, Macbeth’s nephew, to have got the possessions and ancient maormordom of Moray erected into an earldom of that name. (Skene’s High-landers, vol. ii. p. 162.) According to the Annals of Ulster about 1116, a descendant of Malpedir, maormor of Moern or Garmoran, a district in northern Inverness-shire, one of the supporters of Donald Bane, and who had murdered Duncan, eldest son of Malcolm, in 1095, was in possession of his father’s title and lands, and at the instigation of Ladman, in order probably to revenge his death, he combined with Angus earl of Moray, already referred to as of the family of Macbeth, to make an attempt to seize upon the person of Alexander. At his baptism Alexander had a donation made to him of the lands of Blairgowrie and Liff by his godfather, Donald Bane, then probably maormor of Athol, and in the first year of his reign he began to build a palace or residence in the vicinity; but while engaged on this work the Highlanders of Moern (not Mearns, as commonly supposed) and Moray penetrated stealthily from their northern abodes to Invergowrie, where Alexander was, and surprised him by night. Alexander escaped to the shore, and crossing over the Tay to Fife, collected vassals, and followed them with surprising activity, through the ‘Monthe’ or Grampians, across the Spey and over the "Stockfurd into Ros." Of this passage Wintoun says,

"He tuk and slew thame or he past
Out of that land, that fewe he left
To take on hand swylk purpose eft."

And again he adds,

"Fra that day hys legys all
Oysid hym Alysandyr the Fers to call."

So effectually, indeed, did he succeed in crushing the inhabitants of Moray that they were compelled to put to death Ladman, the son of Donald Bane, who had instigated them to the attempt on his life. (Skene’s Highianders, vol. i. p. 130.) The story that on this occasion the traitors obtained admission to the king’s bed-chamber, and that he slew six of them with his own hand, is an invention of Boece, and like many other of his fables has obtained currency in Scottish history. Sir James Balfour, in his Annals (vol. 1. pp. 6, 7.), has the following passage on this attempt against the king: "The rebells quho besett him in the night had doubtesley killed him, had not Alexander Carrone priuly carried the king save away, and by a small boate saived themselves to Fyffe, and the south pairts of the kingdome, quher he raissed ane armey, and marched against the forsaid rebells, quhome he totally ouerthrew and subdued; for wich grate mercey and preseruatione, in a thankfull retributione to God, he foundit the monastarey of Scone, and too it gaue lies first lands of Liffe and Innergourey, in AE 1114. About this tyme K. Alexander the I. reuardit for hes faithfull seruice Alexander Carrone, with the office of standart bearir of Scotland, to him and hes heirs for euer. He was called Scrimshour, becausse with a drauen suord, in a combat, he had strucke the hand from a courtier; wich surname of Scrinscoure, hes posterity to this day have kept." The name signifies a hardy fighter. See SCRIMGEOUR, surname of; also, DUNDEE, earl of.

During the remainder of the reign of Alexander, the Highlanders acquiesced in his occupation of the throne, he being now, even according to the Celtic laws, the legitimate heir of Malcolm Canmore.

      The principal feature in Alexander’s reign was his successful resistance to the efforts made by the English prelates to assert a supremacy over the church in Scotland. In 1109 when he first had occasion to nominate a bishop to the see of St. Andrews, to which place the primacy had been removed from Dunkeld, Alexander, with the approbation of his clergy and people, named Turgot, the monk of Durham already mentioned as the confessor and biographer of his mother the pious Queen Margaret. The consecration of Turgot was, however, long delayed. The archbishop of York pretended a right of consecrating the bishops of St. Andrews, but at this time Thomas, elected archbishop of York, had not himself received consecration. In consequence of a report that the bishop of Durham, concurring with the Scottish bishops and the bishop of the Orkneys, proposed to consecrate Turgot, in presence of the archbishop elect of York, Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury, in alarm, despatched a letter to the latter, informing him that consecration could not be performed by an archbishop elect or by any one acting under his authority, and requiring him to proceed to Canterbury to receive consecration himself. The Scottish clergy on their part contended that the archbishop of York had no right to interfere in the consecration of a bishop to the see of St. Andrews. While the two archbishops were engaged in mutual altercations concerning canonical order and the privileges of their respective sees, Alexander entered into a negotiation with the English king, and an immediate decision of the controversy was evaded by an ambiguous acknowledgment by all parties, which, confessing the independency of the Scottish church to be at least doubtful, seemed to prepare the way for its complete vindication at a future time. At the request of Alexander, Henry, the English king, enjoined the archbishop of York to consecrate Turgot, bishop of St. Andrews, "saving the authority of either church." In that form Turgot received consecration accordingly.

      In the discharge of his episcopal functions Turgot met with obstacles, which induced him to form a resolution to repair to Rome to obtain the opinion of the pope for regulating his future con duct; a journey which his death soon after pre vented him from carrying into effect. What the nature of these obstacles were, we are not informed, but as he perceived that he had lost that influence which he formerly enjoyed in the time of Queen Margaret, his spirit sunk, and in a desponding mood he asked and obtained permission to retire to his ancient cell at Durham, where he died, 31st August 1115.

A new bishop of St. Andrews was to be appointed, and to avoid any interference on the part of the archbishop of York, Alexander, soon after the death of Turgot, addressed a confidential letter to Ralph archbishop of Canterbury, who had succeeded Anselm, asking his advice and assistance for enabling him to provide a fit successor to Turgot. In this letter he observed, "That the bishops of St. Andrews were wont to be consecrated only by the Pope or by the archbishop of Canterbury." "The expression," says Lord Hailes "is flattering and artful. Alexander meant to relieve his kingdom from the pretensions of the one archbishop without acknowledging the authority of the other. He therefore left the right of consecrating doubtful between the Pope and the archbishop of Canterbury, while, at the same time, he seemed to place them both on a level." Eadmer, a monk of Canterbury, had been fixed upon by Alexander to fill the vacant see, but not receiving any answer to his proposal from the archbishop of Canterbury, the king allowed the see of St. Andrews, the chief bishopric in his kingdom, to remain vacant for many years. At length, in 1120, he despatched a special messenger to the archbishop of Canterbury, with a letter requesting the archbishop ‘to set at liberty’ Eadmer the monk, that he might be placed on the episcopal throne of St. Andrews. The archbishop consented that Eadmer should have liberty to accept the bishopric, and with that view he asked and obtained the approbation of the English king. In a letter to Alexander he said, "I send you the person whom you require altogether free," and concluded thus, "To prevent the inconveniencies which I foresee and dread, I would counsel you immediately to send him back to be consecrated by me." On his arrival in Scotland, Eadmer received the bishopric of St. Andrews on the 29th of June 1120. The election was made by the clergy and people, with the permission of the king; but on this occasion Eadmer neither received the pastoral staff nor the ring from the hands of Alexander, nor did he perform homage. Next day Alexander held a secret conference with him respecting the mode of his consecration, when the king expressed his aversion at his being consecrated by the archbishop of York. Eadmer, on his part, declared that the church of Canterbury had, by ancient right, a pre-eminence over all Britain, and he humbly proposed to receive consecration from that metropolitan see. He found, however, that Alexander was as much opposed to the pretensions of Canterbury as he was to those of York, and that he had determined to free the Scottish church from dependence on any foreign see but that of Rome. At Eadmer’s proposal Alexander is described as having started from his seat with much emotion, and broken off the conference. He commanded the person, one William a monk of St. Edmundsbury, who had presided in the bishopric since the death of Turgot, to resume his functions. At the expiry of a month, the king, at the request of his nobility, sent for Eadmer, and with difficulty obtained his consent to a compromise, by which Eadmer was to receive the ring from Alexander, to take the pastoral staff from off the altar, as if receiving it of the Lord, and then to assume the charge of his diocese. While the king was absent with his army quelling some insurrection in the north, as the Highlanders of the district of Moray, particularly at this time, gave considerable opposition to his government, Eadmer was received into the see of St. Andrews by the queen, clergy, and people.

      Finding, however, that his own sovereign Henry, who was then in Normandy, had, at the solicitation of the archbishop of York, written to the archbishop of Canterbury prohibiting him from consecrating Eadmer, and that Alexander had also received three letters from him requiring him not to permit the consecration, the new bishop of St. Andrews resolved to repair to Canterbury for advice. On hearing of his resolution Alexander sent for him, and said, "I received you altogether free from Canterbury; while I live, I will not permit the bishop of St. Andrews to be subjected to that see." "For your whole kingdom," answered Eadmer, "I would not renounce the dignity of a monk of Canterbury." "Then," replied the king passionately,. "I have done nothing in seeking a bishop out of Canterbury." It seems to have been Alexander’s design by soliciting a bishop from the province of Canterbury, to obtain one who would have no partiality for the see of York, and whom he hoped to win over to support the independency of the Scottish Church; but the zeal of Eadmer for Canterbury disappointed his views. Eadmer himself has given an ample account of the contest between him and Alexander; and Lord Hailes, in his Annals of Scotland, has generally followed his statements. The bishop complains that after the last interview with the king, the latter became rigorous and unjust, and would never afford him a patient hearing. He refused to allow Eadmer permission to visit Canterbury "for the counsel and blessing (meaning no doubt consecration) of the archbishop," contending that the church of Scotland owed no subjection to Canterbury, and that Eadmer himself had been freed from all subjection to it.

      In the anomalous and uncomfortable position in which he found himself, Eadmer was induced to ask the advice of a friend in England, one Nicholas, whom Lord Hailes conjectures to have been an ecclesiastical agent, whose business it was to solicit causes at the court of Rome. This man advised him to obtain consecration from the Pope, under favour of the Scottish monarch, and in the meantime to be generous and hospitable to the Scots, as the best means of rendering them tractable and courteous. He concluded his letter thus:

      "I entreat you to let me have as many of the fairest pearls as you can procure. In particular, I desire four of the largest sort. If you cannot procure them otherwise, ask them in a present from the king, who, I know, has a most abundant store"—a remarkable evidence of the wealth and magnificence of the Scottish monarchs at this time.

      Eadmer, in his perplexity, also asked the advice of John bishop of Glasgow, and of two monks of Canterbury, and the answer which they sent to him seems to have determined him upon resigning the see. It was in these terms: "If, as a son of peace, you desire peace, you must seek it elsewhere than in Scotland. As long as Alexander reigns, it will be vain for you to expect any friendly intercourse with him, or quiet under his government. We are thoroughly acquainted with his dispositions: it is his will to be everything himself in his own kingdom. He is incensed against you, although he knows no reason for his resentment; and he will never be perfectly reconciled to you, although he should see reason for a reconciliation. You must, therefore, either abandon this country, or, by accommodating yourself to its usages, dishonour your character and hazard your salvation. Should you choose to depart from among us, you will be constrained to restore the ring, which you received from the hands of the king, and the pastoral staff which you took from off the altar. Without complying with these conditions you will not be permitted to depart, unless you could make to yourself wings and fly away." Eadmer consented to restore the ring to Alexander, but with regard to the pastoral staff, he declared that he would replace it on the altar, whence he had taken it, ‘and leave it to be bestowed by Christ,’ and that since force had been used against him, he would relinquish the bishopric, and not reclaim it during the reign of Alexander, ‘unless by the advice of the Pope, the convent of Canterbury, and the king of England.’ Having thus, in effect, resigned his see, Eathner was suffered quietly to leave the kingdom. He afterwards addressed a long epistle to Alexander, in which, after setting forth his pretensions to the bishopric, he added, in a tone of submission which would have better become him at an earlier period: "I mean not, in any particular, to derogate from the freedom and independency of the kingdom of Scotland. Should you continue in your former sentiments, Twill desist from my opposition; for, with respect to the king of England, the arch-bishop of Canterbury, and the sacerdotal benediction, I had notions, which, as I have since learned, were erroneous. They will not separate me from the service of God and your favour. In those things I will act according to your inclinations, if you only permit me to enjoy the other rights belonging to the see of St. Andrews." The archbishop of Canterbury, too, wrote Alexander, requiring him to recall Eadmer to Scotland; but Alexander would not listen either to the solicitations, though humbly enough expressed, of the one, or the requisition, however peremptory, of the other. He was resolved to uphold the independence of the Scottish church; and the undaunted spirit with which he maintained it throughout the whole contest, would have been equally displayed, as Lord Hailes justly remarks, in defence of the independence of his kingdom, had England ever attempted to call it in question during his reign.

      In January 1123, about a year before Alexander’s death, the pretensions of the archbishop of York were renewed, on the king procuring an English monk named Robert, who was prior of Scone, to be elected bishop of St. Andrews. The latter, however, was not consecrated till the fourth year of the reign of David I. about five years afterwards, when Thurstin, archbishop of York, performed the ceremony, under reservation of the rights of the Scots church.

      While thus successful in his resistance to the claims of supremacy on the part of the metropolitan sees of York and Canterbury, Alexander, as was usual in those days, evinced his devotion to the church by the ample donations which he made to it. He bestowed upon the see of St. Andrews the famous tract of land called the Cursus Apri, or Boar’s Chase, of which it is not possible now to assign the exact limits; but "so called," says Boece, "from a boar of uncommon size, which, after having made prodigious havoc of men and cattle, and having been frequently attacked by the huntsmen unsuccessfully, and to the imminent peril of their lives, was at last set upon by the whole country up in arms against him, and killed while endeavouring to make his escape across this tract of ground." The historian adds, that there were extant in his time manifest proofs of the existence of this huge beast; its two tusks, each sixteen inches long and four thick, being fixed with iron chains to the great altar of St. Andrews, having been placed there by the above named Bishop Robert, who obtained the grant of the boar chase from Alexander, although not consecrated bishop at the time it was bestowed. The legend that this extensive tract of land was conferred in 370 by Hungus or Hergustus, a Pictish king, who is unknown to history, is a monkish fiction utterly unworthy of attention.

In 1123, having narrowly escaped shipwreck near the island of AEmona, now called Inchcolm, in the Frith of Forth, Alexander built a monastery on that island, of the ruins of which a woodcut is shown below.

      The circumstances are thus related by Fordun:

"About the year 1123, Alexander I. having some business of state which obliged him to cross over at the Queen’s ferry, was overtaken by a terrible tempest blowing from the south-west, which obliged the sailors to make for this island, (AEmo na,) which they reached with the greatest difficulty. Here they found a poor hermit, who lived a religious life according to the rules of St. Columba, and performed service in a small chapel, supporting himself by the milk of one cow, and the shelfish he could pick up on the shore; nevertheless, on these small means he entertained the king and his retinue for three days—the time which they were confined here by the wind. During the storm, and whilst at sea and in the greatest danger, the king made a vow that if St. Columba would bring him safe to that island, he would there found a monastery to his honour, which should be an asylum and relief to navigators. He was, moreover, farther moved to this foundation, by having, from his childhood, entertained a particular veneration and honour for that saint, derived from his parents, who were long married without issue, until imploring the aid of St. Columba, their request was most graciously granted." The monastery thus founded by Alexander was for canons regular of St. Augustine, and was richly endowed by the grateful and pious king its founder and patron. Being dedicated to St. Colm or Columba, the island obtained the name thereafter of Inchcolm, which it still retains. The king had previously brought a colony of canons regular of St. Augustine from the monastery of St. Oswald at Nastley, near Pontefract, in Yorkshire, and established them at Scone, the abbey of which he had founded in 1114, and dedicated to the Holy Trinity and St. Michael. This famous abbey, it is well known, enclosed the celebrated coronation stone which was removed to England by Edward I., and is still used at the coronation of the sovereigns of Great Britain at Westminster.

      The abbey of Scone, also, thus founded by Alexander, witnessed the crowning of the later Scoto-Saxon kings. By a royal charter he conferred upon the monks of this abbey the right of holding their own court, and of giving judgment either by combat, by iron, or by water; together with all privileges pertaining to their court; including the right in all persons resident within their territory, of refusing to answer except in their own proper court. (Cartullary of Scone, p. 16.) This right of exclusive jurisdiction was confirmed by four successive monarchs. In 1122, on the death of his queen, Sybilla, who died suddenly at the castle of Loch Tay, in Perthshire, on the 12th of June of that year, Alexander erected a priory on a small island on Loch Tay, for the repose of his soul and that of his consort. According to Spottiswood, this priory was a cell from the monastery of Scone, and was founded by Queen Sybilla herself, but this is evidently a mistake. Some very inconsiderable ruins of it still remain. Alexander also granted various lands to the monastery of Dunfermline which his father had founded, and is said to have finished the church. His queen Sybilla also conferred lands on it.

      Notwithstanding the rude condition of the inhabitants of Scotland at that remote period, the personal state kept up by Alexander the First is described as having been scarcely, if at all, inferior to that of his brother-monarch of the richer country of England. It is well-known that in the reign of his father, Malcolm Canmore, an unusual splendour was introduced into the Scottish court by his Saxon consort, the good queen Margaret, who not only encouraged the importation and use of rich vestments from foreign countries, setting the example by being magnificent in her own attire, but increased the number of attendants on the person of the king, and caused him to be served at table on plate of gold and silver. (Turgot’s Memoir of Queen Margaret.) Alexander I. seems to have given to his public appearances, as sovereign, a degree of splendour till then unknown in the northern end of the island. In his reign there appears to have been a considerable intercourse between Scotland and the East, as various oriental commodities and articles of Asiatic luxury were imported into this country. It is related of this monarch, that, not content with endowing the church of St. Andrews—which had been founded in his reign by Turgot, its archbishop—with numerous lands, and conferring upon it various immunities, as an additional evidence of his devotion to the blessed apostle St. Andrew, after whom the see was called, he commanded his favourite Arabian horse to be led up to the high altar, his saddle and bridle being splendidly ornamented, while his housings were of a rich cloth of velvet. The king’s body armour, of superb Turkish manufacture, and studded with jewels, with his spear and his shield of silver, were at the same time brought by a squire; and these, along with the horse and his furniture, the king, in the presence of his prelates and barons, solemnly devoted and presented to the church. The housings and arms were shown in the days of the historian who has recorded the event. (Extract from the Register of the Priory of St. Andrews, in Pinkerton’s Dissertation, Appendix, vol. i. p. 464. Winton, vol. i. p. 286. See also Tytler’s History of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 198.)

      The rising commerce of the country in those early times was much aided and advanced by the settlement, in the districts contiguous to the Borders, of numbers of Flemish merchants, who, during the reign of Alexander, gradually spread into Scotland, and at a later period, namely, in the reign of David the First, were found in all the towns along the east coast, and even in the western parts of the kingdom, wherever traffic could be safely and profitably carried on. The money in circulation in Scotland at that period appears to have been of silver only. Indeed, down to the reign of Robert the Second, the gold coinage of England, then current in Scotland, seems to have been the only gold money in use. Of the early silver money of Scotland, the most ancient specimens yet found are the pennies of Alexander the First, which are now extremely rare. They are described as being of the same firmness, weight, and form as the contemporary English coins of the same denomination, and down to the time of Robert the First, the money of Scotland was precisely of the same value and standard as that of England. (See Ruddiman’s Introduction to Anderson’s Diplomata, pp. 54, 55.—Tytler’s history of Scotland, vol. ii.. p. 264.] The annexed engraving of the silver pennies (left) of Alexander I is from Anderson’s Numismata.

      Annexed (at right) is a seal of Alexander I in which he is represented fully cased in the armour of that period.

      Here we find the scaled mail-coat composed of mascles, or lozenged pieces of steel, sewed upon a tunic of leather, and reaching only to the mid thigh. The hood is of one piece with the tunic, and covers the head, which is protected with a conical steel cap, and a nasal; the sleeves are loose, so as to show the linen tunic worn next the skin, and again appearing in graceful folds above the knee; the lower leg and foot are protected by a short boot, armed with a spur. The king holds in his right hand a spear, to which a pennoncelle, or small flag, is attached, exactly similar to that worn by Henry the First; the saddle is peaked before and behind; and the horse on which he rides is ornamented by a rich fringe round the chest, but altogether unarmed. (Seal in the Diplomata Scotice, plate 7. Tytler’s History of Scotland vol. ii. p. 360.)

      Alexander the First died at Stirling on the 27th of April 1124, in the seventeenth year of his reign, and leaving no issue was succeeded by his youngest brother, David. He was interred before the high altar at Dunfermline, near to his father. During his reign, as during that of his brother and predecessor Edgar, the laws, institutions, and forms of government, except in the Gaelic portion of the kingdom, were purely Saxon; and to this particular epoch in our nation’s history, may be traced the earliest existence in Scotland of some of the great officers of state, who after that period discharged some of the more important functions of the government, as the chancellor, the constable, &c. The former was the most intimate counsellor of the king, and generally the witness to his charters, letters, and proclamations, and the latter, an office of undoubted Norman origin, was the leader of the whole military power of the kingdom. The first appearance in Scotland of the now ancient office of sheriff is also referred to this reign, although the division of the country into regular sheriffdoms did not take place till a much later period. "During the reigns of Edgar and Alexander I.," says Skene, "the whole of Scotland, with the exception of what had formed the kingdom of Thorfinn (during the Norwegian conquest consisting of the Orkneys, the Hebrides, and a large portion of the Highlands), exhibited the exact counterpart of Saxon England, with its earls, thanes, and sheriffs, while the rest of the country remained in the possession of the Gaelic Maormors, who yielded so far to Saxon influence as to assume the Saxon title of earl." (History of the Highianders, vol. i. p. 128.) The personal character of Alexander was bold and energetic, and his disposition fiery and impetuous. Strenu ous in maintaining his authority, he had, early in his reign, applied himself to repressing the disorders and insurrections which were continually breaking out in the Celtic portion of his dominions, and his ardent temper and daring spirit contributed not a little to his success in overawing the turbulent inhabitants of the north, and reducing them to submission. The boldest chieftains are said to have trembled in his presence, and the epithet of ‘Fierce’ attached to his name seems to have arisen from the energy which he at all times displayed, and which was necessary for reclaiming the Scots from that savage barbarism into which they had relapsed under Donald Bane. Although terrible to the rest of his people, Alexander is described by Aidred, as being humble and courteous to the clergy, "not ignorant of letters," liberal even to profusion, and kind and benevolent to the poor.—Hailes’ Annals of Scotland, vol. i., and the authorities quoted in the preceding article.

ALEXANDER II., king of Scotland, the fourth in succession from the subject of the foregoing memoir, to whom he stands in the relation of great grand-nephew, was born at Haddington 24 Aug., 1198. He was the only legitimate son of William surnamed the Lion, his predecessor on the throne. His mother, Ermangarde, was daughter of Richard Viscount de Beaumont, a descendant from Henry I. of England, through his mother, a natural daughter of that monarch. He succeeded his father December 4, 1214, being then only sixteen years of age, and was crowned at Scone on the 20th of the same month.

      Some years before the death of William his father, that monarch had been engaged in warlike demonstrations against England, followed, (in 1209,) by a treaty of a singular character, of which the provisions have not yet been clearly ascertained. It appears that during the troubles in which John—the monarch who then sat upon the English throne—was involved, (in consequence of disputes with the head of the church and the dissatisfaction of his barons, which finally resulted in the concession by him of Magna Charta,) William—conceiving the opportunity to be favourable—took occasion to demand that the counties of Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmoreland, (which until about the middle of the reign of Henry II. had constituted the county or province of Northumbria, and under that designation had been held during the latter part of the reign of his grandfather David I., by the eldest son of that monarch, the father of William, as a fief of the English crown, but on the death of that monarch had been resumed by Henry II.,) should be restored to the Scottish nation. How far that claim—one of the vexed questions of Scottish history—was founded in right, does not properly fall to be considered in this biography, but will be treated of in that of Malcolm IV., the brother of William, on whose accession these counties were restored to Henry, and to which therefore we refer. We may, however, remark,—unwilling as we are to yield to any one in the assertion of the just rights of Scotland,— that there does not appear in the circumstances any warrant for assuming—as William then did, and as Scottish writers have hitherto done—that the intrusting of the government of these counties by Stephen in February 1139 to Prince Henry, son of David—as an individual lordship for which he rendered homage—can be construed into permanent cession of their possession from the English to the Scottish crown. It may more probably be inferred as done in guarantee of the fulfilment of the solemn engagement then entered into with David by Stephen, that the crown of England—usurped by him—should at his death descend to Henry, grand-nephew of David,—son of the empress Matilda his sister’s daughter the rightful heiress,—on whose behalf alone it was that that wise and righteous prince had professed to take up arms. The retention in his own hands by the English king, during the entire period of their government by the heir to the Scottish throne, of the commanding strengths of Bamborough, Norham, and Newcastle on Tyne, (the two former situated near the Scottish border,) and the omission of all reference to the circumstance of the supposed cession on the part of English historians, gives additional probability to this aspect of the transaction. Its resumption, therefore, on the fulfilment of that stipulation towards the close of the reign of David, may in this view of the matter have involved no injustice on the part of the English monarch, and appears to have been peacefully acquiesced in by Malcolm, the then reigning king. In the history of the two kingdoms of that period, however, it will frequently be found  that the occasion of distraction or civil contest on the part of the one was frequently embraced, to press to an issue assumed or disputed claims on the part of the other, and the fearful state of matters which then obtained in England—placed as it was under a papal interdict, the public services of religion suspended, the rites of interment withheld, the prelates banished, and the nobles insulted—presented an opportunity too tempting to be withstood by William, for making a demand which, if yielded to, would at once aggrandize his kingdom, and avenge his long captivity. Nor is there wanting, in the earlier history of that monarch himself, more than one incident to illustrate the truth of the foregoing remark.

      In order to understand the position of the parties, however, on the occasion of the conclusion of this treaty, it is proper to observe that, according to the English historians, John,—notwithstanding the dangerous situation in which he stood, and the loss of reputation he had sustained by acquiescing in the conquest of the English provinces in France,—appears, on becoming aware of the military preparations of William, to have manifested a degree of energy unusual to him, and to have resolved to do some act that would give a lustre to his government. He is represented by them as having been successful in his military enterprises in Scotland, as also in others which he undertook against the Irish and Welsh. It was in these circumstances, therefore, that by the treaty in question, the king of Scotland bound himself to pay to John fifteen thousand merks (supposed to be equivalent to one hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling of our present money) in two years, by four equal payments, "for procuring his good will (benevolentia), and for fulfilling certain conventions between them," contained in a charter which has not been preserved. For the performance of this treaty William gave John hostages. He likewise delivered his two daughters, Margaret and Isabella, to the king of England to be educated at his court, and "that they might be provided by him in suitable matches," but not to be considered as hostages. About thirty years thereafter it was stated in the English parliament that the conditions of the charter referred to were that the two Scottish princesses should be married to king John’s two sons, and that the money, together with a renunciation of his claim to the northern counties, was given by William as their marriage portion. Hubert de Burgh, the justiciary of England, who married the princess Margaret, positively denied, however, all knowledge of any such condition as the former; while some Scottish writers subsequently founded on its non-fulfilment a supposed claim for the restitution of the latter. [See Life of William the Lion, post.]

      Shortly after Alexander came to the throne affairs in England became involved in a still greater degree of confusion than before. John, perfidious and perjured as tyrannical, had violated the provisions of Magna Charta, set his barons at defiance, and threatened alike to crush the liberties of the country and their power. In this emergency, they decided to renounce their allegiance to him, and sent a deputation to offer the crown of England to Louis, son of the king of France. At the same time such of them as held possessions in the northern counties applied to Alexander, and offered to put him in possession of these districts as the consideration for his aiding them against their oppressor. Although so young, Alexander was not unwilling to avail himself of the proposal, and an agreement was accordingly entered into to that effect. In accordance with this agreement, Alexander with an army marched into Northumberland, and on the 18th of October 1215, he received the homage of the barons of that county at Felton castle. The castle of Norham was besieged by him for forty days, during which time Eustace de Vesci,—one of the principal barons of the northern counties, who had made himself conspicuous by his opposition to John,—gave him investiture of the county of Northumberland by livery and sasine. The intelligence of these negotiations, however, again stirred up John to unwonted activity, and he resolved to crush the northern invasion before Louis should arrive in England. Accordingly, immediately after Christmas, whilst a deep fall of snow lay on the ground, at the head of a large force, consisting principally of foreign mercenaries, he advanced into Yorkshire and Northumberland, devastating the estates of the confederated barons, and burning and slaying wherever he came. All the castles and towns they could take were given to the flames, King John himself setting the example, as he fired with his own hands in the morning the house in which he had rested the preceding night.

On the approach northward of John, Alexander raised the siege of Norham, and retired within his own dominions. The English barons accompanied him, and those of the northern counties did homage to Alexander at the abbey of Melrose on the 15th January 1216. (Chonicle of Melrose, p. 190.] John with his mixed and savage host of foreign soldiery followed, burning, in their march, the towns of Werk, Morpeth, Alnwick, Mitford, and Roxburgh. After storming Berwick they entered Scotland, torturing, plundering, and massacring the inhabitants in their way. The towns of Dunbar and Haddington were likewise burnt to the ground. John was determined to have vengeance on Alexander for the assistance which he had given to the patriotic barons who had taken up arms against him. "We will smoke," he said, "the little red fox out of his covert." From this laconic description of him we may infer that Alexander the Second was both diminutive in stature and ruddy in complexion. John pursued his devastating course as far as Edinburgh, but was soon obliged to withdraw from a country which his troops had ravaged so completely that it no longer afforded them subsistence. In his retreat, his forces burnt the priory of Coldingham, which had been founded in the year 1098 by Edgar king of Scotland, and the town of Berwick; John himself, as was his usual practice, giving the example to his brutal soldiery by setting fire to the house in which he had lodged.

      For the priory of Coldingham thus ruthlessly consumed by John’s savage followers, Alexander, like all the rest of the Scottish kings since the time of Edgar its founder, had a great veneration. He had not only confirmed the charters which his predecessors had granted to it, but exempted the prior and his monks from a sum of twenty merks that they had been in the custom of paying yearly to his exchequer, under the name of wattinga,—a tax which appears to have been levied from the landholders in Scotland for the purpose of erecting and maintaining in repair the government fortresses. He also issued a writ to Robert de Bernham, the mayor, and to the bailiffs of Berwick, enjoining them to allow free passage to foreign merchants, when on their way to the priory to purchase the wool and other commodities belonging to the monks, and prohibiting every one from seizing any property, moveable or unmoveable, belonging to the convent, within the barony or lordship of Coldingham, for debt on forfeiture. Besides these immunities, he released "the twelfth village of Coldinghamshire, or that in which the church is founded," from the aids and military service which had formerly been exacted. It was not likely therefore that he would allow John’s destructive march to pass without taking dreadful reprisals.

      Accordingly, in the month of February following this inroad, Alexander in his turn wasted the western marches with fire and sword and penetrated into Cumberland. Some of the undisciplined Scots, by which name the monkish historians distinguish the Highlanders in his army, plundered and burnt the abbey of Holmcultram, in revenge for the destruction of the priory of Coldingham by the English. These reverend chroniclers relate with apparent delight that two thousand of the Scots, on their way home with their booty, were drowned in the flooded current of the river Eden, as a judgment for their sacrilegious violation of a holy house. After a temporary retreat into his own territories, Alexander invaded Cumberland a second time, in the month of July, with all his army, except the Highlanders, whom he had chastised and dismissed (Chron. Mel., p. 191), and on the 8th of August, he took possession of the city of Carlisle. The castle, however, held out against him. He then marched southwards quite through England to Dover, to join Louis, the son of the king of France, who by this time had arrived in England. In his progress Alexander assaulted Bernard castle, the seat of the Baliol family, then held by a garrison for John. Eustace de Vesci, who had given him investiture of Northumberland at Norham castle, was slain there. On arriving at Dover he found Louis besieging the castle, and as the English barons had done, he did homage to that prince for all his lands in England, and particularly for the counties of Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmoreland, which were then granted to him by charter. (Rymer’s Foedera, tom. ii. p. 217.) This he might very well do, for the French prince Louis had not only been offered and had accepted the crown of England, but actually had a claim to it in right of his wife. On this occasion Louis, on his part, swore that he would not conclude a separate peace, an oath which he was soon compelled to violate. On his return homeward Alexander met with some obstruction in passing the Trent, the bridge at Newark having been broken down by the army of King John, who expired at the castle of Newark, 19th Oct. 1216.

      Some time before this (May 15, 1213) John had been reduced to the unworthy expedient of surrendering his dominions into the hands of the Pope, and of consenting to hold them henceforward only as his vassal, as a means of escaping from the consequences of the papal interdict, and threatened excommunication. When compelled by his barons and clergy (June 19, 1215) to sign the Great Charter, inwardly resolving to violate its provisions, he, as one means of effecting this, laid a statement of the matter, with a complaint of the violence imposed upon him, before his feudal lord, the supreme pontiff, who issued a bull, absolving him from his oath, annulling the charter, and prohibiting the barons from exacting the observance of it, on pain of excommunication. Strange to say, the English primate refused to obey the pope in publishing the sentence, and though suspended on account of this proceeding, and a new and particular sentence of excommunication was issued by name against the principal barons,—including not only the French prince Louis, but Alexander and his whole army, and the entire realm of Scotland,—the nobility and people, and even the clergy, of both kingdoms adhered to the combination against him, and so little zeal in the matter was manifested by the clergy of Scotland, that nearly a twelvemonth elapsed before it was published there. (Chron. Melrose, 192. Fordun, ix. 31.)

      Although Alexander, as already stated, had taken the town of Carlisle, the castle held out, and was besieged by him unsuccessfully. While engaged in this siege, a portion of the army of Prince Louis was entirely defeated in the streets of Lincoln, 19th May 1217, the count de Perche, its commander-in-chief, being killed, and many of the chief commanders taken prisoners. On the news of this defeat, Prince Louis, who was still occupied with the siege of Dover, proceeded to London, where he learned the further defeat of a fleet bringing him reinforcements from France, and the general defection of the barons, as they had by this time become suspicious of his intention. In the general turn which men’s dispositions had taken, the excommunication denounced by the legate failed not now to produce a mighty effect on them, and they were easily persuaded to consider a cause as impious, which had hitherto been unfortunate, and for which they had already entertained an insurmountable aversion. Seeing his cause to be desperate, Louis now began to be anxious for the safety of his person, and entered into a negotiation with the earl of Pembroke, protector of the realm of England,—Henry the Third, the son and successor of King John, being then a minor,—and a peace was concluded, Louis stipulating for a full indemnity to the English of his party—with a restitution of their honours and fortunes, together with the free and equal enjoyment of those liberties which that wise noble had guaranteed in the name of the prince to the rest of the nation—and formally renouncing his pretensions to the crown of England. That Louis might be reconciled to the holy see, he did penance by walking barefooted to the legate’s tent, in presence of both armies. He then departed with all his foreign forces to France.

      On receiving intelligence of these events, Alexander, who was then on his march into England, made overtures of peace to the young king Henry III., and after some time spent in negotiation, a treaty was concluded between them. He then yielded up the town of Carlisle to the English, and in an interview which he had with King Henry at Northampton, he did homage to him,—but for his English possessions only, as Scottish writers allege,—and returned into Scotland. (Chron. Mel. 192, 194, 195. Fordun ix. 31.)

      Alexander now sought to be reconciled to the Pope, and having procured a safe conduct from England, he proceeded to Tweedmouth, on the English side of the Border, and there met the archbishop of York and the bishop of Durham who had been delegated by the Pope’s legate for the purpose, and received absolution from their hands, 1st December 1217, without being called upon to perform the ignominious penance which generally preceded absolution. Some days thereafter the delegates also removed the ban of excommunication from Alexander’s mother, queen Ermengarde. The sentence was also removed from the whole body of the Scottish nation, except the prelates and the clergy, who had become obnoxious by reason of their reluctance to publish the bull.

      In the spring of 1218, William, prior of Durham, and Waiter de Wisbech, archdeacon of York, traversed Scotland, "from Berwick to Aberdeen," for the purpose of absolving the Scottish clergy from the sentence of excommunication. While upon this tour, on arriving at a town they summoned the clergy to attend them, and having required them to swear allegiance to the papal legate, and to make a candid confession of all matters concerning which they were asked, they absolved them, standing barefoot before the doors of their churches and abbeys. The commissioners were very sumptuously entertained, and their favour was courted by large bribes of money, and many presents. (Ridpath’s Border History, p. 127.) On their return south they halted at the abbey of Lindores, where the prior of Durham was nearly suffocated with smoke, a fire having broken out in the chamber where he slept, through the carelessness and rioting of those who had the charge of the wine, "his chamberman," as Balfour pithily says, "being verey drunke." He died at Coldingham priory, which appears to have been partially restored after its burning by King John in 1216. The woodcut at right is of the ruins of this celebrated priory.

      Against these proceedings the king appealed to Rome, while the clergy themselves sent a deputation of three bishops to the Pope. A judgment was obtained in their favour, which declared that the legate had exceeded his powers, and not only was absolution granted by Pope Honorius, but the liberties and privileges of the Scottish church were confirmed (Fordun a Goodal, vol. ii. pp. 40, 42.) For this favour one of the causes mentioned is the respect and obedience which Alexander had manifested to the papal see. This concession on his part in a few years thereafter (in 1225) led to one of still greater importance. The Scottish clergy having represented to the Pope, that from the want of a metropolitan they could not hold a provincial council, he authorized them to hold a general council of their own authority. Of this permission they were not slow to take advantage, and having assembled under its sanction, they drew up a distinct form of proceeding, by which the Scottish provincial councils were in future to be held; instituted the office of Conservator Statutorum, and continued to assemble frequent provincial councils, unfettered by the intervention of any foreign superior.

      By one article of the treaty of peace concluded in 1217 between Alexander and Henry, it was stipulated that the king of Scotland should marry the princess Joan, the eldest sister of the king of England; and their nuptials, after some delays, occasioned by the detention of the princess in France, were celebrated on the 25th of June 1221. The princess Joan, on her marriage, was secured in a jointure of one thousand pounds of land rent. (Faedera, tom. ii. p. 252.) Lord Hailes says, "The jointure lands were Jedworth, Lessudden, Kinghorn, and Crail. Any deficiencies were to be made good out of the castles and castellanys of Ayr, Rutherglen, Lanark, and the rents of Clydesdale, Kinghorn and Crail were, at that time, part of the jointure lands of the queen-dowager."

      The peace with England and the marriage of Alexander to the English king’s sister put a stop to all hostilities between the two nations for several years, and introduced a friendly intercourse between the two royal families, now so nearly related, which for a long time continued uninterrupted. The king and queen of Scotland made frequent visits to the court of England; where they were nobly entertained, and received many valuable proofs of friendship from King Henry. The alliance with England was still farther strengthened by the marriage of Alexander’s two sisters, the princesses Margaret and Isabella, who had been sent to England in the preceding reign, to English barons of great power and influence, namely, Margaret, soon after her brother’s marriage in 1221, to the celebrated Hubert de Burgh, justiciary of England, and Isabella, in 1225, to Roger Bigot, eldest son of Hugh, Earl Bigot. (Fordun, ix. 32, 33. Faedera, i. 227, 228, 374. Matth. Paris, 216.) For providing portions for his sisters, Alexander, in 1224, levied an aid of ten thousand pounds upon the nation. This grant is stated by some of our Scottish writers, in the loose manner in which they are accustomed to write of events which took place at that remote period, to have been authorized by Alexander’s parliament; while, on the contrary, it was imposed by the simple order of the king himself, without the slightest appearance of a meeting of the three estates, or even of the council of the king. Such a thing as a parliament was then unknown in Scotland. The first meeting, indeed, of what may be termed one did not take place till 1289, fully sixty-five years later, when, after the death of Alexander III., the estates of the kingdom, that is, the five guardians or regents, ten bishops, twelve earls, twenty-three abbots, eleven priors, and forty-eight barons, calling themselves the community of Scotland, although no representatives of the burghs or of the people were among them, met at Brigham, now Birgham, an obscure village in Berwickshire, to take into consideration the proposal for a marriage between the prince of Wales, the son of Edward the First of England, and the young queen Margaret of Scotland, called "the Maiden of Norway." When Fordun (vol. ii. p. 34) asserts that Alexander the Second, immediately after his coronation, held his parliament in Edinburgh, in which he confirmed to the chancellor, constable, and chamberlain the same high offices which they had filled at his father’s death, the word parliament so used may be held only to mean an assembly of the court, or the council of his nobles and great officers of the crown, and not a parliament, or even convention of estates, in the modern meaning of the word. (See Tytler’s History of Scotland, vol. ii. sect. 3.)

      Anciently the barons of the realm, with the crown vassals and higher clergy, constituted the communitas regni, which formed the parliament, as Mr. Skene terms it, of all Teutonic nations. To this body, composed of Celtic, Norman, and Saxon dignitaries and landholders, belonged the duty of counselling the monarch, and expressing the wants and wishes of the nation, without the great mass of the people having either a voice or a will in the matter, the principle of elective representation being altogether unknown to them. But there was another and even a higher body in the state, independent of the communitas, whose peculiar privileges were only exercised on great and rare occasions, namely, when there was a vacancy in the throne. This was the Septem Comites .Regni Scoticae, "the seven earls of Scotland." Until very recently, the existence of such a corporate body in the state seems to have been entirely unknown. To Sir Francis Palgrave belongs the merit of having made the discovery of a fact of so much importance to the right understanding of the history of Scotland. It is proved, he says in his ‘Treasury Documents illustrative of Scottish History,’ published in 1837, that "there existed in the ancient kingdom of Scotland, a known and established constitutional body denominated ‘the seven earls of Scotland,’ possessing privileges of singular importance as a distinct estate in the realm, severed equally from the other earls, and from the body of the baronage." These seven earls as a body derived their functions from the old Celtic constitution of the country, ancient Albania, or Scotland, north of the friths of Forth and Clyde, being divided into seven great provinces or governments. The Pictish names of these provinces were Flv, Cait, Fotla, Fortrein, Circui, Ce, and Fidach, corresponding with, according to Geraldus Cambrensis, Fife, Caithness, Atholl and Garmorin, Stratherne and Menteth, Angus and Mearns, Moray and Ross, and Marr and Buchan. Three of these were provinces of the Southern Picts, namely, Fife, Stratherne and Menteth, and Angus and Mearns; the other four belonged to the northern Picts. These seven provinces formed the kingdom of the Picts or Scotland proper, previous to the ninth century. The Scottish conquest, in 843, having added to it Dalriada, which afterwards became Argyle, and Caithness having towards the end of the same century fallen into the hands of the Norwegians, the former was after that period substituted for the latter, and the earl of Argyle instead of the earl of Caithness was numbered among "the seven earls." The Pictish nation consisted of a confederacy of fourteen tribes spread over the seven provinces named, in each of which one of the seven superior chiefs ruled under the Celtic name of maormor. In the reign of Edgar they assumed the Saxon title of earl, and their territories were exactly the same with the earldoms into which the north of Scotland was afterwards divided.

      In the appendix to the first volume of Mr. Skene’s valuable ‘History of the Highlanders,’ will be found a clear account of the ‘seven ancient provinces of Scotland,’ over which the seven earls presided. It was the privilege of these seven superior chiefs, by immemorial custom, as a peculiar estate in the realm, to appoint a king, whenever there was a vacancy, and to invest him with the royal authority, a right which they appear to have exercised after the Pictish kingdom had ceased to exist. Among the other documents preserved in the Treasury, illustrative of Scottish history, which the researches of Sir Francis Palgrave have brought to light, is a roll containing the appeal of the seven earls in 1290 to the authority and protection of Edward I. and the English crown, against William Fraser, Bishop of St. Andrews, and John Comyn, Lord of Badenoch, the Scottish regents, during the interregnum that succeeded the death of the Maid of Norway, on the ground that the regents were infringing or intending to infringe this their constitutional franchise; which appeal, it is now understood, led to the famous summons of the English monarch that the Scottish nobility and clergy should meet him at Norham in the English territories, on the 10th of May 1291, to decide upon the claims of the various competitors to the Scottish crown. Having given this explanation, which will form a key to much of what would be otherwise unintelligible or obscure in the early history of Scotland, we resume the regular narrative.

      The external tranquillity which Scotland enjoyed after the peace with England and the marriage of Alexander to the sister of the English king, allowed Alexander leisure to suppress some dangerous insurrections that had broken out at home. In 1221, Somerled, a grandson of the celebrated lord of the Isles of that name, possessed the whole district of Argyle, which was then much more extensive than the modern Argyleshire, and having that year risen in rebellion, the king collected an army in Lothian and Galloway, and sailed for Argyle, intending to disembark his force, and penetrate into the interior of the country, but his ships were driven back by a tempest, and forced to take refuge in the Clyde. Alexander, however, was not discouraged, but resolved to proceed into Argyle by land. With a large army, which he had summoned from every quarter of his dominions, he made himself master of the whole of the insurgent district, and compelled Somerled to flee to the Isles, where, about eight years afterwards, he met a violent death. Winton says,

"De king that yhere Argyle wan
Dat rebell wes till hym befor than
For wythe hys Ost thare in wes he
And Athe’ tuk of thare Fewte,
Wythe thare serwys and their Homage
Dat of hym wald hald thare Herytage,
But of the Ethchetys of the lave
To the Lordies of that land he gave."

      The estates of those who fled were bestowed on the principal men of the king’s army as a reward for their having joined the expedition; but wherever the former vassals of Somerled submitted and were received into favour, they became crown vassals, and held their lands in chief of the crown. The district in which the forfeited estates were, was farther brought under the direct jurisdiction of the government, by being, according to the invariable policy of Alexander II., erected into a sheriffdom by the name of Argyle, the first sheriffdom bearing that name, while the ancestor of the Campbells was made hereditary sheriff of the new sheriffdom. (Skene’s History of the Highlanders, vol. ii. p. 46.) The whole of the then northern Argyle, now part of Inverness-shire, was bestowed on the earl of Ross, as a reward for the assistance which he had rendered to the king on this and a former occasion.

      Besides suppressing this insurrection in Argyle, Alexander was about the same time called upon to punish some disturbances of an alarming kind which had broken out in Caithness. In 1222, Adam bishop of Caithness was cruelly burnt to death in his own palace. He had proved himself extremely rigorous in enforcing the demand for tithes, leading the poor people’s corn, as Balfour says, "too avariciously," and when the people of his diocese had assembled to consider what was to be done under the circumstances, one of them exclaimed, "short rede, good rede, slay we the bishop," meaning, "Few words are best, let us kill the bishop." The persons assembled unfortunately were too excited to pause or reflect—they followed the cruel advice, thus rashly given, but too literally. Rushing with eagerness to the bishop’s house, they furiously assaulted it, set it on fire, and burnt the unhappy prelate in the flames of his own palace, with a monk who attended him, named Serlo. Some of the bishop’s servants applied to the earl of Orkney and Caithness to protect their master from the fury of the mob; he answered that if the bishop came to him he would be sure of protection, but did not offer to go to his assistance. Alexander received intelligence of this cruel action when he was upon a journey towards England. He immediately turned back, marched into Caithness with an army, and put to death four hundred of those who had been concerned in the murder of the bishop. The earl of Orkney who might have prevented the catastrophe but did not, was believed to have favoured the conspiracy, but him the king pardoned, as he had no actual hand in the crime. He had to pay, however, a large sum of motley, and give up the third part of his estate. Balfour says that in the following year, while Alexander was keeping his birth-day at Forfar, the earl of Orkney with a good sum of ready money redeemed the third part of his estate from the king, but on his return home he was murdered in his own castle, which was afterwards burnt, in imitation and revenge of the, bishop’s fate. This event, however, according to the chronicle of Melrose (p. 201) quoted by Lord Hailes, did not take place till 1231.

      In the life of Alexander I. allusion has been made to the peculiar law of succession which prevailed amongst the Pictish, or Gaelic tribes. (See p. 54, ante.) This law of Tanistry, as it was called, provided that on the death of a chief, the brother, or "he of the blood who was nearest," succeeded to the chiefship, to the exclusion of females and even sons, the brother being considered one degree nearer the original founder or patriarch of the race than the son, and if the person who ought to succeed was under fourteen years of age,—the ancient Highland period of majority,—his nearest male relation became chief, and continued so during his life, the proper heir inheriting the chiefship only at his death. (Skene’s History of the Highlanders, vol. i. pp. 160, 161.) The establishment of such a law originated primarily, there cannot be a doubt, in the natural anxiety to avoid minorities in a tribe or cIan, so that it might always have a competent leader in war, a principle which, however much opposed to the feudal notions of later times, flowed naturally from the patriarchal constitution of society in the Highlands, being peculiarly adapted to the circumstances of a people whose warlike habits and love of military enterprise, as well as addiction to armed predatory expeditions, demanded at all times a chief of full age and every way qualified to act as their leader and commander.

As, however, the Highlanders adhered strictly to succession in the male line and according to the lineal descent from the common ancestor, or founder of the tribe, any infraction of this rule was often productive of the most serious outbreaks and insurrections. This was remarkably the case in the old rnaormordom or province of Moray, which, at the period when Alexander the Second ascended the throne, included not only what now forms the counties of Elgin and Nairn, but a considerable part of Banffshire and nearly the half of Inverness-shire. This was always one of the most re bellious portions of the kingdom; and although the tribes of Moray, in common with the rest of the Highlanders, recognised in Alexander I. and his successor David I. the legitimate heirs of Malcolm Canmore, they were never without a pretext for disturbing the country. After the suppression of their attempt at insurrection early in the reign of the former, when Angus referred to (p. 54) as of the family of Macbeth,—whom Skene with reason supposes to be the same with Head or Heth, whose name with Comes attached to it appears as witness in numerous charters of David I. Head or Heth being the surname of the family,—was in in possession of the earldom, they remained quiet till 1130, Alexander’s successor David I. being then on the throne. In that year, an Angus earl of Moray,—either the individual referred to above, who escaped confiscation by causing his accomplice Ladman, younger son of Donald Bane, to be put to death, or a descendant of the same name,—taking advantage of David’s absence at the English court, broke out into rebellion, and after having obtained possession of the northern districts of Scotland, advanced at the head of a numerous army, into Forfarshire; but Edward, son of Siward, earl of Northumberland, led an army into Scotland, with which he defeated and slew the earl at Strickathrow. Twelve years thereafter one Wimund, an English monk, who had risen to be bishop of Man, claiming to be the son of Angus, asserted his right to the earldom, and assumed the name of Malcolm Macheth. He was assisted by Somerled, thane of Argyle, whose daughter he married, and many of the northern chiefs. After having for several years sustained a struggle with David, he was at length betrayed by his own adherents, who put out his eyes and delivered him up to the Scottish king. He was sent a prisoner to the castle of Roxburgh, but after a tedious captivity, was pardoned, when he retired to the abbey of Biland in Yorkshire, where lie died. (See Life of David I. post.)

      On the death of David I. in 1153, the Tanistic law of succession would have conferred the right to the throne on Malcolm son of Duncan, the eldest son of Malcolm Canmore, but being then in possession of the earldom of Athol (p. 54), he does not appear to have brought it forward, preferring probably the certainty of possession under the feudal law to the risk of a hopeless conflict. On his death however, some years afterwards, it would appear that the law of Tanistry again came into conflict with the established system, not only as respects the succession to the crown but in reference also to the family possessions of the earldom of Athol, and we find the celebrated Boy of Egremont, in the person of William, son of William Fitz-Duncan, a younger son of Duncan, appearing as a claimant of both, in opposition to Malcolm IV., the reigning monarch, and to his cousin Henry, son of Malcolm his father’s brother, then earl of Athol. The people of the Highlands, ever prepared to avail themselves of an occasion to thrust out the race that governed them according to the Saxon laws, were the more encouraged to support the claim of this individual in the absence of Malcolm IV., then rendering military service to Henry II. in France, by the general dissatisfaction professed to be entertained on account of that servitude. Six of the seven great earls of Scotland, who governed the districts into which the ancient Pictish provinces of Scotland were divided—and in whose hands the nomination of the crown was vested (see p. 67)—sent a message to Malcolm, then at Toulouse, expressing their disapprobation of his proceedings, and indicating a withdrawal of their allegiance. On his return from France, he met the chiefs at Perth; and whilst by the intervention of his clergy he endeavoured to pacify them and regain their confidence, he was in 1160 attacked by a portion of the confederacy, but they were repulsed, and many of their followers slain. (See life of Malcolm IV. post.) Donald Bane, another son of William Fitz-Duncan, and grandson of Duncan, afterwards took up the claim, and supported by the northern chiefs, he for seven years held out the provinces of Moray and Ross against William the Lion, but in 1187, while his army lay at Inverness, a marauding party commanded by Roland of Galloway accidentally encountering him, when attended by few of his followers, attacked and slew him. In 1211 his son Guthred landed from Ireland and wasted the province of Ross. Notwithstanding that the king (William the Lion) went against him in person at the head of an army, he kept possession of the north of Scotland for some time, but was at last betrayed into the hands of William Comyn, by whom he was beheaded.

      On the accession of Alexander II. to the throne, Donald Bane, or MacWilliam, the brother of Guthred, and the son of that Donald who was slain in 1187, prepared to assert his own pretensions to the crown, and in conjunction with Kenneth Macbeth, who after an unsuccessful attempt to obtain the earldom of Moray in the reign of Malcolm IV. had taken refuge in Ireland, invaded Scotland at the head of a numerous body of Irish followers. They made an inroad into Moray, but were met by Ferchard, earl of Ross, an ally of the government, who defeated and slew them. Balfour in his annals says: "In the zeire 1215, Donald Bane, the sone of Mack-William, and Keneth Mack-Acht, with the son of a pittey king of Irland, and a good armey, invadit the heighe lands. Against quhom Machentagar leweys ane armey, and with them feights a werey bloodiey and creuell batell, quhom he totally ouerthrowes, the 17 day of Julay, and solemly presents the rebells heads to the king; for wich so gude seruice the king solemley knights Machentagar, and gives him a zeirly pensione during his lyffe." (Vol. i. p. 38.) Lord Hailes transcribed the same names, with a slight difference in the spelling, from the Chronicle of Melrose. "The author," he says, "being a Saxon, has corrupted the Gaelic names; Kenaukmacaht and M’Kentagar are unintelligible words." From the above retrospect, which was necessary to render the narrative clear, the reader will not be at a loss to understand that by Donald Bane is meant Donald M’William the grandson of William, and great-grandson of Duncan king of Scotland, and by Machentagar, Ferchard Macantagart, earl of Ross, who conquered and slew him and Kenneth Mack-Act, or Macheth, as already narrated.

      The rebellion of Somerled in 1221, of which an account has been given in pages 66, 67, is the last of those persevering efforts made to replace the family of Duncan on the throne of his father Malcolm. By an intermarriage of their families at an earlier period Somerled had become closely related to the race of Duncan. The language of the old chronicler Winton, already quoted,

"Dat rebell wes till hym befor than,"

would imply that he with the forces of Argyle had aided in the previous one of 1215. The death, therefore, of the last of the heirs of the direct line seems to have opened the way to a claim to the throne in his own right. In reading of these continuous struggles, and of the aid so frequently rendered by the Irish and Scottish branches of the Celtic family to the assertion of the old Pictish law, we see another proof of the tenacity with which under all discouragements they held to it. In the frequent interference also of the Irish in these internal struggles,—made too, it is worthy of being noted, generally on occasions when the occupant of the throne was embarrassed by other questions,—we seem to read over again the series of contests—brought to light by Skene and others— whereby the Irish Dalriadic tribe, not having then the Norman arms to encounter, at an earlier period of the national history more successfully submerged the existing government, and gave the name of Scotland, and race of monarchs—the true heirs according to their theory—to that country.

      Although the family of Angus had become extinct by the death of Kenneth, yet by the Celtic law of succession, the claims of the family were transmitted to the next branch of the clan, and in 1228 the tranquillity of the same district was again disturbed by one Gillespic, claiming to be the chief of the province. This warrior, after burning some wooden castles, surprising and slaying a baron who had been sent against him, called Thomas of Thirlstane, to whom Malcolm IV. had given the district of Abertarff, set fire to the town of Inverness, and spoiled and wasted the crown lands in that neighbourhood. The king went against him in person, but for a while he eluded his pursuit. He was at last encountered and slain, by William Comyn earl of Buchan, the justiciary of the kingdom. As a reward for suppressing this insurrection Comyn got a grant from the king of the districts of Badenoch and Lochaber. In accordance with his usual policy, Alexander erected that portion of the extensive earldom of Moray, which was not then under the rule of the Bissets, the Comyns, and other Norman barons, into the separate sheriffdoms of Elgin and Nairn. "The authority of government," says Skene, "was thus so effectually established that the Moravians did not again attempt any resistance; and thus ended with the death of Gillespie, the last of that series of persevering efforts which the earls of Moray had made for upwards of one hundred years to preserve their native inheritance." (Highlanders of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 170.)

      In 1233 the most serious insurrection which Alexander had yet to contend with occurred in Galloway, arising out of a similar principle to that which produced the disturbances in Moray; the adherence, namely, of the inhabitants to the ancient law of tanistry, as evidenced in their unwillingness to submit to female succession. The people of that extensive district, which forms the south-western angle of Scotland, were chiefly of a Celtic race. Besides offshoots from the Scots of Kintyre, large bodies of colonists from Ireland formed, at various times, settlements there, during the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries, and from the frequent incursions of these and other settlers, the district obtained its name; either, as is most likely, from the word Gall, which originally signified stranger or wanderer, and in this sense was applied to the pirates who, in those days, infested the western coasts of Scotland,—hence the term used by the Irish annalists, in reference to them, namely the Gallgael, meaning Gaelic pirates or rovers,—or, as is generally supposed, from the Gaelic origin of the inhabitants. Although the name is now confined to the shire of Wig-ton and the stewartry of Kirkcudbright, it anciently had a more extensive application, as it comprehended the entire peninsula between the Solway and the Clyde, including Annandale in the south-east, and most of Ayrshire in the northwest, and was governed by its native chieftains, styled the lords of Galloway, who acknowledged a feudatory dependence on the Scottish crown. In the twelfth century, Fergus, one of the most potent of these, who was the son-in-law of Henry I. of England, endeavoured to throw off his allegiance to Malcolm IV., and raised a formidable insurrection in Galloway. Enraged at his daring, Malcolm marched into his territory, and though twice repulsed, he succeeded in a third effort, in the year 1160, in overcoming him. Fergus, after suing for peace, resigned his lordship and possessions to his two sons, Gilbert and Uchtred, and retired to the abbey of Holyrood, where he died in the following year. His two sons attended, as feudatories, William the Lion, in 1174, on his unfortunate expedition into England; but they no sooner saw him taken captive than, at the head of their savage followers, they returned to their native wilds, attacked and demolished the royal castles, and murdered many subjects of William who were settled in Galloway. To protect them against the vengeance of their own sovereign, they besought Henry, the English king, to receive their homage. In the meantime, before receiving an answer to their request, Uchtred was cruelly murdered by his brother Gilbert for his share of the inheritance. Gilbert renewed the negotiation with Henry in his own name, and offered to pay him a yearly tribute of two thousand marks of silver, five hundred cows, and five hundred swine. To mark his detestation of the treacherous murder of Uchtred, Henry refused both the homage and the tribute. On regaining his liberty, King William invaded Galloway with an army, but instead of punishing Gilbert as he deserved, he accepted from him a pecuniary satisfaction. In the following year (1176) Gilbert accompanied William to York, where he was received into the favour of Henry, and did homage to him; the crown vassals as well as the kingdom of Scotland being then, in terms of the treaty which restored William to freedom, placed under feudal subordination to England. (See life of William the Lion, post.) From this Gilbert, who died in 1185, sprang, afterwards, in the third generation, Marjory countess of Carrick in her own right, the mother of Robert the Bruce. Meantime Roland, the son of the murdered Uchtred, seized the favourable moment of the death of his uncle Gilbert, to attack and disperse his faction, and to claim possession of all Galloway as his own inheritance, in which he was favoured by his own sovereign, William. Henry II., however, the English king, opposed his claims, and assembling a large army at Carlisle, prepared to invade Galloway. Roland resolved upon a desperate resistance, but the dispute was ultimately adjusted by Roland, after swearing fealty to Henry, being confirmed in the lordship of Galloway, on condition of surrendering the territory of Carrick to his cousin Duncan, the son of Gilbert. He is the Roland of Galloway who, in 1187, encountered and killed the pretender, Donald Bane, at Inverness, p. 69. On the restoration of the national independence, Roland obtained the office of constable of Scotland. He died in December 1200.

      Alan, the eldest son of Roland, and the last male-heir of the line of the ancient ‘lords of Galloway,’ died in 1233. He succeeded as constable of Scotland, and was a personage of considerable importance in Scottish history. He had been twice married. By his first wife he had a daughter Helen, or Elena, married to Roger de Quincy, earl of Winchester. By his second wife, Margaret, the eldest of the three daughters, and eventual heiresses of David, earl of Huntingdon, the brother of William the Lion, he had two daughters; his eldest daughter by his second marriage, Devorgull becoming the wife of John de Balliol, lord of Bernard castle, transmitted to their son John Balliol, the competitor, afterwards king, the lineal right of sucèession to the throne. Devorguil’s younger sister Christian, was the wife of William des Forts, son of the earl of Albemarle. Unwilling to have their country partitioned among the husbands of Alan’s three daughters, the people of Galloway offered the lordship to Alexander, whose sense of justice prevented him from depriving the legitimate heirs of their right. They then requested that an illegitimate son of Alan, named Thomas, should be appointed their lord. To this application Alexander also refused to accede, on which the Galwegians broke out into open rebellion, having at their head the bastard Thomas, aided by an Irish chieftain named Gilrodh, who joined him with a large force from Ireland. To suppress this formidable outbreak, Alexander led an expedition against the rebellious Galwegians, who did not wait to be attacked by him, but rushed forth from their mountains and fastnesses with Celtic fury and proceeded to ravage the adjacent country. They even contrived to surround Alexander, when he had got entangled among morasses, and he was in imminent danger till Ferchard, earl of Ross, came to his assistance, and assaulting the rebels in the rear, routed them with great slaughter. Galloway was restored to Alan’s heiresses, and the inhabitants compelled to receive as their superior Roger de Quincey the husband of Elena. Thomas and his Irish ally escaped to Ireland, but in the following year they returned with a fresh force, and attempted to renew the rebellion. Gilrodh, on landing, burnt his vessels, as if resolved to conquer or die. The insurgents were, however, again defeated, and Gilrodh surrendered himself to the earl of March without resistance. He was sent bound to Edinburgh castle, but both he and Thomas were pardoned. Their Irish followers, crowding towards the Clyde, in the hope of being able to find a passage to their own country, fell into the hands of a band of the citizens of Glasgow, who are said to have beheaded them all except two, whom Balfour calls two of their chief commanders, and these they sent to Edinburgh, to be hanged and quartered there. The king’s enforcing the rights of Alan’s daughters, and at the head of an army breaking down the spirit of insurrection, was the introduction to the epoch of granting charters for the holding of lands, and of landholders giving leases to tenants, as well as of the security of property and the cultivation of the arts of husbandry in Galloway.

      Notwithstanding the terms of amity in which Henry and Alexander lived, there were still several subjects of dispute between them, which now and then occasioned some disquiet, and afforded matter for discussion and negotiation; although their own pacific dispositions prevented an open rupture. Henry showed at times an inclination to extend the incidents of the homage of the king of Scotland to an unreasonable limit; and in 1234 he went so far as to solicit the Pope to exhort Alexander to acknowledge the superiority of England over Scotland, an exhortation which Alexander, when he received it, paid no attention to. Alexander, on his part, always insisted either on restitution being made to him of the three northern counties of England, or on the repayment of the fifteen thousand merks paid by his father to King John. The vacillating character of Henry III. exposed the peace between the two countries to the risk of constant interruption, but sometimes he would conciliate his brother-in-law’s favour by gifts, concessions, and the warmest professions of friendship. An instance of this occurred in 1230, when Henry invited Alexander to York, where he celebrated Christmas, and entertained him with great state, and after loading him with presents, sent him home. In 1236, after an interview between the two monarchs at Newcastle, where they royally feasted each other, Henry bestowed the manor of Driffield on his sister, the queen of Scots, for life, and at a subsequent period he conferred on the same princess the manor of Staunton. (Chron. Melr. 203. Foedera, i. 370, 379.) At length in September 1237, the matters in dispute between Henry and Alexander were heard at York, before Otho, or Eudes le Blanc l’Aleran, a cardinal deacon and the papal legate to England. The conference lasted for fifteen clays, and twenty-four councillors of the two kings were present. The negociations terminated by a compromise. Henry, in full of all claims, consented to grant to Alexander lands in Northumberland and Cumberland, of the yearly value of two hundred