SUPPLIED TO SUBSCRIBERS ONLY.

PROSPECTUS.

A HISTORY OF

THE SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS,

HIGHLAND CLANS, AND HIGHLAND REGIMENTS;

ON THE BASIS OF BROWNE’S “HISTORY OF THE HIGHLANDS AND CLANS,” BUT ENTIRELY

RE-MODELLED AND TO A LARGE EXTENT RE-WRITTEN.

WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE GAELIC LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

WRITTEN FOR THE WORK,

BY THE REV. THOMAS MACLAUCHLAN, LL.D., F.S.A.S.,

One of the Editors of the “Dean of Lismore’s Book,” Author of
“The Early Scottish Church,” &c.;

AND AN ESSAY ON HIGHLAND SCENERY,

BY THE LATE PROFESSOR JOHN WILSON.

EDITED BY JOHN S. KELTIE, F.S.A.S.

During the last thirty years, the patriotic labours of the various Scottish book-clubs,—The Abbotsford, The Bannatyne, The Iona, The Maitland, The Spalding Clubs—the works of the various eminent Scottish antiquaries and historians, not to mention many valuable papers and pamphlets, have not only subjected everything connected with the history of the Highlands to an unsparing and searching criticism, but have also brought to light many new facts, and opened up formerly unthought-of tracks of inquiry. Such a flood of light has thus been thrown on all matters connected with the Highlands, that the publishers feel Browne’s History of the Highlands and Clans,—the work on which this publication is to a certain extent based,—has fallen behind the age, and that, to keep pace with the advanced state of historical research, a NEW WORK IS DEMANDED. Therefore, in preparing the work now presented to the public, it has been found necessary to make such extensive alterations and additions, that the publishers feel justified in calling it a NEW WORK.

The work is divided into three sections:—

I. The General History of the Highlands, including Religion, Literature, and Antiquities.

II. The History of the Highland Clans.

III. The History of the Highland Regiments.

Part I.—The General History of the Highlands.

The whole of this part has been THOROUGHLY REVISED, RE-MODELLED, and to a great extent RE-WRITTEN. All the introductory chapters relating to the Primitive History of the Highlands, are NEW, and in them are treated the much controverted questions as to the Picts and Scots, their RACE and LANGUAGE—the EARLY RACES OF KINGS, all points connected with the early SOCIAL and POLITICAL CONDITION of the Highlanders, their ORIGINAL RELIGION and the SPREAD OF Christianity. The most RECENT INVESTIGATIONS bearing on the Antiquities of the Highlands, the Ancient Manners and Customs of their people, their PECULIAR DRESS, their SOCIAL and POLITICAL RELATIONS, their SUPERSTITIONS, and other interesting antiquarian matters, have been taken advantage of.

As to the rest of this portion of the work, while whatever had no connection with Highland history has been expunged, much new matter has been added in order to make the general narrative COMPLETE and AUTHENTIC. When, at a later period of their history, the Highlanders become a potent element in the settlement of many great disputes, it has been sought to make the reader understand clearly the part they thus took in the stirring and momentous transactions of the times. As examples of these we need only mention here the CIVIL WARS in which Montrose so often led on the Highland army to victory: the Revolution disputes, culminating in Killiecrankie: the unfortunate insurrections of ’15 and ’45, which, but for the romantic enthusiasm of the Highlanders, would never have been even commenced.

In writing these chapters ample use has been made of the various club-publications above referred to, the latest of which, The Book of Deer, issued by the Spalding Club, edited by Dr. Stuart, has proved of great service in throwing light on the EARLY SOCIAL AND POLITICAL CONDITION of the Highlands, as well as on the STATE and CONSTITUTION of the early Scottish Church. Among modern Scottish historians and antiquarians whose labours have been taken advantage of in this part of the work, we may mention the names of George Chalmers, W. F. Skene, Joseph Robertson, Daniel Wilson, Mr. Gregory, John Hill Burton, E. W. Robertson, James Logan, Cosmo Innes, George Grub, Dr. Maclauchlan, and Colonel Forbes-Leslie: this last gentleman has been kind enough to place at our disposal some of the cuts which adorn his valuable work, The Early Races of Scotland. Besides these, books and documents, ancient and modern, too numerous to detail here, have been consulted.

To the Gaelic Language and Literature, which, in the old work, possibly from lack of material, were treated in rather a summary manner, a prominent place has been given. Since the publication of The Dean of Lismore’s Book, and other works on this interesting subject, there can be no complaint of lack of material; and so much importance do the publishers attach to the literature of the Highlands, that they have entered into an arrangement with the Rev. Thomas Maclauchlan, LL.D., F.S.A.S.—one of the editors of The Dean of Lismore’s Book, and one of the most eminent living Gaelic scholars—to write an entirely new account of this subject, into which will be introduced copious examples of genuine old Gaelic Poetry.

In the course of the work will be given the late Professor Wilson’s celebrated Essay on Highland Scenery, of which the copyright belongs to the publishers.

Part II.—The History of the Highland Clans.

In any history of the Highlands, an account of the Clans ought to occupy a place of the first importance, and in the present work, the GREATER PART OF THE SECOND VOLUME is devoted to this part of the subject. Every point of interest connected with this peculiar social system has been noticed:—the ORIGIN OF THE CLAN-SYSTEM, the relation of the chief to the general body of the clan, the various CLAN-DIGNITIES and OFFICES and the duties which belonged to each, the PECULIAR CUSTOMS to which the system gave rise, the difference between CLANSHIP and the FEUDAL SYSTEM, and the influence it had on the progress of the Highlands and on the rest of Scotland. In short, no pains have been spared to enable the reader to form a clear idea of all the ‘outs and ins’ of this primitive system of social government.

After this introductory matter, a DETAILED ACCOUNT is given of EACH SEPARATE CLAN which has any claim to be considered Highland. The origin of each Clan, as far as possible, has been traced back to its FOUNDER, and its claim to be considered purely Gaelic discussed; its history is traced through all its branches and offshoots down to the present day; the part it took in the various clan strifes, in the disputes between the Highlands and Lowlands, and in the general wars of Scotland, is set forth. Every link in the genealogical chain has been carefully traced, and those chiefs and other members of a clan who took a more prominent part in the affairs of the time, have their lives given in considerable detail. Appended to the account of each clan are its ARMORIAL BEARINGS, a description of its CLAN-TARTAN, the name of its BADGE, its peculiar war-cry or SLOGAN, its estimated STRENGTH, and its PRINCIPAL SEAT. In addition to the authorities above referred to, the works of Smibert, Logan, Stewart, and others, as well as the separate histories of those clans that are fortunate enough to have such, this division of the work is greatly indebted to the original researches of the late Mr. Anderson, author of the Scottish Nation, whose examination of many ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS and FAMILY RECORDS brought to light many facts connected with the history of the Highland clans, never before made public.

Part III.—History of the Highland Regiments.

The HISTORY OF THESE REGIMENTS is to a great extent the history of Britain’s battles for more than a century past; and the great military glory which our country has acquired, has been owing, in no small degree, to their UNSURPASSED BRAVERY, PERFECT DISCIPLINE, and HIGH MORALE. In the part of the work devoted to this subject, it has been sought faithfully to record not only the noble services rendered to its country in past times by each regiment in every engagement in which it took part, but also the brave deeds performed by many individual Highland soldiers.

With regard to the later history of the Highland regiments, it has been sought to render this complete and perfectly reliable by applying, for direct information, to the Colonel of each existing regiment; and in every case the publishers have met with the greatest courtesy and willingness to lend all assistance. In addition to this, of course, every accessible published work on the subject has been consulted, including the host of books called forth by the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny.

From the above statements it will be seen that in no other single publication is it possible to obtain SUCH VARIED and VALUABLE INFORMATION on ALL POINTS OF INTEREST connected with the Scottish Highlands—their History, their Antiquities, their Clans, their Literature, their Military Annals. No pains have been spared to make the work ACCURATE, EXHAUSTIVE, INTERESTING, and CONSISTENT with the MOST RECENT INVESTIGATIONS.

Illustrations.

Besides clan-tartans, the work will be richly embellished with autographs, seals, armorial bearings, objects of antiquarian interest, and many views and portraits on wood and steel, all taken from original or other authentic sources, and executed in the first style of art.

The publishers have spared no pains to obtain original and genuine portraits, and to have them faithfully and beautifully reproduced; and they owe their sincere thanks to those noblemen and gentlemen connected with the Highlands who have allowed them access to their valuable family collections, in order to obtain copies of such original portraits as were required for the work. Many of these portraits have never before been engraved. The publishers would especially mention here the valuable miniature portrait of Prince Charles Edward Stuart in Highland costume, which has been in possession of the Lochiel family for generations, and which has been kindly placed at their disposal by the present representative of the family, Donald Cameron, Esq., M.P. for Inverness-shire. It has the merit of being a faithful likeness, and will be engraved by Holl of London.

Many of the views, illustrative both of the events narrated in the history and of the rich and romantic Highland scenery, are from photographs and drawings taken specially for the work. Others, consisting chiefly of views of towns and fortresses taken at or near the time of the events they are intended to illustrate, are copied from the rare and valuable work of John Slezer, entitled Theatrum Scotiæ, published at the end of the 17th century. The facts that Slezer was a military engineer, and that he was appointed by government to survey the chief towns and strongholds of Scotland, are sufficient guarantees of the faithfulness of these views.

CONDITIONS.

A. FULLARTON & Co.,

STEAD’S PLACE, LEITH WALK, EDINBURGH; AND 18 NEWGATE STREET, LONDON.

WITH AN ACCOUNT OF
THE GAELIC LANGUAGE, LITERATURE, AND MUSIC
By the Rev. THOMAS MACLAUCHLAN, LL.D., F.S.A. Scot.

AND AN ESSAY ON HIGHLAND SCENERY
By the late Professor JOHN WILSON

EDITED BY
JOHN S. KELTIE, F.S.A. Scot.

Illustrated

WITH A SERIES OF PORTRAITS, VIEWS, MAPS, ETC., ENGRAVED ON STEEL,
CLAN TARTANS, AND UPWARDS OF TWO HUNDRED WOODCUTS,
INCLUDING ARMORIAL BEARINGS

VOL. I.

A. FULLARTON & CO.
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
1875

[Pg vii]

No apology is deemed necessary for bringing this History of the Scottish Highlands before the public. A work under a similar title was brought out by the present publishers upwards of thirty years ago, under the care of Dr. James Browne, and met with a sale so extensive and sustained as to prove that it supplied a real want.

Since the publication of Browne’s History, which it is only the simple truth to say had no rival, research has brought to light so much that is new connected both with the general history of the Highlands and the history of the various clans, and so many new laurels have been added to those already won by the Highland regiments during the past century, and the early part of the present, that the publishers believed the time had come for the preparation and issue of a new work.

In preparing it, the editor has done all in his power to make it complete and accurate. The object of Dr. Browne’s work was to present in one book all that is interesting and valuable concerning the Highlands and Highlanders, a great deal of information on this subject having lain scattered in various quarters inaccessible to the general public. In the preparation of the present work this object has been kept steadily in view; and it may be said of it, with even more force than of Browne’s, that it is a collectanea of information concerning the Scottish Highlands of an extent and kind to be met with in no other single publication.

The general plan of Dr. Browne’s work has been adhered to. In the First Part, that dealing with the General History of the Highlands, which, from the nature of the case, is more a chronicle of clan battles than a homogeneous history, it has been found possible, as might have been expected, to retain much of Browne’s text. This, however, has been subjected to a careful revision and comparison with the original authorities, as well as with the many new ones that have been brought to light during the past thirty years. Moreover, many portions throughout this section have been rewritten, and considerable additions made. One of the largest and most important of these is the continuation of the General History from 1745 down to the present day. The editor felt that, so far as the social history of the Highlands is concerned, the period embraced in the past hundred years was of even more importance than any previous time; he has therefore attempted to do what, so far as he knows, has not been done before, to present a sketch of the progress of the Highlands during that period. For this purpose he has had to consult a multitude of sources, and weigh many conflicting statements, his aim being simply to discover and tell the truth. Such matters have been gone into as Depopulation, Emigration, Agriculture, Large and Small Farms, Sheep and Deer, Fishing, Manufactures, Education, &c. It is hoped, therefore, that the First Part of the work will be found to contain a complete account of the Highlands, historical, antiquarian, and social.

An original and important feature of this part of the work is a history of the Gaelic Language and Literature, by the well known Celtic scholar, the Rev. T. Maclauchlan, LL.D., F.S.A. Scot.

In the Second Part, relating to the History of the Highland Clans, it will be found that, in the case of every clan, modifications and additions have been made. In some instances the histories have been entirely rewritten, and several border clans have been included that were not noticed in Browne’s work. The history of each clan, has, as far as possible, been traced from its founder through all the branches and offshoots down to the present day; the part it took in the various clan strifes, in the disputes between the Highlands and Lowlands, and in the general wars of Scotland, being set forth. In the case of most of the clans, gentlemen who have made a special study of particular clan histories have kindly revised the proofs.

[viii]

The Third Part, the History of the Highland Regiments, occupies a prominent place in the present work. Of these regiments one-half have had their complete history published now for the first time, and in the case of the others so many changes and additions have been made, that this part of the work may be considered as entirely new. The history of each of the nine regiments which now rank as Highland has been gone into from its embodiment, and the trustworthiness of this unique body of military history may be inferred from the fact, that, in the case of every regiment, it is founded upon the original Regimental Record, supplemented in many instances by the diaries and recollections of officers; and in two cases, at least, as will be seen, by materials collected by officers who have made a special study of their regimental histories. The general reader will find this part of the work of very great interest.

With regard to the Illustrations, the publishers feel justified in alluding to them with considerable pride. No attempt has been made to make the present work a mere picture-book; it will be invariably found that the numerous plates, woodcuts, and clan-tartans either add interest to the text, or throw light upon it. Every effort has been made to secure authentic portraits and original views, and to have every illustration executed in a thoroughly artistic style; and it is hoped that, in these respects, the exertions of the editor and publishers have been crowned with success. The specimens of clan-tartans represent in every case those recognised by the heads of the various clans. The illustrations, therefore, will be found both historically and artistically valuable.

Throughout this work the editor has endeavoured to acknowledge the authorities which he has in any way made use of. Were he to mention the names of the numerous individuals to whom he has been indebted for assistance during its preparation, it would add very considerably to the length of this preface; in his own name and that of the publishers, he expresses sincere gratitude to all who have in any way lent a helping hand. Special thanks, however, are due to the Duke of Athole for assistance in various ways, and particularly for permission to engrave the portrait of Lord George Murray; to Lady Elizabeth Pringle for the portrait of the first Earl of Breadalbane, and to Mrs. Campbell of Monzie for that of the “Gentle Lochiel,”—all published in this work for the first time. As mentioned in the text, the beautiful miniature of “Prince Charlie” is copied from the original in possession of Donald Cameron, Esq. of Lochiel, who has also lent assistance in other ways. The originals of other valuable illustrations, as will be seen, have been kindly placed at the publishers’ service by the Duke of Sutherland, the Duke of Richmond, the Earl of Strathmore, the Earl of Crawford and Balcarres, The Mackintosh, The Chisholm, Duncan Forbes, Esq. of Culloden, David Laing, Esq., LL.D., James Drummond, Esq., R.S.A., and many others.

The editor has in the proper place in the text referred to the assistance given him in connection with the important history of “Clan Chattan” by Alexander Mackintosh Shaw, Esq., whose own history of the clan is nearly completed; the narrative in the present work owes its value almost entirely to his kindness. For assistance in the history of this clan the editor was also indebted to the late Rev. W. G. Shaw of Forfar.

To the Colonels-commanding of all the Highland regiments special thanks are due for hearty co-operation in procuring material for the Third Part of the work. Many other officers have, with the greatest readiness, either volunteered assistance or given it when asked. In this connection special mention must be made of Lieutenant-Colonels Wheatley, Clephane, and Sprot, Captain Colin Mackenzie, and Captain Thackeray.

The large and increasing demand for this work during its publication, and the extremely favourable notices of the press, afford good grounds for believing that it will be found to fulfil the purpose for which it has been compiled. May it ever meet with a kindly welcome from all who are in any way interested in the romantic Highlands of Scotland.

JOHN S. KELTIE.

London, February 1875.

[ix]

[xi]

VOLUME I.

[xiii]

BY

PROFESSOR WILSON.

In no other country does Nature exhibit herself in more various forms of beauty and sublimity than in the north of England and the Highlands of Scotland. This is acknowledged by all who, having studied their character, and become familiar with the feelings it inspires, have compared the effects produced on their minds by our own mountainous regions, with what they have experienced among the scenery of the Alps. There, indeed, all objects are on so vast a scale, that we are for a while astonished as we gaze on the gigantic; and all other emotions are sunk in an overwhelming sense of awe that prostrates the imagination. But on recovering from its subjection to the prodigious, that faculty everywhere recognises in those mighty mountains of dark forests, glittering glaciers, and regions of eternal snow—infinite all—the power and dominion of the sublime. True that all these are but materials for the mind to work on, and that to its creative energy Nature owes much of that grandeur which seems to be inherent in her own forms; yet surely she in herself is great, and there is a regality belonging of divine right to such a monarch as Mont Blanc.

Those are the very regions of sublimity, and if brought into immediate comparison with them in their immense magnitude, the most magnificent scenery of our own country would no doubt seem to lose its character of greatness. But such is not the process of the imagination in her intercourse with Nature. To her, sufficient for the day is the good thereof; and on each new glorious sight being shown to her eyes, she employs her God-given power to magnify or irradiate what she beholds, without diminishing or obscuring what she remembers. Thus, to her all things in nature hold their own due place, and retain for ever their own due impressions, aggrandized and beautified by mutual reaction in those visionary worlds, which by a thought she can create, and which, as they arise, are all shadowy representations of realities—new compositions in which the image of the earth we tread is reflected fairer or greater than any realities, but not therefore less, but more true to the spirit of nature. It is thus that poets and painters at once obey and control their own inspirations. They visit all the regions of the earth, but to love, admire, and adore; and the greatest of them all, native to our soil, from their travel or sojourn in foreign lands, have always brought home a clearer insight into the character of the scenery of their own, a profounder affection for it all, and a higher power of imaging its attributes in colours or in words. In our poetry, more than in any other, Nature sees herself reflected in a magic mirror; and though many a various show passes processionally along its lustre, displaying the scenery of “lands and seas, whatever clime the sun’s bright circle warms,” among them all there are none more delightful or elevating to behold than those which genius, inspired by love, has framed of the imagery, which, in all her pomp and prodigality, Heaven has been pleased to shower, through all seasons, on our own beautiful island. It is not for us to say whether our native painters, or the “old masters,” have shown the greatest genius in landscape; but if the palm must be yielded to them whose works have been consecrated[xiv] by a reverence, as often, perhaps, superstitious as religious, we do not fear to say, that their superiority is not to be attributed in any degree to the scenery on which they exercised the art its beauty had inspired. Whatever may be the associations connected with the subjects of their landscapes—and we know not why they should be higher or holier than those belonging to innumerable places in our own land—assuredly in themselves they are not more interesting or impressive; nay, though none who have shared with us the spirit of the few imperfect sentences we have now written, will for a moment suppose us capable of instituting an invidious comparison between our own scenery and that of any other country, why should we hesitate to assert that our own storm-loving Northern Isle is equally rich in all kinds of beauty as the Sunny South, and richer far in all kinds of grandeur, whether we regard the forms or colouring of nature—earth, sea, or air—

What other region in all the world like that of the Lakes in the north of England! And yet how the true lover of nature, while he carries along with him its delightful character in his heart, and can so revive any spot of especial beauty in his imagination, as that it shall seem in an instant to be again before his very eyes, can deliver himself up, after the lapse of a day, to the genius of some savage scene in the Highlands of Scotland, rent and riven by the fury of some wild sea-loch! Not that the regions do not resemble one another, but surely the prevailing spirit of the one—not so of the other—is a spirit of joy and of peace. Her mountains, invested, though they often be, in gloom—and we have been more than once benighted during day, as a thunder-cloud thickened the shadows that for ever sleep in the deepest dungeons of Helvellyn—are yet—so it seems to us—such mountains as in nature ought to belong to “merry England.” They boldly meet the storms, and seen in storms you might think they loved the trouble; but pitch your tent among them, and you will feel that theirs is a grandeur that is congenial with the sunshine, and that their spirit fully rejoices in the brightness of light. In clear weather, verdant from base to summit, how majestic their repose! And as mists slowly withdraw themselves in thickening folds up along their sides, the revelation made is still of more and more of the beautiful—arable fields below, then coppice woods studded with standard trees—enclosed pastures above and among the woods—broad breasts of close-nibbled herbage here and there adorned by rich dyed rocks, that do not break the expanse—till the whole veil has disappeared; and, lo! the long lofty range, with its wavy line, rising and sinking so softly in the blue serenity, perhaps, of an almost cloudless sky. Yet though we have thus characterised the mountains by what we have always felt to be the pervading spirit of the region, chasms and ravines, and cliffs and precipices, are there; in some places you see such assemblages as inspire the fear that quakes at the heart, when suddenly struck in the solitude with a sense of the sublime; and though we have called the mountains green—and during Spring and Summer, in spite of frost or drought, they are green as emerald—yet in Autumn they are many-coloured, and are girdled with a glow of variegated light, that at sunset sometimes seems like fire kindled in the woods.

The larger Vales are all serene and cheerful; and among the sylvan knolls with which their wide levels, highly cultivated, are interspersed, cottages, single or in groups, are frequent, of an architecture always admirably suited to the scenery, because in a style suggested not by taste or fancy, which so often disfigure nature to produce the picturesque, but resorted to for sake of the uses and conveniences of in-door life, to weather-fend it in storms, and in calm to give it the enjoyment of sunshine. Many of these dwellings are not what are properly called cottages, but statesmen’s houses, of ample front, with their many roofs, over-shadowed by a stately grove, and inhabited by the same race for many generations. All alike have their suitable gardens, and the porches of the poorest are often clustered with roses; for everywhere among these hills, even in minds the most rude and uncultivated, there is a natural love of flowers. The villages, though somewhat too much modernised in those days of improvement—and indeed not a[xv] few of them with hardly any remains now of their original architecture—nothing old about them but the church tower, perhaps the parsonage—are nevertheless generally of a pleasing character, and accordant, if not with the great features of nature, which are unchanged and unchangeable, with the increased cultivation of the country, and the many villas and ornamented cottages that have risen and are rising by every lake and river side. Rivers indeed, properly so called, there are none among these mountains; but every vale, great and small, has at all times its pure and undefiled stream or rivulet; every hill has its hundreds of evanescent rills, almost every one its own perennial torrent flowing from spring, marsh, or tarn; and the whole region is often alive with waterfalls, of many of which, in its exquisite loveliness, the scenery is fit for fairy festivals—and of many, in its horrid gloom, for gatherings of gnomes revisiting “the glimpses of the moon” from their subterraneous prisons. One lake there is, which has been called “wooded Winandermere, the river lake;” and there is another—Ulswater—which you might imagine to be a river too, and to have come flowing from afar; the one excelling in isles, and bays, and promontories, serene and gentle all, and perfectly beautiful; the other, matchless in its majesty of cliff and mountain, and in its old forests, among whose hoary gloom is for ever breaking out the green light of young generations, and perpetual renovation triumphing over perpetual decay. Of the other lakes—not river-like—the character may be imagined even from that we have faintly described of the mountains; almost every vale has its lake, or a series of lakes; and though some of them have at times a stern aspect, and have scenes to show almost of desolation, descending sheer to the water’s edge, or overhanging the depth that looks profounder in the gloom, yet even these, to eyes and hearts familiar with their spirit, wear a sweet smile which seldom passes away. Witness Wastwater, with its huge single mountains, and hugest of all the mountains of England, Scawfell, with its terrific precipices—which, in the accidents of storm, gloom, or mist, has seemed, to the lonely passer-by, savage in the extreme—a howling or dreary wilderness—but in its enduring character, is surrounded with all quiet pastoral imagery, the deep glen in which it is embedded being, in good truth, the abode of Sabbath peace. That hugest mountain is indeed the centre from which all the vales irregularly diverge; the whole circumjacent region may be traversed in a week; and though no other district of equal extent contains such variety of the sublime and beautiful, yet the beautiful is so prevalent that we feel its presence, even in places where it is overpowered; and on leaving “The Lakes,” our imagination is haunted and possessed with images, not of dread, but of delight.

We have sometimes been asked, whether the north of England or the Highlands of Scotland should be visited first; but, simple as the question seems, it is really one which it is impossible to answer, though we suspect it would equally puzzle Scotchman or Englishman to give a sufficient reason for his wishing to see any part of any other country, before he had seen what was best worth seeing in his own. His own country ought to be, and generally is, dearest to every man. There, if nothing forbid, he should not only begin his study of nature, but continue his education in her school, wherever it may happen to be situated, till he has taken his first degree. We believe that the love of nature is strong in the hearts of the inhabitants of our island. And how wide and profound may that knowledge of nature be, which the loving heart has acquired, without having studied her anywhere but within the Four Seas! The impulses that make us desire to widen the circle of our observation, are all impulses of delight and love; and it would be strange indeed, did they not move us, first of all, towards whatever is most beautiful belonging to our own land. Were it otherwise, it would seem as if the heart were faithless to the home affections, out of which, in their strength, spring all others that are good; and it is essential, we do not doubt, to the full growth of the love of country, that we should all have our earliest imaginative delights associated with our native soil. Such associations will for ever keep it loveliest to our eyes; nor is it possible that we can ever as perfectly understand the character of any other; but we can afterwards transfer and[xvi] transfuse our feelings in imagination kindled by our own will; and the beauty, born before our eyes, among the banks and braes of our childhood, and then believed to be but there, and nothing like it anywhere else in all the world, becomes a golden light, “whose home is everywhere,” which if we do not darken it, will shine unshadowed in the dreariest places, till “the desert blossom like the rose.”

For our own parts, before we beheld one of “the beautiful fields of England,” we had walked all Scotland thorough, and had seen many a secret place, which now, in the confusion of our crowded memory, seem often to shift their uncertain ground; but still, wherever they glimmeringly re-appear, invested with the same heavenly light in which long ago they took possession of our soul. And now that we are almost as familiar with the fair sister-land, and love her almost as well as Scotland’s self, not all the charms in which she is arrayed—and they are at once graceful and glorious—have ever for a day withdrawn our deeper dreams from the regions where,

unaccompanied but by our own shadow in the wilderness, we first heard the belling of the red deer and the eagle’s cry.

In those days there was some difficulty, if not a little danger, in getting in among some of the noblest regions of our Alps. They could not be traversed without strong personal exertion; and a solitary pedestrian excursion through the Grampians was seldom achieved without a few incidents that might almost have been called adventures. It is very different now; yet the Genius Loci, though tamed, is not subdued; and they who would become acquainted with the heart of the Highlands, will have need of some endurance still, and must care nothing about the condition of earth or sky. Formerly, it was not possible to survey more than a district or division in a single season, except to those unenviable persons who had no other pursuit but that of amusement, and waged a weary war with time. The industrious dwellers in cities, who sought these solitudes for a while to relieve their hearts from worldly anxieties, and gratify that love of nature which is inextinguishable in every bosom that in youth has beat with its noble inspirations, were contented with a week or two of such intercommunion with the spirit of the mountains, and thus continued to extend their acquaintance with the glorious wildernesses, visit after visit, for years. Now the whole Highlands, western and northern, may be commanded in a month. Not that any one who knows what they are will imagine that they can be exhausted in a lifetime. The man does not live who knows all worth knowing there; and were they who made the trigonometrical survey to be questioned on their experiences, they would be found ignorant of thousands of sights, any one of which would be worth a journey for its own sake. But now steam has bridged the Great Glen, and connected the two seas. Salt water lochs the most remote and inaccessible, it has brought within reach of a summer day’s voyage. In a week a joyous company can gather all the mainland shores, leaving not one magnificent bay uncircled; and, having rounded St Kilda and

and heard the pealing anthem of waves in the cave-cathedral of Staffa, may bless the bells of St Mungo’s tolling on the first Sabbath. Thousands and tens of thousands, who but for those smoking sea-horses, had never been beyond view of the city spires, have seen sights which, though passing by almost like dreams, are not like dreams forgotten, but revive of themselves in memory and imagination; and, when the heart is weary with the work of the hand, quicken its pulses with a sudden pleasure that is felt like a renovation of youth.

All through the interior, too, how many hundreds of miles of roads now intersect regions not long ago deemed impracticable!—firm on the fen, in safety flung across the chasm—and winding smoothly amidst shatterings of rocks, round the huge mountain bases, and down the glens once felt as if interminable, now travelled almost with the speed of the raven’s wing!

In the Highlands now, there is no terra incognita. But there are many places yet well worth seeing, which it is not easy for all men[xvii] to find, and to which every man must be his own guide. It is somewhat of a selfish feeling, indeed, but the pride is not a mean one, with which the solitary pedestrian sits down to contemplate some strange, or wild, or savage scene, or some view of surpassing sweetness and serenity, so far removed from the track of men, that he can well believe for a time that his eyes have been the first to behold it, and that for them alone it has now become a visible revelation. The memory of such places is sometimes kept as a secret which we would not communicate but to a congenial friend. They are hallowed by those mysterious “thoughts that, like phantoms, trackless come and go;” no words can tell another how to find his way thither; and were we ourselves to seek to return, we should have to trust to some consciousness mysterious as the instinct of a bird that carries it through the blind night to the place of its desire.

It is well to have in our mind the conception of a route; but without being utterly departed from—nay, without ceasing to control us within certain bounds—it admits of almost any degrees of deviation. We have known persons apparently travelling for pleasure who were afraid to turn a few miles to the right or the left, for fear of subjecting themselves to the reproach of their own conscience for infirmity of purpose. They had “chalked out a route,” and acted as if they had sworn a solemn oath to follow it. This is to be a slave among the boundless dominions of nature, where all are free. As the wind bloweth wherever it listeth, so move the moods of men’s minds, when there is nought to shackle them, and when the burden of their cares has been dropt, that for a while they may walk on air, and feel that they too have wings.

The voice was our own—and yet though but a whisper from the heart, it seemed to come from the front of yon distant precipice—sweet and wild as an echo.

On rising at dawn in the shieling, why think, much less determine, where at night we are to lay down our head? Let this be our thought:

If we obey any powers external to our own minds, let them be the powers of Nature—the rains, the winds, the atmosphere, sun, moon and stars. We must keep a look out—

that next day we may cross the red rivers by bridges, not by fords; and if they roll along unbridged, that we may set our face to the mountain, and wind our way round his shoulder by sheep-tracks, unwet with the heather, till we behold some great strath, which we had not visited but for that storm, with its dark blue river streaked with golden light,—for its source is in a loch among the Eastern Range; and there, during the silent hours, heather, bracken, and greensward rejoiced in the trembling dews.

There is no such climate for all kinds of beauty and grandeur as the climate of the Highlands. Here and there you meet with an old shepherd or herdsman, who has beguiled himself into a belief, in spite of many a night’s unforeseen imprisonment in the mists, that he can presage its changes from fair to foul, and can tell the hour when the long-threatening thunder will begin to mutter. The weather-wise have often perished in their plaids. Yet among a thousand uncertain symptoms, there are a few certain, which the ranger will do well to study, and he will often exult on the mountain to feel that “knowledge is power.” Many a glorious hour has been won from the tempest by him before whose instructed eye—beyond the gloom that wide around blackened all the purple heather—“far off its coming shone.” Leagues of continuous magnificence have gradually unveiled themselves on either side to him, as he has slowly paced, midway between, along the banks of the River of Waterfalls; having been assured by the light struggling through the mist, that it would not be long till there was a break-up of all that ghastly dreariment, and that the sun would call on him to come forth from his cave of shelter, and behold in all its pride the Glen affronting the Sea.

[xviii]

Some Tourists—as they call themselves—are provided with map and compass; and we hope they find them of avail in extremities, though we fear few such understand their use. No map can tell—except very vaguely—how the aspect of the localities, looked at on its lines, is likely to be affected by sunrise, meridian, or sunset. Yet, true it is, that every region has its own happy hours, which the fortunate often find unawares, and know them at once to be so the moment they lift up their eyes. At such times, while “our hearts rejoice in Nature’s joy,” we feel the presence of a spirit that brings out the essential character of the place, be it of beauty or of grandeur. Harmonious as music is then the composition of colours and of forms. It becomes a perfect picture in memory, more and more idealised by imagination, every moment the veil is withdrawn before it; its aërial lineaments never fade; yet they too, though their being be but in the soul, are mellowed by the touch of time—and every glimpse of such a vision, the longer we live, and the more we suffer, seems suffused with a mournful light, as if seen through tears.

It would serve no good purpose, supposing we had the power, to analyse the composition of that scenery, which in the aggregate so moves even the most sluggish faculties, as to make “the dullest wight a poet.” It rises before the mind in imagination, as it does before the eyes in nature; and we can no more speak of it than look at it, but as a whole. We can indeed fix our mental or our visual gaze on scene after scene to the exclusion of all beside, and picture it even in words that shall be more than shadows. But how shall any succession of such pictures, however clear and complete, give an idea of that picture which comprehends them all, and infinite as are its manifestations, nevertheless is imbued with one spirit?

Try to forget that in the Highlands there are any Lochs. Then the sole power is that of the Mountains. We speak of a sea of mountains; but that image has never more than momentary possession of us, because, but for a moment, in nature it has no truth. Tumultuary movements envelope them; but they themselves are for ever steadfast and for ever still. Their power is that of an enduring calm no storms can disturb—and is often felt to be more majestical, the more furious are the storms. As the tempest-driven clouds are franticly hurrying to and fro, how serene the summits in the sky! Or if they be hidden, how peaceful the glimpses of some great mountain’s breast! They disregard the hurricane that goes crashing through their old woods; the cloud-thunder disturbs not them any more than that of their own cataracts, and the lightnings play for their pastime. All minds under any excitation more or less personify mountains. When much moved, that natural process affects all our feelings, as the language of passion awakened by such objects vividly declares; and then we do assuredly conceive of mountains as indued with life—however dim and vague the conception may be—and feel their character in their very names. Utterly strip our ideas of them of all that is attached to them as impersonations, and their power is gone. But while we are creatures of imagination as well as of reason, will those monarchs remain invested with the purple and seated on thrones.

In such imaginative moods as these must every one be, far more frequently than he is conscious of, and in far higher degrees, who, with a cultivated mind and a heart open to the influences of nature, finds himself, it matters not whether for the first or the hundredth time, in the Highlands. We fancy the Neophyte wandering, all by himself, on the “longest day;” rejoicing to think that the light will not fail him, when at last the sun must go down, for that a starry gloaming will continue its gentle reign till morn. He thinks but of what he sees, and that is—the mountains. All memories of any other world but that which encloses him with its still sublimities, are not excluded merely, but obliterated: his whole being is there! And now he stands on table-land, and with his eyes sweeps the horizon, bewildered for a while, for it seems chaos all. But soon the mighty masses begin arranging themselves into order; the confusion insensibly subsides as he comprehends more and more of their magnificent combinations; he discovers centres round which are associated altitudes towering afar off; and finally, he[xix] feels, and blesses himself on his felicity, that his good genius has placed him on the very centre of those wondrous assemblages altogether, from which alone he could command an empire of realities, more glorious far than was ever empire of dreams.

It is a cloudy, but not a stormy day; the clouds occupy but portions of the sky,—and are they all in slow motion together, or are they all at rest? Huge shadows stalking along the earth, tell that there are changes going on in heaven; but to the upward gaze, all seems hanging there in the same repose; and with the same soft illumination the sun to continue shining, a concentration rather than an orb of light. All above is beautiful, and the clouds themselves are like celestial mountains; but the eye forsakes them, though it sees them still, and more quietly now it moves along the pageantry below that endures for ever—till chained on a sudden by that range of cliffs. ’Tis along them that the giant shadows are stalking—but now they have passed by—and the long line of precipice seems to come forward in the light. To look down from the brink might be terrible—to look up from the base would be sublime—but fronting the eye thus, horrid though it be, the sight is most beautiful;—for weather-stains, and mosses, and lichens, and flowering-plants—conspicuous most the broom and the heather—and shrubs that, among their leaves of light, have no need of flowers—and hollies, and birks, and hazels, and many a slender tree besides with pensile tresses, besprinkle all the cliffs, that in no gloom could ever lose their lustre; but now the day though not bright is fair, and brings out the whole beauty of the precipice—call it the hanging garden of the wilderness.

The Highlands have been said to be a gloomy region, and worse gloom than theirs might well be borne, if not unfrequently illumined with such sights as these; but that is not the character of the mountains, though the purple light in which, for usual, they are so richly steeped, is often for a season tamed, or for a short while extinguished, while a strange night-like day lets fall over them all a something like a shroud. Such days we have seen—but now in fancy we are with the pilgrim, and see preparation making for a sunset. It is drawing towards evening, and the clouds that have all this time been moving, though we knew it not, have assuredly settled now, and taken up their rest. The sun has gone down, and all that unspeakable glory has left the sky. Evening has come and gone without our knowing that she had been here; but there is no gloom on any place in the whole of this vast wilderness, and the mountains, as they wax dimmer and dimmer, look as if they were surrendering themselves to a repose like sleep. Day had no voice here audible to human ear—but night is murmuring—and gentle though the murmur be, it filleth the great void, and we imagine that ever and anon it awakens echoes. And now it is darker than we thought, for lo! one soft-burning star! And we see that there are many stars; but not theirs the light that begins again to reveal object after object as gradually as they had disappeared; the moon is about to rise—is rising—has arisen—has taken her place high in heaven; and as the glorious world again expands around us, faintly tinged, clearly illumined, softly shadowed, and deeply begloomed, we say within our hearts,

There are many such table-lands as the one we have now been imagining, and it requires but a slight acquaintance with the country to conjecture rightly where they lie. Independently of the panoramas they display, they are in themselves always impressive; perhaps a bare level that shows but bleached bent, and scatterings of stones, with here and there an unaccountable rock; or hundreds of fairy greensward knolls, fringed with tiny forests of fern that have almost displaced the heather; or a wild withered moor or moss intersected with pits dug not by men’s hands; and, strange to see! a huge log lying half exposed, and as if blackened by fire. High as such places are, on one of them a young gorcock was stricken down by a hawk close to our feet. Indeed, hawks seem to haunt such places, and we have rarely crossed one of them, without either seeing the creature’s stealthy flight, or hearing, whether he be alarmed or preying, his ever-angry cry.

From a few such stations, you get an insight[xx] into the configuration of the whole Western Highlands. By the dip of the mountains, you discover at a glance all the openings in the panorama around you into other regions. Follow your fancies fearlessly wherever they may lead; and if the blue aërial haze that hangs over a pass winding eastward, tempt you from your line of march due north, forthwith descend in that direction, and haply an omen will confirm you—an eagle rising on the left, and sailing away before you into that very spot of sky.

No man, however well read, should travel by book. In books you find descriptions, and often good ones, of the most celebrated scenes, but seldom a word about the vast tracts between; and it would seem as if many Tourists had used their eyes only in those places where they had been told by common fame there was something greatly to admire. Travel in the faith, that go where you will, the cravings of your heart will be satisfied, and you will find it so, if you be a true lover of nature. You hope to be inspired by her spirit, that you may read aright her works. But such inspiration comes not from one object or another, however great or fair, but from the whole “mighty world of eye and ear,” and it must be supported continuously, or it perishes. You may see a thousand sights never before seen by human eye, at every step you take, wherever be your path; for no steps but yours have ever walked along that same level; and moreover, never on the same spot twice rested the same lights or shadows. Then there may be something in the air, and more in your own heart, that invests every ordinary object with extraordinary beauty; old images affect you with a new delight; a grandeur grows upon your eyes in the undulations of the simplest hills; and you feel there is sublimity in the common skies. It is thus that all the stores of imagery are insensibly gathered, with which the minds of men are filled, who from youth have communed with Nature. And it is thus that all those feelings have flowed into their hearts by which that imagery is sanctified; and these are the poets.

It is in this way that we all become familiar with the Mountains. Far more than we were aware of have we trusted to the strong spirit of delight within us, to prompt and to guide. And in such a country as the Highlands, thus led, we cannot err. Therefore, if your desire be for the summits, set your face thitherwards, and wind a way of your own, still ascending and ascending, along some vast brow, that seems almost a whole day’s journey, and where it is lost from your sight, not to end, but to go sweeping round, with undiminished grandeur, into another region. You are not yet half-way up the mountain, but you care not for the summit now; for you find yourself among a number of green knolls—all of them sprinkled, and some of them crowned, with trees—as large almost as our lowland hills—surrounded close to the brink with the purple heather—and without impairing the majesty of the immense expanse, embuing it with pastoral and sylvan beauty;—and there, lying in a small forest glade of the lady-fern, ambitious no longer of a throne on Benlomond or Bennevis, you dream away the still hours till sunset, yet then have no reason to weep that you have lost a day.

But the best way to view the mountains is to trace the Glens. To find out the glens you must often scale the shoulders of mountains; and in such journeys of discovery, you have for ever going on before your eyes glorious transfigurations. Sometimes for a whole day one mighty mass lowers before you unchanged; look at it after the interval of hours, and still the giant is one and the same. It rules the region, subjecting all other altitudes to its sway, though many of them range away to a great distance; and at sunset retains its supremacy, blazing almost like a volcano with fiery clouds. Your line of journey lies, perhaps, some two thousand feet above the level of the sea, and seldom dips down to one thousand; and these are the heights from which all above and all below you look most magnificent, for both regions have their full power over you—the unscaleable cliffs, the unfathomable abysses—and you know not which is the more sublime. The sublimity indeed is one. It is then that you may do well to ascend to the very mountain top. For it may happen to be one of those heavenly days indeed, when the whole Highlands seem to be reposing in the cloudless sky.

[xxi]

But we were about to speak of the Glens. And some of them are best entered by such descents as these—perhaps at their very head—where all at once you are in another world, how still, how gloomy, how profound! An hour ago and the eye of the eagle had not wider command of earth, sea, and sky than yours—almost blinded now by the superincumbent precipices that imprison you, and seem to shut you out from life.

Or you may enter some great glen from the foot, where it widens into vale, or strath—and there are many such—and some into which you can sail up an arm of the sea. For a while it partakes of the cultivated beauty of the lowlands, and glen and vale seem almost one and the same; but gradually it undergoes a strange wild change of character, and in a few miles that similitude is lost. There is little or no arable ground here; but the pasture is rich on the unenclosed plain—and here and there are enclosures near the few houses or huts standing, some of them in the middle of the glen, quite exposed, on eminences above reach of the floods—some more happily placed on the edge of the coppices, that sprinkle the steep sides of the hills, yet barely mountains. But mountains they soon become; and leaving behind you those few barren habitations, you see before you a wide black moor. Beautiful hitherto had been the river, for a river you had inclined to think it, long after it had narrowed into a stream, with many a waterfall, and in one chasm a cataract. But the torrent now has a wild mountain-cry, and though there is still beauty on its banks, they are bare of all trees, now swelling into multitudes of low green knolls among the heather, now composed but of heather and rocks. Through the very middle of the black moor it flows, yet are its waters clear, for all is not moss, and it seems to wind its way where there is nothing to pollute its purity, or tame its lustre. ’Tis a solitary scene, but still sweet; the mountains are of great magnitude, but they are not precipitous; vast herds of cattle are browsing there, on heights from which fire has cleared the heather, and wide ranges of greensward upon the lofty gloom seem to lie in perpetual light.

The moor is crossed, and you prepare to scale the mountain in front, for you imagine the torrent by your side flows from a tarn in yonder cove, and forms that series of waterfalls. You have been all along well pleased with the glen, and here at the head, though there is a want of cliffs of the highest class, you feel nevertheless that it has a character of grandeur. Looking westward, you are astounded to see them ranging away on either side of another reach of the glen, terrific in their height, but in their formation beautiful, for like the walls of some vast temple they stand, roofed with sky. Yet are they but as a portal or gateway of the glen. For entering in with awe, that deepens as you advance almost into dread, you behold beyond mountains that carry their cliffs up into the clouds, seamed with chasms, and hollowed out into coves, where night dwells visibly by the side of day; and still the glen seems winding on beneath a purple light, that almost looks like gloom; such vast forms and such prodigious colours, and such utter stillness, become oppressive to your very life, and you wish that some human being were by, to relieve by his mere presence the insupportable weight of such a solitude.

But we should never have done were we to attempt to sketch, however slightly, the character of all the different kinds of glens. Some are sublime in their prodigious depth and vast extent, and would be felt to be so, even were the mountains that enclose them of no great majesty; but these are all of the highest order, and sometimes are seen from below to the very cairns on their summits. Now we walk along a reach, between astonishing ranges of cliffs, among large heaps of rocks—not a tree—scarcely a shrub—no herbage—the very heather blasted—all lifelessness and desolation. The glen gradually grows less and less horrid, and though its sides are seamed with clefts and chasms, in the gloom there are places for the sunshine, and there is felt to be even beauty in the repose. Descends suddenly on either side a steep slope of hanging wood, and we find ourselves among verdant mounds,[xxii] and knolls, and waterfalls. We come then into what seems of old to have been a forest. Here and there a stately pine survives, but the rest are all skeletons; and now the glen widens, and widens, yet ceases not to be profound, for several high mountains enclose a plain on which armies might encamp, and castellated clouds hang round the heights of the glorious amphitheatre, while the sky-roof is clear, and, as if in its centre, the refulgent sun. ’Tis the plain called “The Meeting of the Glens.” From the east and the west, the north and the south, they come like rivers into the sea.

Other glens there are as long, but not so profound, nor so grandly composed; yet they too conduct us nobly in among the mountains, and up their sides, and on even to their very summits. Such are the glens of Athole, in the neighbourhood of Ben-y-gloe. From them the heather is not wholly banished, and the fire has left a green light without quenching the purple colour native to the hills. We think that we almost remember the time when those glens were in many places sprinkled with huts, and all animated with human life. Now they are solitary; and you may walk from sunrise till sunset without seeing a single soul. For a hundred thousand acres have there been changed into a forest, for sake of the pastime, indeed, which was dear of old to chieftains and kings. Vast herds of red deer are there, for they herd in thousands; yet may you wander for days over the boundless waste, nor once be startled by one stag bounding by. Yet may a herd, a thousand strong, be drawn up, as in battle array, on the cliffs above your head. For they will long stand motionless, at gaze, when danger is in the wind; and then their antlers to unpractised eyes seem but boughs grotesque, or are invisible; and when all at once, with one accord, at signal from the stag, whom they obey, they wheel off towards the corries, you think it but thunder, and look up to the clouds. Fortunate if you see such a sight once in your life. Once only have we seen it; and it was, of a sudden, all by ourselves,

Almost within rifle-shot, the herd occupied a position, high up indeed, but below several ridges of rocks, running parallel for a long distance, with slopes between of sward and heather. Standing still, they seemed to extend about a quarter of a mile; and, as with a loud clattering of hoofs and antlers they took more open order, the line at least doubled its length, and the whole mountain side seemed alive. They might not be going at full speed, but the pace was equal to that of any charge of cavalry; and once and again the flight passed before us, till it overcame the ridges, and then deploying round the shoulder of the mountain, disappeared, without dust or noise, into the blue light of another glen.

We question if there be in the Highlands any one glen comparable with Borrowdale in Cumberland. But there are several that approach it, in that combination of beauty and grandeur, which perhaps no other scene equals in all the world. The “Gorge” of that Dale exhibits the finest imaginable assemblage of rocks and rocky hills, all wildly wooded; beyond them, yet before we have entered into the Dale, the Pass widens, with noble cliffs on one side, and on the other a sylvan stream, not without its abysses; and we see before us some lovely hills, on which—

yet leaves, with lines defined by the steeps that defy the ploughshare, copses and groves; and thus we are brought into the Dale itself, and soon have a vision of the whole—green and golden fields—for though most are in pasture, almost all seem arable—sprinkled with fine single trees, and lying in flats and levels, or swelling into mounds and knolls, and all diversified with every kind of woods; single cottages, with their out-buildings, standing everywhere they should stand, and coloured like the rocks from which in some lights they are hardly to be distinguished—strong-roofed and undilapidated, though many of them very old; villages, apart from one another a mile—and there are three—yet on their sites, distant and different in much though they be, all associated together by the same spirit of beauty that pervades all the Dale. Half way up, and in some places more, the enclosing hills and even mountains are sylvan indeed, and though[xxiii] there be a few inoffensive aliens, they are all adorned with their native trees. The mountains are not so high as in our Highlands, but they are very majestic; and the passes over into Langdale, and Wastdalehead, and Buttermere, are magnificent, and show precipices in which the Golden Eagle himself might rejoice.

No—there is no glen in all the Highlands comparable with Borrowdale. Yet we know of some that are felt to be kindred places, and their beauty, though less, almost as much affects us, because though contending, as it were, with the darker spirit of the mountain, it is not overcome, but prevails; and their beauty will increase with years. For while the rocks continue to frown aloft for ever, and the cliffs to range along the corries, unbroken by trees, which there the tempests will not suffer to rise, the woods and groves below, preserved from the axe, for sake of their needful shelter, shall become statelier till the birch equal the pine; reclaimed from the waste, shall many a fresh field recline among the heather, tempering the gloom; and houses arise where now there are but huts, and every house have its garden:—such changes are now going on, and we have been glad to observe their progress, even though sometimes they had removed, or were removing, objects dear from old associations, and which, had it been possible, but it was not, we should have loved to see preserved.

And one word on those sweet pastoral seclusions into which one often drops unexpectedly, it may be at the close of day, and finds a night’s lodging in the lonely hut. Yet they lie, sometimes, embosomed, in their own green hills, among the most rugged mountains, and even among the wildest moors. They have no features by which you can describe them: it is their serenity that charms you, and their cheerful peace; perhaps it is wrong to call them glens, and they are but dells. Yet one thinks of a dell as deep, however small it may be; but these are not deep, for the hills slope down gently upon them, and leave room perhaps between for a little shallow loch. Often they have not any visible water at all, only a few springs and rivulets, and you wonder to see them so very green; there is no herbage like theirs; and to such spots of old, and sometimes yet, the kine are led in summer, and there the lonely family live in their shieling till the harvest moon.

We have all along used the same word, and called the places we have spoken of—glens. A fine observer—the editor of Gilpin’s Forest Scenery—has said: “The gradation from extreme width downwards should be thus arranged—strath, vale, dale, valley, glen, dell, ravine, chasm. In the strath, vale, and dale, we may expect to find the large, majestic, gently flowing river, or even the deeper or smaller lake. In the glen, if the river be large, it flows more rapidly, and with greater variety. In the dell, the stream is smaller. In the ravine, we find the mountain torrent and the waterfall. In the chasm, we find the roaring cataract, or the rill, bursting from its haunted fountain. The chasm discharges its small tribute into the ravine, while the ravine is tributary to the dell, and thence to the glen; and the glen to the dale.”

These distinctions are admirably expressed, and perfectly true to nature; yet we doubt if it would be possible to preserve them in describing a country, and assuredly they are very often indeed confused by common use in the naming of places. We have said nothing about straths—nor shall we try to describe one—but suggest to your own imagination as specimens, Strath-Spey, Strath-Tay, Strath-Earn. The dominion claimed by each of those rivers, within the mountain ranges that environ their courses, is a strath; and three noble straths they are, from source to sea.

And now we are brought to speak of the Highland rivers, streams, and torrents; but we shall let them rush or flow, murmur or thunder, in your own ears, for you cannot fail to imagine what the waters must be in a land of such glens, and such mountains. The chief rivers possess all the attributes essential to greatness—width—depth—clearness—rapidity—in one word, power. And some of them have long courses—rising in the central heights, and winding round many a huge projection, against which in flood we have seen them dashing like the sea. Highland droughts are not of long duration; the supplies are seldom withheld at once by all the tributaries; and one wild night among the mountains converts[xxiv] a calm into a commotion—the many-murmuring voice into one roar. In flood they are terrible to look at; and every whirlpool seems a place of torment. Winds can make a mighty noise in swinging woods, but there is something to our ears more appalling in that of the fall of waters. Let them be united—and add thunder from the clouds—and we have heard in the Highlands all three in one—and the auditor need not care that he has never stood by Niagara. But when “though not o’er-flowing full,” a Highland river is in perfection; far better do we love to see and hear him rejoicing than raging; his attributes appear more his own in calm and majestic manifestations, and as he glides or rolls on, without any disturbance, we behold in him an image at once of power and peace.

Of rivers—comparatively speaking, of the second and third order—the Highlands are full—and on some of them the sylvan scenery is beyond compare. No need there to go hunting the waterfalls. Hundreds of them—some tiny indeed, but others tall—are for ever dinning in the woods; yet, at a distance from the cataract, how sweet and quiet is the sound! It hinders you not from listening to the cushat’s voice; clear amidst the mellow murmur comes the bleating from the mountain; and all other sound ceases, as you hearken in the sky to the hark of the eagle—rare indeed anywhere, but sometimes to be heard as you thread the “glimmer or the gloom” of the umbrage overhanging the Garry or the Tummel—for he used to build in the cliffs of Ben-Brackie, and if he has shifted his eyrie, a few minutes’ waftage will bear him to Cairn-Gower.

In speaking of the glens, we but alluded to the rivers or streams, and some of them, indeed, even the great ones, have but rivulets; while in the greatest, the waters often flow on without a single tree, shadowed but by rocks and clouds. Wade them, and you find they are larger than they seem to be; for looked at along the bottom of those profound hollows, they are but mere slips of sinuous light in the sunshine, and in the gloom you see them not at all. We do not remember any very impressive glen, without a stream, that would not suffer some diminution of its power by our fancying it to have one; we may not be aware, at the time, that the conformation of the glen prevents its having any waterflow, if but we feel its character aright, that want is among the causes of our feeling; just as there are some scenes of which the beauty would not be so touching were there a single tree.

Thousands and tens of thousands there are of nameless perennial torrents, and “in number without number numberless” those that seldom live a week—perhaps not a day. Up among the loftiest regions you hear nothing, even when they are all aflow; yet, there is music in the sight, and the thought of the “general dance and minstrelsy” enlivens the air, where no insect hums. As on your descent you come within hearing of the “liquid lapses,” your heart leaps within you, so merrily do they sing; the first torrent-rill you meet with you take for your guide, and it leads you perhaps into some fairy dell, where it wantons awhile in waterfalls, and then, gliding along a little dale of its own with “banks of green bracken,” finishes its short course in a stream—one of many that meet and mingle before the current takes the name of river, which in a mile or less becomes a small woodland lake. There are many such of rememberable beauty; living lakes indeed, for they are but pausings of expanded rivers, which again soon pursue their way, and the water-lilies have ever a gentle motion there as if touched by a tide.

It used, not very long ago, to be pretty generally believed by our southern brethren, that there were few trees in the Lowlands of Scotland, and none at all in the Highlands. They had an obscure notion that trees either could not or would not grow in such a soil and climate—cold and bleak enough at times and places, heaven knows—yet not altogether unproductive of diverse stately plants. They know better now; nor were we ever angry with their ignorance, which was nothing more than what was to be expected in persons living perpetually at home so far remote. They rejoice now to visit, and sojourn, and travel here among us, foreigners and a foreign land no more; and we rejoice to see and receive them not as strangers, but friends, and are proud to know they are well pleased to behold our habitation. They do us and our country[xxv] justice now, and we have sometimes thought even more than justice; for they are lost in admiration of our cities—above all, of Edinburgh—and speak with such raptures of our scenery, that they would appear to prefer it even to their own. They are charmed with our bare green hills, with our shaggy brown mountains they are astonished, our lochs are their delight, our woods their wonder, and they hold up their hands and clap them at our cliffs. This is generous, for we are not blind to the fact of England being the most beautiful land on all the earth. What are our woods to hers! To hers, what are our single trees! We have no such glorious standards to show as her indomitable and everlasting oaks. She is all over sylvan—Scotland but here and there; look on England from any point in any place, and you see she is rich, from almost any point in any place in Scotland, and you feel that comparatively she is poor. Yet our Lowlands have long been beautifying themselves into a resemblance of hers; as for our Highlands, though many changes have been going on there too, and most we believe for good, they are in their great features, and in their spirit unalterable by art, stamped and inspired by enduring Nature.

We have spoken, slightly, of the sylvan scenery of the Highlands. In Perthshire, especially, it is of rare and extraordinary beauty, and we are always glad to hear of Englishmen travelling up the Tay and the Earn. We desire that eyes familiar with all that is umbrageous should receive their first impressions of our Scottish trees at Duneira and Dunkeld. Nor will those impressions be weakened as they proceed towards Blair Athole. In that famous Pass they will feel the power possessed by the sweet wild monotony of the universal birch woods—broken but by grey crags in every shape—grotesque, fantastical, majestic, magnificent, and sublime—on the many-ridged mountains, that are loth to lose the green light of their beloved forests, retain it as long as they can, and on the masses of living lustre seem to look down with pride from their skies.

An English forest, meaning thereby any one wide continuous scene of all kinds of old English trees, with glades of pasture, and it may be of heath between, with dells dipping down into the gloom, and hillocks undulating in the light—ravines and chasms too, rills, and rivulets, and a haunted stream, and not without some melancholy old ruins, and here and there a cheerful cottage that feels not the touch of time—such a forest there is not, and hardly can be imagined to be in Scotland. But in the Highlands, there once were, and are still, other forests of quite a different character, and of equal grandeur. In his Forest Scenery, Gilpin shows that he understood it well; all the knowledge, which as a stranger, almost of necessity he wanted, Lauder has supplied in his annotations; and the book should now be in the hands of every one who cares about the woods. “The English forest,” says Gilpin, “is commonly composed of woodland views, interspersed with extensive heaths and lawns. Its trees are oak and beech, whose lively green corresponds better than the gloomy pine with the nature of the scene, which seldom assumes the dignity of a mountain one, but generally exhibits a cheerful landscape. It aspires, indeed, to grandeur; but its grandeur does not depend, like that of the Scottish forest, on the sublimity of the objects, but on the vastness of the whole—the extent of its woods and the wildness of its plains. In its inhabitants also the English forest differs from the Scottish; instead of the stag and the roebuck, it is frequented by cattle and fallow-deer, and exchanges the scream of the eagle and the falcon for the crowing of pheasants and the melody of the nightingale. The Scottish forest, no doubt, is the sublimer scene, and speaks to the imagination in a loftier language than the English forest can reach. The latter, indeed, often rouses the imagination, but seldom in so great a degree, being generally content with captivating the eye. The scenery, too, of the Scottish forest is better calculated to last through ages than that of the English. The woods of both are almost destroyed. But while the English forest hath lost all its beauty with its oaks, and becomes only a desolate waste, the rocks and the mountains, the lakes and the torrents, of the Scottish forest make it still an interesting scene.”

The tree of the Highlands is the pine.[xxvi] There are Scotch firs, indeed, well worth looking at, in the Lowlands, and in England; but to learn their true character you must see them in the glen, among rocks, by the river side, and on the mountain. “We, for our parts,” says Lauder, very finely, “confess that when we have seen it towering in full majesty in the midst of some appropriate Highland scene, and sending its limbs abroad with all unrestrained freedom of a hardy mountaineer, as if it claimed dominion over the savage region round it, we have looked upon it as a very sublime object. People who have not seen it in native climate and soil, and who judge of it from the wretched abortions which are swaddled and suffocated in English plantations, among dark, heavy, and eternally wet clays, may well be called a wretched tree; but when its foot is among its own Highland heather, and when it stands freely in its native knoll of dry gravel, or thinly-covered rock, over which its roots wander afar in the wildest reticulation, whilst its tall, furrowed, and often gracefully-sweeping red and grey trunk, of enormous circumference, rears aloft its high umbrageous canopy, then would the greatest sceptic on this point be compelled to prostrate his mind before it with a veneration which perhaps was never before excited in him by any other tree.” The colour of the pine has been objected to as murky, and murky it often is, or seems to be; and so then is the colour of the heather, and of the river, and of the loch, and of the sky itself thunder-laden, and murkiest of all are the clouds. But a stream of sunshine is let loose, and the gloom is confounded with glory; over all that night-like reign the jocund day goes dancing, and the forest revels in green or in golden light. Thousands and tens of thousands of trees are there; and as you gaze upon the whole mighty array, you fear lest it might break the spell, to fix your gaze on any one single tree. But there are trees there that will force you to look on themselves alone, and they grow before your eyes into the kings of the forest. Straight stand their stems in the sunshine, and you feel that as straight have they stood in the storm. As yet you look not up, for your heart is awed, and you see but the stately columns reddening away into the gloom. But all the while you feel the power of the umbrage aloft, and when thitherwards you lift your eyes, what a roof to such a cathedral! A cone drops at your feet—nor other sound nor other stir—but afar off you think you hear a cataract. Inaudible your footsteps on the soft yellow floor, composed of the autumnal sheddings of countless years. Then it is true that you can indeed hear the beating of your own heart; you fear, but know not what you fear; and being the only living creature there, you are impressed with a thought of death. But soon to that severe silence you are more than reconciled; the solitude, without ceasing to be sublime, is felt to be solemn and not awful, and ere long, utter as it is, serene. Seen from afar, the forest was one black mass; but as you advance, it opens up into spacious glades, beautiful as gardens, with appropriate trees of gentler tribes, and ground-flowering in the sun. But there is no murmur of bee—no song of bird. In the air a thin whisper of insects—intermittent—and wafted quite away by a breath. For we are now in the very centre of the forest, and even the cushat haunts not here. Hither the red deer may come—but not now—for at this season they love the hill. To such places the stricken stag might steal to lie down and die.

And thus for hours may you be lost in the forest, nor all the while have wasted one thought on the outer world, till with no other warning but an uncertain glimmer and a strange noise, you all at once issue forth into the open day, and are standing on the brink of a precipice above a flood. It comes tumbling down with a succession of falls, in a mile-long course, right opposite your stance—rocks, cliffs, and trees, all the way up on either side, majestically retiring back to afford ample channel, and showing an unobstructed vista, closed up by the purple mountain, that seems to send forth the river from a cavern in its breast. ’Tis the Glen of Pines. Nor ash nor oak is suffered to intrude on their dominion. Since the earthquake first shattered it out, this great chasm, with all its chasms, has been held by one race of trees. No other seed could there spring to life; for from the rocks has all soil, ages ago, been washed and swept by the tempests. But there they stand[xxvii] with glossy boles, spreading arms, and glittering crest; and those two by themselves on the summit, known all over Badenoch as “the Giants”—“their statures reach the sky.”

We have been indulging in a dream of old. Before our day the immemorial gloom of Glenmore had perished, and it ceased to be a forest. But there bordered on it another region of night or twilight, and in its vast depths we first felt the sublimity of lonesome fear. Rothiemurchus! The very word blackens before our eyes with necromantic characters—again we plunge into its gulphs desirous of what we dread—again “in pleasure high and turbulent,” we climb the cliffs of Cairngorm.

Would you wish to know what is now the look of Glenmore? One now dead and gone—a man of wayward temper, but of genius—shall tell you—and think not the picture exaggerated—for you would not, if you were there. “It is the wreck of the ancient forest which arrests all the attention, and which renders Glenmore a melancholy—more than a melancholy—a terrific spectacle. Trees of enormous height, which have escaped alike the axe and the tempest, are still standing, stripped by the winds even of the bark, and like gigantic skeletons, throwing far and wide their white and bleached bones to the storms and rains of heaven; while others, broken by the violence of the gales, lift up their split and fractured trunks in a thousand shapes of resistance and of destruction, or still display some knotted and tortuous branches, stretched out, in sturdy and fantastic forms of defiance, to the whirlwind and the winter. Noble trunks also, which had long resisted, but resisted in vain, strew the ground; some lying on the declivity where they have fallen, others still adhering to the precipice where they were rooted, many upturned, with their twisted and entangled roots high in air; while not a few astonish us by the space which they cover, and by dimensions which we could not otherwise have estimated. It is one wide image of death, as if the angel of destruction had passed over the valley. The sight, even of a felled tree, is painful: still more is that of the fallen forest, with all its green branches on the ground, withering, silent, and at rest, where once they glittered in the dew and the sun, and trembled in the breeze. Yet this is but an image of vegetable death. It is familiar, and the impression passes away. It is the naked skeleton bleaching in the winds, the gigantic bones of the forest still erect, the speaking records of former life and of strength still unsubdued, vigorous even in death, which renders Glenmore one enormous charnel house.”

What happened of old to the aboriginal forests of Scotland, that long before these later destructions they had almost all perished, leaving to bear witness what they were, such survivors? They were chiefly destroyed by fire. What power could extinguish chance-kindled conflagrations when sailing before the wind? And no doubt fire was set to clear the country at once of Scotch firs, wolves, wild boars, and outlaws. Tradition yet tells of such burnings; and, if we mistake not, the pines found in the Scottish mosses, the logs and the stocks, all show that they were destroyed by Vulcan, though Neptune buried them in the quagmires. Storms no doubt often levelled them by thousands; but had millions so fallen they had never been missed, and one element only—which has been often fearfully commissioned—could achieve the work. In our own day the axe has indeed done wonders—and sixteen square miles of the forest of Rothiemurchus “went to the ground.” John of Ghent, Gilpin tells us, to avenge an inroad, set twenty-four thousand axes at work in the Caledonian Forest.

Yet Scotland has perhaps sufficient forest at this day. For more has been planted than cut down; Glenmore will soon be populous as ever with self-sown pines, and Rothiemurchus may revive; the shades are yet deeper of Loch Arkaig, Glengarry, Glenmoriston, Strathglass, Glen Strathfarrar, and Loch-Shiel; deeper still on the Findhorn—and deepest of all on the Dee rejoicing in the magnificent pine woods of Invercauld and Braemar.

We feel that we have spoken feebly of our Highland forests. Some perhaps, who have never been off the high roads, may accuse us of exaggeration too; but they contain wondrous beauties of which we have said not a word; and no imagination can conceive what they may be in another hundred[xxviii] years. But, apparently far apart from the forests, though still belonging to them—for they hold in fancy by the tenure of the olden time—how many woods, and groves, and sprinklings of fair trees, rise up during a day’s journey, in almost every region of the North! And among them all, it may be, scarcely a pine. For the oak, and the ash, and the elm, are also all native trees; nowhere else does the rowan flush with more dazzling lustre; in spring, the alder with its vivid green stands well beside the birk—the yew was not neglected of yore, though the bow of the Celt was weak to that of the Saxon; and the holly, in winter emulating the brightness of the pine, flourished, and still flourishes on many a mountain side. There is sufficient sylvan scenery for beauty in a land of mountains. More may be needed for shelter—but let the young plants and seedlings have time to grow—and as for the old trees, may they live for ever. Too many millions of larches are perhaps growing now behind the Tay and the Tilt; yet why should the hills of Perthshire be thought to be disfigured by what ennobles the Alps and the Apennines?

Hitherto we have hardly said a word about Lochs, and have been doing our best to forget them, while imagining scenes that were chiefly characterised by other great features of Highland Landscape. A country thus constituted, and with such an aspect, even if we could suppose it without lochs, would still be a glorious region; but its lochs are indeed its greatest glory; by them its glens, its mountains and its woods are all illumined, and its rivers made to sing aloud for joy. In the pure element, overflowing so many spacious vales and glens profound, the great and stern objects of nature look even more sublime or more beautiful, in their reflected shadows, which appear in that stillness to belong rather to heaven than earth. Or the evanescence of all that imagery at a breath may touch us with the thought that all it represents, steadfast as seems its endurance, will as utterly pass away. Such visions, when gazed on in that wondrous depth and purity they are sometimes seen to assume, on a still summer day, always inspire some such faint feeling as this; and we sigh to think how transitory must be all things, when the setting sun is seen to sink beneath the mountain, and all its golden pomp at the same instant to evanish from the lake.

The first that takes possession of the imagination, dreaming of the Highlands as the region of lochs, is the Queen of them all, Loch Lomond. Wordsworth has said, that “in Scotland, the proportion of diffused water is often too great, as at the Lake of Geneva, for instance, and in most of the Scottish lakes. No doubt it sounds magnificent, and flatters the imagination, to hear at a distance of masses of water so many leagues in length and miles in width; and such ample room may be delightful to the fresh-water sailor, scudding with a lively breeze amid the rapidly shifting scenery. But who ever travelled along the banks of Loch Lomond, variegated as the lower part is by islands, without feeling that a speedier termination of the long vista of blank water would be acceptable, and without wishing for an interposition of green meadows, trees, and cottages, and a sparkling stream to run by his side. In fact, a notion of grandeur as connected with magnitude has seduced persons of taste into a general mistake upon this subject. It is much more desirable for the purposes of pleasure, that lakes should be numerous and small or middle-sized than large, not only for communication by walks and rides, but for variety and for recurrence of similar appearances. To illustrate this by one instance: how pleasing is it to have a ready and frequent opportunity of watching, at the outlet of a lake, the stream, pushing its way among the rocks, in lively contrast with the stillness from which it has escaped; and how amusing to compare its noisy and turbulent motions with the gentle playfulness of the breezes that may be starting up, or wandering here and there over the faintly-rippled surface of the broad water! I may add, as a general remark, that in lakes of great width, the shores cannot be distinctly seen at the same time; and therefore contribute little to mutual illustration and ornament; and if the opposite shores are out of sight of each other, like those of the American and Asiatic lakes, then unfortunately the traveller is reminded of a nobler object; he has the blankness of a sea prospect[xxix] without the grandeur and accompanying sense of power.”

We shall not be suspected of an inclination to dissent, on light grounds, from any sentiments of Wordsworth. But finely felt and expressed as all this is, we do not hesitate to say that it is not applicable to Loch Lomond. Far be it from us to criticise this passage sentence by sentence; for we have quoted it not in a captious, but in a reverent spirit, as we have ever done with the works of this illustrious man. He has studied nature more widely and profoundly than we have; but it is out of our power to look on Loch Lomond without a feeling of perfection. The “diffusion of water” is indeed great; but in what a world it floats! At first sight of it, how our soul expands! The sudden revelation of such majestic beauty, wide as it is and extending afar, inspires us with a power of comprehending it all. Sea-like, indeed, it is—a Mediterranean Sea—enclosed with lofty hills and as lofty mountains—and these, indeed, are the Fortunate Isles! We shall not dwell on the feeling which all must have experienced on the first sight of such a vision—the feeling of a lovely and a mighty calm; it is manifest that the spacious “diffusion of water” more than conspires with the other components of such a scene to produce the feeling; that to it belongs the spell that makes our spirit serene, still, and bright as its own. Nor when such feeling ceases so entirely to possess, and so deeply to affect us, does the softened and subdued charm of the scene before us depend less on the expanse of the “diffusion of water.” The islands, that before had lain we knew not how—or we had only felt that they were all most lovely—begin to show themselves in the order of their relation to one another and to the shores. The eye rests on the largest, and with them the lesser combine; or we look at one or two of the least, away by themselves, or remote from all a tufted rock; and many as they are, they break not the breadth of the liquid plain, for it is ample as the sky. They show its amplitude; as masses and sprinklings of clouds, and single clouds, show the amplitude of the cerulean vault. And then the long promontories—stretching out from opposite mainlands, and enclosing bays that in themselves are lakes—they too magnify the empire of water; for long as they are, they seem so only as our eye attends them with their cliffs and woods from the retiring shores, and far distant are their shadows from the central light. Then what shores! On one side, where the lake is widest, low-lying they seem and therefore lovelier—undulating with fields and groves, where many a pleasant dwelling is embowered, into lines of hills that gradually soften away into another land. On the other side, sloping back, or overhanging, mounts beautiful in their barrenness, for they are green as emerald; others, scarcely more beautiful, studded with fair trees—some altogether woods. They soon form into mountains—and the mountains become more and more majestical, yet beauty never deserts them, and her spirit continues to tame that of the frowning cliffs. Far off as they are, Benlomond and Benvoirlich are seen to be giants; magnificent is their retinue, but the two are supreme, each in his own dominion; and clear as the day is here, they are diademed with clouds.

It cannot be that the “proportion of diffused water is here too great;” and is it then true that no one “ever travelled along the banks of Loch Lomond, variegated as the lower part is by islands, without feeling that a speedier termination to the long vista of blank water would be acceptable, and without wishing for an interposition of green meadows, trees and cottages, and a sparkling stream to run by his side?” We have travelled along them in all weathers, and never felt such a wish. For there they all are—all but the “sparkling stream to run by our side,” and we see not how that well could be in nature. “Streams that sparkle as they run,” cross our path on their own; and brighter never issued from the woods. Along the margin of the water, as far as Luss—ay, and much farther—the variations of the foreground are incessant; “had it no other beauties,” it has been truly said, “but those of its shores, it would still be an object of prime attraction; whether from the bright green meadows sprinkled with luxuriant ash-trees, that sometimes skirt its margin, or its white pebbled shores on which its gentle billows murmur, like a miniature[xxx] ocean, or its bold rocky promontories rising from the dark water rich in wild-flowers and ferns, and tangled with wild roses and honey-suckles, or its retired bays where the waves dash, reflecting, like a mirror, the trees which hang over them, an inverted landscape.” The islands are for ever arranging themselves into new forms, every one more and more beautiful; at least so they seem to be, perpetually occurring, yet always unexpected, and there is a pleasure even in such a series of slight surprises that enhances the delight of admiration. And alongside, or behind us, all the while, are the sylvan mountains, “laden with beauty;” and ever and anon open glens widen down upon us from chasms; or forest glades lead our hearts away into the inner gloom—perhaps our feet; and there, in a field that looks not as if it had been cleared by his own hands, but left clear by nature, a woodsman’s hut.

Half-way between Luss and Tarbet the water narrows, but it is still wide; the new road, we believe, winds round the point of Firkin, the old road boldly scaled the height, as all old roads loved to do; ascend it, and bid the many-isled vision, in all its greatest glory, farewell. Thence upwards prevails the spirit of the mountains. The lake is felt to belong to them—to be subjected to their will—and that is capricious; for sometimes they suddenly blacken it when at its brightest, and sometimes when its gloom is like that of the grave, as if at their bidding, all is light. We cannot help attributing the “skiey influences” which occasion such wonderful effects on the water, to prodigious mountains; for we cannot look on them without feeling that they reign over the solitude they compose; the lights and shadows flung by the sun and the clouds imagination assuredly regards as put forth by the vast objects which they colour; and we are inclined to think some such belief is essential in the profound awe, often amounting to dread, with which we are inspired by the presences of mere material forms. But be this as it may, the upper portion of Loch Lomond is felt by all to be most sublime. Near the head, all the manifold impressions of the beautiful which for hours our mind had been receiving, begin to fade; if some gloomy change has taken place in the air, there is a total obliteration, and the mighty scene before us is felt to possess not the hour merely, but the day. Yet should sunshine come, and abide a while, beauty will glimpse upon us even here, for green pastures will smile vividly, high up among the rocks; the sylvan spirit is serene the moment it is touched with light, and here there is not only many a fair tree by the water-side, but yon old oak wood will look joyful on the mountain, and the gloom become glimmer in the profound abyss.

Wordsworth says, that “it must be more desirable, for the purposes of pleasure, that lakes should be numerous, and small or middle-sized, than large, not only for communication by walks and rides, but for variety, and for recurrence of similar appearances.” The Highlands have them of all sizes—and that surely is best. But here is one which, it has been truly said, is not only “incomparable in its beauty as in its dimensions, exceeding all others in variety as it does in extent and splendour, but unites in itself every style of scenery which is found in the other lakes of the Highlands.” He who has studied, and understood, and felt all Loch Lomond, will be prepared at once to enjoy any other fine lake he looks on; nor will he admire nor love it the less, though its chief character should consist in what forms but one part of that of the Wonder in which all kinds of beauty and sublimity are combined.

We feel that it would be idle, and worse than idle, to describe any number of the Highland lochs, for so many of the finest have been seen by so many eyes, that few persons probably will ever read these pages to whom such descriptions would be, at the best, more than shadowings of scenery that their own imaginations can more vividly recreate.

We may be allowed, however, to say, that there cannot be a greater mistake than to think, as many we believe do who have only heard of the Highland lochs, that, with the exception of those famous for their beauty as well as their grandeur, beauty is not only not the quality by which they are distinguished, but that it is rarely found in them at all. There are few, possessing any very marked character, in which beauty is not either an ingredient or[xxxi] an accompaniment; and there are many “beautiful exceedingly” which, lying out of the way even of somewhat adventurous travellers, or very remote, are known, if even by that, only by name. It does not, indeed, require much, in some situations, to give a very touching beauty to water. A few trees, a few knolls, a few tufted rocks, will do it, where all around and above is stern or sterile; and how strong may be the gentle charm, if the torrent that feeds the little loch chance to flow into it from a lucid pool formed by a waterfall, and to flow out of it in a rivulet that enlivens the dark heather with a vale of verdure over which a stag might bound—and more especially if there be two or three huts in which it is perceived there is human life! We believe we slightly touched before on such scenes; but any little repetition will be excused for the sake of a very picturesque passage, which we have much pleasure in quoting from the very valuable Guide to the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, by the brothers Anderson. We well remember walking into the scene here so well painted, many long years ago, and have indeed, somewhere or other, described it. The Fall of Foyers is the most magnificent cataract, out of all sight and hearing, in Britain. The din is quite loud enough in ordinary weather—and it is only in ordinary weather that you can approach the place, from which you have a full view of all its grandeur. When the Fall is in flood—to say nothing of being drenched to the skin—you are so blinded by the sharp spray smoke, and so deafened by the dashing and clashing, and tumbling and rumbling thunder, that your condition is far from enviable, as you cling, “lonely lover of nature,” to a shelf by no means eminent for safety, above the horrid gulf. Nor in former times was there any likelihood of your being comforted by the accommodations of the General’s Hut. In ordinary Highland weather—meaning thereby weather neither very wet nor very dry—it is worth walking a thousand miles for one hour to behold the Fall of Foyers. The spacious cavity is enclosed by “complicated cliffs and perpendicular precipices” of immense height; and though for a while it wears to the eye a savage aspect, yet beauty fears not to dwell even there, and the horror is softened by what appears to be masses of tall shrubs, or single shrubs almost like trees. And they are trees, which on the level plain would look even stately; but as they ascend ledge above ledge the walls of that awful chasm, it takes the eye time to see them as they really are, while on our first discernment of their character, serenely standing among the tumult, they are felt on such sites to be sublime.

“Between the Falls and the Strath of Stratherrik,” says the book we were about to quote, “a space of three or four miles, the river Foyers flows through a series of low rocky hills clothed with birch. They present various quiet glades and open spaces, where little patches of cultivated ground are encircled by wooded hillocks, whose surface is pleasingly diversified by nodding trees, bare rocks, empurpled heath, and bracken bearing herbage.” It was the excessive loveliness of some of the scenery there that suggested to us the thought of going to look what kind of a stream the Foyers was above the Fall. We went, and in the quiet of a summer evening, found it

But here is the promised description of it:—“Before pursuing our way westward, we would wish to direct the traveller’s attention to a sequestered spot of peculiar beauty on the river Foyers. This is a secluded vale, called Killean, which, besides its natural attractions, and these are many, is distinguished as one of the few places where the old practice of resorting to the ‘shieling’ for summer grazing of cattle is still observed. It is encompassed on all sides by steep mountains; but at the north end there is a small lake, about a mile and a half in length, and from one-third to half a mile in breadth. The remainder of the bottom of the glen is a perfectly level tract, of the same width with the lake, and about two miles and a half in length, covered with the richest herbage, and traversed by a small meandering river flowing through it into the lake. The surface of this flat is bedecked with the little huts or bothies, which afford temporary accommodation to the herdsmen and others in charge of the cattle. This portion of the glen is bordered on the west by[xxxii] continuous hills rising abruptly in a uniformly steep acclivity, and passing above into a perpendicular range of precipices, the whole covered with a scanty verdure sprouted with heath. At the bend of the lake near its middle, where it inclines from a northernly course towards the west, a magnificent rounded precipice, which, like the continuous ranges, may be about 1200 feet in height, rises immediately out of the water; and a few narrow and inclined verdant stripes alone preserve it from exhibiting a perfectly mural character. To this noble rock succeeds, along the rest of the lake, a beautiful, lofty, and nearly vertical hill-side, clothed with birch, intermingled with hanging mossy banks, shaded over with the deeper tinted bracken. The eastern side of the plain, and the adjoining portion of the lake, are lined by mountains corresponding in height with those opposed to them; but their lower extremities are, to a considerable extent, strewed with broken fragments of rock, to which succeeds an uninterrupted zone of birch and alder, which is again overtopped in its turn by naked cliffs. An elevated terrace occupies the remainder of this side of the lake; above the wooded face of which is seen a sloping expanse of mingled heath and herbage. About half a mile from the south end, Mr. Fraser of Lovat, the proprietor, has erected a shooting lodge; viewed from which, or from either end, or from the top of the platform on the north-east side of the lake, fancy could scarcely picture a more attractive and fairy landscape than is unfolded by this sequestered vale, to which Dr. Johnson’s description of the ‘Happy Valley’ not inaptly applies. The milch cows, to the number of several hundreds, are generally kept here from the beginning of June to the middle of August, when they are replaced by the yeld cattle. The river sweeps to the northward from Loch Killean through richly birch-clad hills, which rise in swelling slopes from its banks. A large tarn which immediately joins it from the east is crossed at its mouth by a rustic bridge, from which a single footpath conducts across the brow of the hill to Whitebridge, a small public-house or inn, four miles distant.”

There is a loch of a very different character from Killean, almost as little known (a view of it is given at page 708), equal to anything in the Highlands, only two miles distant from Loch Lochy, in the great glen—Loch Arkaig. We first visited it many years since, having been induced to do so by a passage in John Stoddard’s Remarks on the Local Scenery and Manners of Scotland; and it was then a very noble oak and pine forest loch. The axe went to work and kept steadily at it; and a great change was wrought; but it is still a grand scene, with a larger infusion of beauty than it possessed of old. The scenery of the valley separating it from Loch Lochy is very similar to that of the Trossachs; through it there are two approaches to the loch, and the Mile-Dubh, or the dark mile, according to our feeling, is more impressive than any part of the approach to Loch Katrine. The woods and rocks are very solemn, and yet very sweet; for though many old pines, and oaks and ashes are there, and the wall of rocks is immense, young trees prevail now on many places, as well along the heights as among the knolls and hillocks below, where alders and hawthorns are thick; almost everywhere the young are intermingled with the old, and look cheerful under their protection, without danger of being chilled by their shade. The loch, more or less sylvan from end to end, shows on its nearer shores some magnificent remains of the ancient forest, and makes a noble sweep like some great river. There may be more, but we remember but one island—not large, but wooded as it should be—the burying-place of the family of Lochiel. What rest! It is a long journey from Loch Lochy to Kinloch Arkaig—and by the silent waters we walked or sat all a summer’s day. There was nothing like a road that we observed, but the shores are easily travelled, and there it is you may be almost sure of seeing some red deer. They are no better worth looking at from a window than Fallow—no offence to Fallow, who are fine creatures; indeed, we had rather not see them so at all; but on the shores or steeps of Loch Arkaig, with hardly a human habitation within many, many miles, and these few rather known than seen to be there, the huts of Highlanders contented to cultivate here and there some spot that seems cultivatable, but probably is found not to be so after[xxxiii] some laborious years—there they are at home; and you, if young, looking on them feel at home too, and go bounding, like one of themselves, over what, did you choose, were an evitable steep. Roe, too, frequent the copses, but to be seen they must be started; grouse spring up before you oftener than you might expect in a deer forest; but, to be sure, it is a rough and shaggy one, though lovelier lines of verdure never lay in the sunshine than we think we see now lying for miles along the margin of that loch. The numerous mountains towards the head of the loch are very lofty, and glens diverge in grand style into opposite and distant regions. Glen Dessary, with its beautiful pastures, opens on the Loch, and leads to Loch Nevish on the coast of Knoidart—Glen Pæan to Oban-a-Cave on Loch Morer, Glen Canagorie into Glenfinnan and Loch Shiel; and Glen Kingie to Glengarry and Loch Quoich. There is a choice! We chose Glen Kingie, and after a long climb found a torrent that took us down to Glengarry before sunset. It is a loch little known, and in grandeur not equal to Loch Arkaig; but at the close of such a day’s journey, the mind, elevated by the long contemplation of the great objects of nature, cannot fail to feel aright, whatever it may be, the spirit of the scene, that seems to usher in the grateful hour of rest. It is surpassing fair—and having lain all night long on its gentle banks, sleeping or waking we know not, we have never remembered it since but as the Land of Dreams.

Which is the dreariest, most desolate and dismal of the Highland lochs? We should say Loch Ericht. It lies in a prodigious wilderness with which perhaps no man alive is conversant, and in which you may travel for days without seeing even any symptoms of human life. We speak of the regions comprehended between the Forest of Athole, and Bennevis, the Moor of Rannoch, and Glen Spean. There are many Lochs—and Loch Ericht is their grisly Queen. Herdsmen, shepherds, hunters, fowlers, anglers, traverse its borders, but few have been far in the interior, and we never knew anybody who had crossed it from south to north, from east to west. We have ourselves seen more of it, perhaps than any other Lowlander; and had traversed many of its vast glens and moors before we found our way to the southern solitude of Loch Ericht. We came into the western gloom of Ben Alder from Loch Ouchan, and up and down for hours dismal but not dangerous precipices that opened out into what might almost be called passes—but we have frequently to go back for they were blind—contrived to clamber to the edge of one of the mountains that rose from the water a few miles down the Loch. All was vast, shapeless, savage, black, and wrathfully grim; for it was one of those days that keep frowning and lowering, yet will not thunder; such as one conceives of on the eve of an earthquake. At first the sight was dreadful, but there was no reason for dread; imagination remains not longer than she chooses the slave of her own eyes, and we soon began to enjoy the gloom, and to feel how congenial it was in nature with the character of all those lifeless cliffs. Silence and darkness suit well together in solitude at noonday; and settled on huge objects make them sublime. And they were huge; all ranged together, and stretching away to a great distance, with the pitchy water, still as if frozen, covering their feet.

Loch Ericht is many miles long—nearly twenty; but there is a loch among the Grampians not more than two miles round—if so much, which is sublimer far—Loch Aven. You come upon the sight of it at once, a short way down from the summit of Cairngorm, and then it is some two thousand feet below you, itself being as many above the level of the sea. But to come upon it so as to feel best its transcendent grandeur, you should approach it up Glenaven—and from as far down as Inch-Rouran, which is about half-way between Loch Aven and Tomantoul. Between Inch-Rouran and Tomantoul the glen is wild, but it is inhabited; above that house there is but one other—and for about a dozen miles—we have heard it called far more—there is utter solitude. But never was there a solitude at once so wild—so solemn—so serene—so sweet! The glen is narrow; but on one side there are openings into several wider glens, that show you mighty coves as you pass on; on the other side the mountains are without a break, and the only variation with them is from[xxxiv] smooth to shaggy, from dark to bright; but their prevailing character is that of pastoral or of forest peace. The mountains that show the coves belong to the bases of Ben-Aven and Ben-y-buird. The heads of those giants are not seen—but it sublimes the long glen to know that it belongs to their dominion, and that it is leading us on to an elevation that erelong will be on a level with the roots of their topmost cliffs. The Aven is so clear—on account of the nature of its channel—that you see the fishes hanging in every pool; and ’tis not possible to imagine how beautiful in such transparencies are the reflections of its green ferny banks. For miles they are composed of knolls, seldom interspersed with rocks, and there cease to be any trees. But ever and anon, we walk for a while on a level floor, and the voice of the stream is mute. Hitherto sheep have been noticed on the hill, but not many, and red and black cattle grazing on the lower pastures; but they disappear, and we find ourselves all at once in a desert. So it is felt to be, coming so suddenly with its black heather on that greenest grass; but ’tis such a desert as the red-deer love. We are now high up on the breast of the mountain, which appears to be Cairngorm; but such heights are deceptive, and it is not till we again see the bed of the Aven that we are assured we are still in the glen. Prodigious precipices, belonging to several different mountains, for between mass and mass there is blue sky, suddenly arise, forming themselves more and more regularly into circular order, as we near; and now we have sight of the whole magnificence; yet vast as it is, we know not yet how vast; it grows as we gaze, till in a while we feel that sublimer it may not be; and then so quiet in all its terrific grandeur we feel too that it is beautiful, and think of the Maker.

This is Loch Aven. How different the whole regions round from that enclosing Loch Ericht! There, vast wildernesses of more than melancholy moors—huge hollows hating their own gloom that keep them herbless—disconsolate glens left far away by themselves, without any sign of life—cliffs that frown back the sunshine—and mountains, as if they were all dead, insensible to the heavens. Is this all mere imagination—or the truth? We deceive ourselves in what we call a desert. For we have so associated our own being with the appearances of outward things, that we attribute to them, with an uninquiring faith, the very feelings and the very thoughts, of which we have chosen to make them emblems. But here the sources of the Dee seem to lie in a region as happy as it is high; for the bases of the mountains are all such as the soul has chosen to make sublime—the colouring of the mountains all such as the soul has chosen to make beautiful; and the whole region, thus imbued with a power to inspire elevation and delight, is felt to be indeed one of the very noblest in nature.

We have now nearly reached the limits assigned to our Remarks on the Character of the Scenery of the Highlands; and we feel that the sketches we have drawn of its component qualities—occasionally filled up with some details—must be very imperfect indeed, without comprehending some parts of the coast, and some of the sea-arms that stretch into the interior. But even had our limits allowed, we do not think we could have ventured on such an attempt; for though we have sailed along most of the western shores, and through some of its sounds, and into many of its bays, and up not a few of its reaches, yet they contain such an endless variety of all the fairest and greatest objects of nature, that we feel it would be far beyond our powers to give anything like an adequate idea of the beauty and the grandeur that for ever kept unfolding themselves around our summer voyagings in calm or storm. Who can say that he knows a thousandth part of the wonders of “the marine” between the Mull of Cantire and Cape Wrath? He may have gathered many an extensive shore—threaded many a mazy multitude of isles—sailed up many a spacious bay—and cast anchor at the head of many a haven land-locked so as no more to seem to belong to the sea—yet other voyagers shall speak to him of innumerable sights which he has never witnessed; and they who are most conversant with those coasts, best know how much they have left and must leave for ever unexplored.

Look now only at the Linnhe Loch—how it gladdens Argyle! Without it and the[xxxv] sound of Mull how sad would be the shadows of Morven! Eclipsed the splendours of Lorn! Ascend one of the heights of Appin, and as the waves roll in light, you will feel how the mountains are beautified by the sea. There is a majestic rolling onwards there that belongs to no land-loch—only to the world of waves. There is no nobler image of ordered power than the tide, whether in flow or in ebb; and on all now it is felt to be beneficent, coming and going daily, to enrich and adorn. Or in fancy will you embark, and let the “Amethyst” bound away “at her own sweet will,” accordant with yours, till she reach the distant and long-desired loch.

These lines describe but one of innumerable lochs that owe their greatest charm to the sea. It is indeed one of those on which nature has lavished all her infinite varieties of loveliness; but Loch Leven is scarcely less fair, and perhaps grander; and there is matchless magnificence about Loch Etive. All round about Ballachulish and Invercoe the scenery of Loch Leven is the sweetest ever seen overshadowed by such mountains; the deeper their gloom, the brighter its lustre; in all weathers it wears a cheerful smile; and often while up among the rocks the tall trees are tossing in the storm, the heart of the woods beneath is calm, and the vivid fields they shelter look as if they still enjoyed the sun. Nor closes the beauty there, but even animates the entrance into that dreadful glen—Glencoe. All the way up its river, Loch Leven would be fair, were it only for her hanging woods. But though the glen narrows, it still continues broad, and there are green plains between her waters and the mountains, on which stately trees stand single, and there is ample room for groves. The returning tide tells us, should we forget it, that this is no inland loch, for it hurries away back to the sea, not turbulent, but fast as a river in flood. The river Leven is one of the finest in the Highlands, and there is no other such series of waterfalls, all seen at once, one above the other, along an immense vista; and all the way up to the farthest there are noble assemblages of rocks—nowhere any want of wood—and in places, trees that seem to have belonged to some old forest. Beyond, the opening in the sky seems to lead into another region, and it does so; for we have gone that way, past some small lochs, across a wide wilderness, with mountains on all sides, and descended on Loch Treag,

but overflowing in our memory with all pleasantest images of pastoral contentment and peace.

Loch Etive, between the ferries of Connel and Bunawe, has been seen by almost all who have visited the Highlands but very imperfectly; to know what it is you must row or sail up it, for the banks on both sides are often richly wooded, assume many fine forms, and are frequently well embayed, while the expanse of water is sufficiently wide to allow you from its centre to command a view of many of the distant heights. But above Bunawe it is not like the same loch. For a couple of miles it is not wide, and it is so darkened by enormous shadows that it looks even less like a strait than a gulf—huge overhanging rocks on both sides ascending high, and yet felt to belong but to the bases of mountains that[xxxvi] sloping far back have their summits among clouds of their own in another region of the sky. Yet are they not all horrid; for nowhere else is there such lofty heather—it seems a wild sort of brushwood; tall trees flourish, single or in groves, chiefly birches, with now and then an oak—and they are in their youth or their prime—and even the prodigious trunks, some of which have been dead for centuries, are not all dead, but shoot from their knotted rhind symptoms of life inextinguishable by time and tempest. Out of this gulf we emerge into the Upper Loch, and its amplitude sustains the majesty of the mountains, all of the highest order, and seen from their feet to their crests. Cruachan wears the crown, and reigns over them all—king at once of Loch Etive and of Loch Awe. But Buachaille Etive, though afar off, is still a giant, and in some lights comes forwards, bringing with him the Black Mount and its dependents, so that they all seem to belong to this most magnificent of all Highland lochs. “I know not,” says Macculloch, “that Loch Etive could bear an ornament without an infringement on that aspect of solitary vastness which it presents throughout. Nor is there one. The rocks and bays on the shore, which might elsewhere attract attention, are here swallowed up in the enormous dimensions of the surrounding mountains, and the wide and ample expanse of the lake. A solitary house, here fearfully solitary, situated far up in Glen Etive, is only visible when at the upper extremity; and if there be a tree, as there are in a few places on the shore, it is unseen; extinguished as if it were a humble mountain flower, by the universal magnitude around.” This is finely felt and expressed; but even on the shores of Loch Etive there is much of the beautiful; Ardmatty smiles with its meadows, and woods, and bay, and sylvan stream; other sunny nooks repose among the grey granite masses; the colouring of the banks and braes is often bright; several houses or huts become visible no long way up the glen; and though that long hollow—half a day’s journey—till you reach the wild road between Inveruran and King’s House—lies in gloom, yet the hillsides are cheerful, and you delight in the greensward, wide and rock-broken, should you ascend the passes that lead into Glencreran or Glencoe. But to feel the full power of Glen Etive you must walk up it till it ceases to be a glen. When in the middle of the moor, you see far off a solitary dwelling indeed—perhaps the loneliest house in all the Highlands—and the solitude is made profounder, as you pass by, by the voice of a cataract, hidden in an awful chasm, bridged by two or three stems of trees, along which the red-deer might fear to venture—but we have seen them and the deer-hounds glide over it, followed by other fearless feet, when far and wide the Forest of Dalness was echoing to the hunter’s horn.

We have now brought our Remarks on the Scenery of the Highlands to a close, and would fain have said a few words on the character and life of the people; but are precluded from even touching on that most interesting subject. It is impossible that the minds of travellers through those wonderful regions can be so occupied with the contemplation of mere inanimate nature, as not to give many a thought to their inhabitants, now and in the olden time. Indeed, without such thoughts, they would often seem to be but blank and barren wildernesses in which the heart would languish, and imagination itself recoil; but they cannot long be so looked at, for houseless as are many extensive tracts, and at times felt to be too dreary even for moods that for a while enjoyed the absence of all that might tell of human life, yet symptoms and traces of human life are noticeable to the instructed eye almost every where, and in them often lies the spell that charms us, even while we think that we are wholly delivered up to the influence of “dead insensate things.” None will visit the Highlands without having some knowledge of their history; and the changes that have long been taking place in the condition of the people will be affectingly recognised wherever they go, in spite even of what might have appeared the insuperable barriers of nature.

[1]

B.C. 55—A.D. 446.

As it is generally acknowledged that the physical character of a country influences in a great degree the moral and physical character of its inhabitants, and thus to a certain extent determines their history, it may not be deemed out of place to define here the application of the term Highlands, so far as Scotland is concerned, and briefly to describe the general physical aspect of that part of our native land. If it hold good at all that there subsists a relation between a people and the country which they have inhabited for centuries, the following history will show that this is peculiarly the case with the Scottish Highlanders.

Most of those who have thought of the matter at all, have doubtless formed to themselves a general notion of the northern half of Scotland as a

and of its inhabitants as a brawny, rugged, indomitable, impulsive race, steadfast in their friendship and loyalty, and relentless but generous in their enmity. Although the popular and poetic notion of the country is on the whole correct, and although the above epithets may express the main features of the character of the people, still it requires a close acquaintance with this interesting race, both historically and by personal intercourse, to form an adequate notion of their character in all its aspects.

To speak roughly, nearly the whole of the country north of a line connecting the heads of the estuaries of the Clyde, Forth, and Tay, may be included under the designation of the Highlands, and, in fact, popularly is so. Indeed, at the time at which the northern half of Scotland—the ancient and proper Caledonia—emerges from its pristine gloom, and for the first time glimmers in the light of history, the line indicated by the forts of Agricola, and afterwards by the wall of Antonine, marked the southern boundary of the region which was then, and for centuries afterwards, regarded by the Romans, and also, probably, by the southern Britons, as occupying the same position in relation to the rest of the country as the Highlands proper did at a subsequent period. In course of time the events which fall to be recorded in the following pages gradually altered this easily perceived boundary, so that for centuries before the present day, a much more intricate but still distinct line has marked the limits of what is now strictly and correctly regarded as the Highlands of Scotland.

The definition of this territory which best suits the purposes of history, and in all respects most nearly accords with those of political and social geography, is one which makes it commensurate with the country or locations of the ancient Highland clans. This definition assigns to the Highlands all the continental[2] territory north of the Moray frith, and all the territory, both insular and continental, westward of an easily traceable line from that frith to the frith of Clyde. The line commences at the mouth of the river Nairn: thence, with the exception of a slight north-eastward or outward curve, the central point of which is on the river Spey, it runs due south-east till it strikes the river Dee at Tullach, nearly on the third degree of longitude west of Greenwich; it then runs generally south till it falls upon Westwater, or the southern large head-water of the North Esk; thence, over a long stretch, it runs almost due south-west, and with scarcely a deviation, till it falls upon the Clyde at Ardmore in the parish of Cardross; and now onward to the Atlantic ocean, it moves along the frith of Clyde, keeping near to the continent, and excluding none of the Clyde islands except the comparatively unimportant Cumbraes. All the Scottish territory west and north-west of this line is properly the Highlands. Yet both for the convenience of topographical description, and because, altogether down to the middle of the 13th century, and partially down to the middle of the 16th, the Highlands and the Western Islands were politically and historically distinct regions, the latter are usually viewed apart under the name of the Hebrides. The mainland Highlands, or the Highlands after the Hebrides are deducted, extend in extreme length from Duncansby Head, or John o’ Groat’s on the north, to the Mull of Kintyre on the south, about 250 miles; but over a distance of 90 miles at the northern end, they have an average breadth of only about 45 miles,—over a distance of 50 or 55 miles at the southern end, they consist mainly of the Clyde islands, and the very narrow peninsula of Kintyre,—and even at their broadest part, from the eastern base of the Grampians to Ardnamurchan Point on the west, they do not extend to more than 120 miles. The district comprehends the whole of the counties of Caithness, Sutherland, Ross, Cromarty, Inverness, and Argyle, large parts of Nairn, Perth, Dumbarton, and Bute, and considerable portions of Elgin, Banff, Aberdeen, Forfar, and Stirling. Considerable parts of this district, however, such as Caithness-shire, the island of Bute, and some large tracts of moor or valley or flanking plain, do not exhibit the physical features which are strictly Highland.

A district so extensive can be but faintly pictured in a general and rapid description. Mountains, chiefly covered with heath or ling, but occasionally, on the one hand, displaying sides and summits of naked rock, and on the other, exhibiting a dress of verdure, everywhere rise, at short intervals, in chains, ridges, groups, and even solitary heights. Their forms are of every variety, from the precipitous and pinnacled acclivity, to the broad-based and round-backed ascent; but, in general, are sharp in outline, and wild or savagely grand in feature. Both elongated ridges, and chains or series of short parallel ridges, have a prevailing direction from north-east to south-west, and send up summits from 1,000 to upwards of 4,000 feet above the level of the sea. Glens, valleys, and expanses of lowland stretch in all directions among the mountains, and abound in voluminous streams, and large elongated lakes of picturesque appearance,—nearly all the inland lakes extending in stripes either north-eastward and south-westward, or eastward and westward. Along the whole west coast, at remarkably brief intervals, arms of the sea, long, narrow, and sometimes exceedingly rugged in outline, run north-eastward or south-eastward into the interior, and assist the inland fresh water lakes in cleaving it into sections. The rivers of the region are chiefly impetuous torrents, careering for a while along mountain-gorges, and afterwards either expanding themselves into beautiful lakes and flowing athwart delightful meadows, or ploughing long narrow valleys, green and ornate with grasses, trefoils, daisies, ranunculi, and a profuse variety of other herbage and flowers. Native woods, principally of pine and birch, and occasionally clumps and expanses of plantation, climb the acclivities of the gentler heights, or crowd down upon the valley, and embosom the inland lakes. On the east side, along the coast to the Moray frith, and towards the frontier in the counties of Nairn, Elgin, and Perth, gentle slopes and broad belts of lowland, fertile in soil and favourable in position, are carpeted with agricultural luxuriance, and thickly dotted with human dwellings, and successfully vie with the south of Scotland in towns and population, and in[3] the pursuit and display of wealth. But almost everywhere else, except in the fairyland of Loch Fyne, and the southern shore of Loch Etive, the Highlands are sequestered,—sinless of a town,—a semi-wilderness, where a square mile is a more convenient unit of measurement than an acre.

A district characterized by such features as we have named necessarily exhibits, within very circumscribed limits, varieties of scenery of the most opposite descriptions; enabling the admirer of nature to pass abruptly from dwelling on the loveliness of an extensive marine or champaign landscape into the deep solitude of an ancient forest, or the dark craggy fastnesses of an alpine ravine; or from lingering amid the quiet grassy meadows of a pastoral strath or valley, watered by its softly-flowing stream, to the open heathy mountain-side, whence ‘alps o’er alps arise,’ whose summits are often shrouded with mists and almost perennial snows, and their overhanging precipices furrowed by foaming cataracts. Lakes and long arms of the sea, either fringed with woods or surrounded with rocky barren shores, now studded with islands, and anon extending their silvery arms into distant receding mountains, are met in every district; while the extreme steepness, ruggedness, and sterility of many of the mountain-chains impart to them as imposing and magnificent characters as are to be seen in the much higher and more inaccessible elevations of Switzerland. No wonder, then, that this ‘land of mountain and of flood’ should have given birth to the song of the bard, and afforded material for the theme of the sage, in all ages; and that its inhabitants should be tinctured with deep romantic feelings, at once tender, melancholy, and wild; and that the recollection of their own picturesque native dwellings should haunt them to their latest hours. Neither, amid such profusion and diversity of all that is beautiful and sublime in nature, can the unqualified admiration of strangers, from every part of Europe, of the scenery of the Highlands fail of being easily accounted for; nor can any hesitate in recommending them to visit the more remote or unknown solitudes.[1]

Such are the main features of the Highlands of Scotland at the present day, and, to a considerable extent, the description might have applied to the country at the time of the Roman invasion. Still, in the graphic words of Stuart,[2] “To form an idea of the general aspect of Scotland, as it was some eighteen hundred years ago, we must, in imagination, restore to its now varied surface the almost unbroken gloom of the primeval forest; her waving mantle of sombre hue, within which the genius loci may be supposed to have brooded over the seclusion and the poverty of ‘ancient Caledon.’ In a bird’s-eye view, if such a thought may be indulged, the greatest part of the country presented, in all probability, the appearance of one continuous wood; a mass of cheerless verdure resting on hill and dale—the sameness of its dark extent broken only where some lake or green-clad morass met the view, or where the higher mountains lifted their summits above the line of vegetation. In some districts, considerable tracks of open moorland might, doubtless, be seen clad in the indigenous heather of the North; while, in others, occasional spots of pasture-land would here and there appear;—but, on the whole, these must have formed a striking contrast to the wide expanse of the prevailing forest.”

As the present work is concerned only with the Highlands of Scotland, it would of course be out of place to give any minute account of the transactions of the Romans in the other parts of the island. Suffice it to say that from the time, B.C. 55, when Julius Cæsar first landed on the coast of South Britain, until A.D. 78, when, under the Emperor Vespasian, Cnæus Julius Agricola assumed the command in Great Britain, the greater part of midland and south England had been brought under the sway of the Romans. This able commander set himself with vigour and earnestness to confirm the conquests which had been already made, to reduce the rest of the country to subjection, to conciliate the Britons by mild measures, and to attach them to the Roman power by introducing among them Roman manners, literature, luxuries, and dress.

Agricola was appointed to the command in Britain in the year 78 A.D., but appears not[4] to have entered Scotland till his third campaign in the year 80. He employed himself in the years 80, 81, and 82, in subduing the country south of the friths of Forth and Clyde,—the Bodotria and Glotta of Tacitus,—erecting, in 81, a series of forts between these two estuaries. Having accomplished this, Agricola made preparations for his next campaign, which he was to open beyond the friths in the summer of 83, he in the meantime having heard that the Caledonians—as Tacitus calls the people north of the Forth—had formed a confederacy to resist the invader.

These Caledonians appear to have been divided into a number of tribes or clans, having little or no political connection, and almost constantly at war among themselves. It was only when a foreign foe threatened their much-prized freedom that a sense of danger forced them to unite for a time under the command of a military leader. Some writers, on the authority of Ptolemy of Alexandria, but chiefly on that of the pseudo-Richard of Cirencester,[3] give a list of the various tribes which, during the Roman period, inhabited North Britain, and define the locality which each occupied with as much exactness as they might do a modern English county. “There was one thing,” says Tacitus, “which gave us an advantage over these powerful nations, that they never consulted together for the advantage of the whole. It was rare that even two or three of them united against the common enemy.” Their whole means of subsistence consisted in the milk and flesh of their flocks and the produce of the chase. They lived in a state almost approaching to nudity; but whether from necessity or from choice cannot be satisfactorily determined. Dio represents the Caledonians as being naked, but Herodian speaks of them as wearing a partial covering. They appear, at all events, if the stone dug up at Blackness in the year 1868 (see p. 11), be taken as an authority, to have gone naked into battle. Their towns, which were few, consisted of huts covered with turf or skins, and for better security they were erected in the centre of some wood or morass. “What the Britons call a town,” says Cæsar, “is a tract of woody country surrounded by a vallum and ditch, for the security of themselves and cattle against the incursions of an enemy; for, when they have enclosed a very large circuit with felled trees, they build within it houses for[5] themselves, and hovels for their cattle.”[4] Notwithstanding, perhaps owing to the scantiness of their covering, which left their bodies exposed to the rigour of a cold and variable climate, the Caledonians were a remarkably hardy race, capable of enduring fatigue, cold, and hunger to an extent which their descendants of the present day could not encounter without risk of life. They were decidedly a warlike people, and are said, like the heroes of more ancient times, to have been addicted to robbery. The weapons of their warfare consisted of small spears, long broadswords, and hand daggers; and they defended their bodies in combat by a small target or shield,—all much of the same form and construction as those afterwards used by their posterity in more modern times. It would appear from the stone above referred to that the shields of the Caledonians were oblong, with a boss in the centre, and their swords short and pointed,—not long and blunt, as represented by Tacitus. The use of cavalry appears not to have been so well understood among the Caledonians as among the more southern tribes; but in battle they often made use of cars, or chariots, which were drawn by small, swift, and spirited horses; and it is conjectured that, like those used by the southern Britons, they had iron scythes projecting from the axle. It is impossible to say what form of government obtained among these warlike tribes. When history is silent, historians should either maintain a cautious reserve or be sparing in their conjectures; but analogy may supply materials for well-grounded speculations, and it may therefore be asserted, without any great stretch of imagination, that, like most of the other uncivilized tribes we read of in history, the Northern Britons or Caledonians were under the government of a leader or chief to whom they yielded a certain degree of obedience. Dio, indeed, insinuates that the governments of these tribes were democratic; but he should have been aware that it is only when bodies of men assume, in an advanced state of civilization, a compact and united form that democracy can prevail; and the state of barbarism in which he says the inhabitants of North Britain existed at the period in question seems to exclude such a supposition. We have no certain information from any contemporary, and conjecture is therefore groundless. Later fable-loving historians and chroniclers, indeed, give lists of Kings of Scotland—or, rather, of Pictland—extending back for centuries before the Christian era, but these by general consent are now banished to the realm of myths. It is probable, as we have already said, that the Caledonians were divided into a number of independent tribes, and that each tribe was presided over by a chief, but how he obtained his supremacy it is impossible to say. We have one instance, at least, of a number of tribes uniting under one leader, viz., at the battle of Mons Grampius, when the Caledonians were commanded by a chief or leader called by Tacitus, Galgacus, “inter plures duces virtute et genere præstans.”[5] “The earliest bond of union may probably be traced to the time when they united under one common leader to resist or assail the Roman legionaries; and out of the Dux or Toshach elected for the occasion, like Galgacus, and exercising a paramount though temporary authority, arose the Ardrigh or supreme king, after some popular or ambitious chieftain had prolonged his power by successful wars, or procured his election to this prominent station for life.”[6]

Whatever may have been the relation of the members of the different tribes, and the relation of the tribes to each other, it is certain, from the general tone of the works of Tacitus and other Roman historians in which those early inhabitants of the Scottish Highlands are mentioned, that they offered a far more formidable resistance to the Roman arms than had hitherto been done by any other of the British tribes.

In personal stature, the natives of Caledonia, like those of other parts of Britain, appear to have excelled their Roman invaders, and from Tacitus we learn that those with whom his father-in-law came into contact were distinguished by ruddy locks and lusty limbs. It is also certain that for the sake of ornament, or for the purpose of making their appearance more terrible in war, they resorted to the barbarous[6] practice of tattooing their bodies. Indeed it may be taken as a proof of their never having to any great extent come under the power and influence of Rome and Roman customs, that they retained this practice for long after the other Britons had abandoned it, and on this account, in all probability, afterwards acquired the name of Picts.

The people whom Agricola encountered in Scotland cannot have been otherwise than tolerable proficients in the common branches of art; how else can we suppose them to have been supplied with all that matériel of war with which they are said to have appeared before him? Indolent and uninformed as were the bulk of the people, they must have had among them artificers both in wood and in iron, not unskilled in their respective trades—able to construct the body of a car—to provide for it axles of great strength—above all, able to construct the wheels and arm them with those sharp-edged instruments that were destined to cut down whatever opposed their course.[7]

Agricola, in the summer of 83, after having obtained information as to the nature of the country and the aspect of its inhabitants from exploring parties and prisoners, transported his army across the Frith of Forth to the shores of Fife by means of his fleet, and marched along the coast eastwards, keeping the fleet in sight. It cannot with certainty be ascertained at what part of the Forth this transportation of the forces took place, although some bold antiquarians assert that it must have been not far from Queensferry. The fleet, Tacitus tells us,[8] now acting, for the first time, in concert with the land-forces, proceeded in sight of the army, forming a magnificent spectacle, and adding terror to the war. It frequently happened that in the same camp were seen the infantry and cavalry intermixed with the marines, all indulging their joy, full of their adventures, and magnifying the history of their exploits; the soldier describing, in the usual style of military ostentation, the forests which he had passed, the mountains which he climbed, and the barbarians whom he put to the rout; while the sailor had his storms and tempests, the wonders of the deep, and the spirit with which he conquered winds and waves.

The offensive operations of the sixth campaign were commenced by the Caledonian Britons, who, from the higher country, made a furious attack upon the trans-Forthan fortifications, which so alarmed some of Agricola’s officers, who were afraid of being cut off from a retreat, that they advised their general to recross the Forth without delay; but Agricola resisted this advice, and made preparations for the attack which he expected would soon be made upon his army. As Agricola had received information that the enemy intended to fall upon him from various quarters, he divided his army into three bodies and continued his march. Some antiquarians have attempted to trace the route taken by each division, founding their elaborate theories on the very slender remains of what they suppose to have been Roman fortifications and encampments. As it would serve no good purpose to encumber our pages with these antiquarian conjectures, detailed accounts of which will be found in Chalmers, Stuart, Roy, and others, we shall only say that, with considerable plausibility, it is supposed that the Ninth Legion encamped on the north side of Loch Ore, about two miles south of Loch Leven in Kinross-shire. Another legion, it is said, encamped near Dunearn Hill, about a mile distant from Burntisland, near which hill are still to be seen remains of a strength called Agricola’s camp. At all events the divisions[7] do not seem to have been very far apart, as will be seen from the following episode.

The enemy having watched the proceedings of the Roman army made the necessary preparations for attack, and during the night made a furious assault on the Ninth Legion at Loch Ore. They had acted with such caution that they were actually at the very camp before Agricola was aware of their movements; but with great presence of mind he despatched a body of his lightest troops to turn their flank and attack the assailants in the rear. After an obstinate engagement, maintained with varied success in the very gates of the camp, the Britons were at length repulsed by the superior skill of the Roman veterans. This battle was so far decisive, that Agricola did not find much difficulty afterwards in subduing the surrounding country, and, having finished his campaign, he passed the winter of 83 in Fife; being supplied with provisions from his fleet in the Forth, and keeping up a constant correspondence with his garrisons on the southern side.

By this victory, according to Tacitus, so complete and glorious, the Roman army was inspired with confidence to such a degree, that they now pronounced themselves invincible, and desired to penetrate to the extremity of the island.

The Caledonians now began to perceive the danger of their situation from the proximity of such a powerful enemy, and a sense of this danger impelled them to lay aside the feuds and jealousies which had divided and distracted their tribes, to consult together for their mutual safety and protection, and to combine their scattered strength into a united and energetic mass. The proud spirit of independence which had hitherto kept the Caledonian tribes apart, now made them coalesce in support of their liberties, which were threatened with utter annihilation. In this eventful crisis, they looked around them for a leader or chief under whom they might fight the battle of freedom, and save their country from the dangers which threatened it. A chief, named Galgacus by Tacitus, was pitched upon to act as generalissimo of the Caledonian army; and, from the praises bestowed upon him by that historian, this warrior appears to have well merited the distinction thus bestowed. Preparatory to the struggle they were about to engage in, they sent their wives and children into places of safety, and, in solemn assemblies in which public sacrifices were offered up, ratified the confederacy into which they had entered against their common enemy.

Having strengthened his army with some British auxiliaries from the south, Agricola marched through Fife in the summer of 84, making for a spot called by Tacitus Mons Grampius; sending at the same time his fleet round the eastern coast, to support him in his operations, and to distract the attention of the Caledonians. Various conjectures have been broached as to the exact line of Agricola’s march and the exact position of the Mons Grampius. The most plausible of these is that of General Roy,[9] who supposes that the march of Agricola was regulated by the course of the Devon; that he turned to the right from Glendevon through the opening of the Ochil hills, along the course of the rivulet which runs along Gleneagles; leaving the braes of Ogilvie on his left, and passing between Blackford and Auchterarder towards the Grampian hills, which he saw at a distance before him as he debouched from the Ochils. By an easy march he reached the moor of Ardoch, from which he descried the Caledonian army, to the number of 30,000 men, encamped on the declivity of the hill which begins to rise from the north-western border of the moor of Ardoch. Agricola took his station at the great camp which adjoins the fort of Ardoch on the northward. If the Roman camp at Ardoch does mark the spot where the disastrous engagement about to be noticed took place between these brave and determined Caledonians and the invincible Roman legions, it is highly probable that Agricola drew out his army on the neighbouring moor, having a large ditch or trench of considerable length in front, the Caledonian host under Galgacus being already disposed in battle array on the heights beyond. The Roman army is supposed to have numbered about 20,000 or 30,000, the auxiliary infantry, in number about 8,000,[10] occupying the centre, the wings[8] consisting of 3,000 horse. The legions were stationed in the rear, at the head of the entrenchments, as a body of reserve to support the ranks, if necessary, but otherwise to remain inactive, that a victory, obtained without the effusion of Roman blood, might be of higher value. Previous to the commencement of this interesting light, according to “the fashion of historical literature at that time,” a speech is put into the mouth of each general by the historian Tacitus. “How much more valuable would it have been to us had Tacitus deigned to tell us something about the tongue in which the leader of the barbarians spoke, or even his name, and the name of the place where he fought, as the natives uttered it! Yet, for the great interests of its day, the speech of Galgacus was far removed from a mere feat of idle pedantry. It was a noble rebuke on the empire and the Roman people, who, false to the high destiny assigned to them by Virgil, of protecting the oppressed and striking down the oppressors, had become the common scourge of all mankind. The profligate ambition, the perfidy, the absorbing pride, the egotism, and the cruelty of the dominant people—how could all be so aptly set forth as in the words of a barbarian chief, ruling over the free people who were to be the next victims.”[11]

The narrative of the battle we give mainly in the words of the Roman commander’s son-in-law, Tacitus, who no doubt had the story from Agricola’s own mouth.[12] The battle began, and at first was maintained at a distance. The Britons wanted neither skill nor resolution. With their long swords, and targets of small dimension, they had the address to elude the missive weapons of the Romans, and at the same time to discharge a thick volley of their own. To bring the conflict to a speedy decision, Agricola ordered three Batavian and two Tungrian cohorts to charge the enemy sword in hand. To this mode of attack those troops had been long accustomed, but to the Britons it was every way disadvantageous. Their small targets afforded no protection, and their unwieldy swords, not sharpened to a point, could do but little execution in a close engagement. The Batavians rushed to the attack with impetuous fury; they redoubled their blows, and with the bosses of their shields bruised the enemy in the face, and, having overpowered all resistance on the plain, began to force their way up the ascent of the hill in regular order of battle. Incited by their example, the other cohorts advanced with a spirit of emulation, and cut their way with terrible slaughter. Eager in pursuit of victory, they pressed forward with determined fury, leaving behind them numbers wounded, but not slain, and others not so much as hurt.

The Roman cavalry, in the mean time, was forced to give ground. The Caledonians, in their armed chariots, rushed at full speed into the thick of the battle, where the infantry were engaged. Their first impression struck a general terror, but their career was soon checked by the inequalities of the ground, and the close embodied ranks of the Romans. Nothing could less resemble an engagement of the cavalry. Pent up in narrow places, the barbarians crowded upon each other, and were driven or dragged along by their own horses. A scene of confusion followed. Chariots without a guide, and horses without a rider, broke from the ranks in wild disorder, and flying every way, as fear and consternation urged, they overwhelmed their own files, and trampled down all who came in their way.

Meanwhile the Britons, who had hitherto kept their post on the hills, looking down with contempt on the scanty numbers of the Roman army, began to quit their station. Descending slowly, they hoped, by wheeling round the field of battle, to attack the victors in the rear. To counteract their design, Agricola ordered four squadrons of horse, which he had kept as a body of reserve, to advance to the charge. The Britons poured down with impetuosity, and retired with equal precipitation. At the same time, the cavalry, by the directions of the general, wheeled round from the wings, and fell with great slaughter on the rear of the enemy, who now perceived that their own stratagem was turned against themselves.

The field presented a dreadful spectacle of carnage and destruction. The Britons fled; the Romans pursued; they wounded, gashed, and mangled the runaways; they seized their[9] prisoners, and, to be ready for others, butchered them on the spot. Despair and horror appeared in various shapes; in one part of the field the Caledonians, sword in hand, fled in crowds from a handful of Romans; in other places, without a weapon left, they faced every danger, and rushed on certain death. Swords and bucklers, mangled limbs and dead bodies, covered the plain. The field was red with blood. The vanquished Britons had their moments of returning courage, and gave proofs of virtue and of brave despair. They fled to the woods, and, rallying their scattered numbers, surrounded such of the Romans as pursued with too much eagerness.

Night coming on, the Romans, weary of slaughter, desisted from the pursuit. Ten thousand of the Caledonians fell in this engagement: on the part of the Romans, the number of slain did not exceed three hundred and forty.

The Roman army, elate with success, and enriched with plunder, passed the night in exultation. The Britons, on the other hand, wandered about, uncertain which way to turn, helpless and disconsolate. The mingled cries of men and women filled the air with lamentations. Some assisted to carry off the wounded; others called for the assistance of such as escaped unhurt; numbers abandoned their habitations, or, in their frenzy, set them on fire. They fled to obscure retreats, and, in the moment of choice, deserted them; they held consultations, and, having inflamed their hopes, changed their minds in despair; they beheld the pledges of tender affection, and burst into tears; they viewed them again, and grew fierce with resentment. It is a fact well authenticated, that some laid violent hands upon their wives and children, determined with savage compassion to end their misery.

After obtaining hostages from the Horestians, who in all probability inhabited what is now the county of Fife, Agricola garrisoned the stations on the isthmus and elsewhere, recrossed the Forth, and took up his winter-quarters in the north of England, about the Tyne and Solway. In the meantime he gave orders to the fleet, then lying probably in the Frith of Forth or Tay, to proceed on a voyage of discovery to the northward. The enterprise appears to have been successfully accomplished by the Roman navy, which proceeded coastwise as far as the Orkneys, whence it sailed by the Western Islands and the British Channel ad Portum Trutulensem, Richborough in Kent, returning to the point from which it started. This is the first voyage on record that determined Britain to be an island.

The Emperor Domitian now resolved to supersede Agricola in his command in North Britain; and he was accordingly recalled in the year 85, under the pretence of promoting him to the government of Syria, but in reality out of envy on account of the glory which he had obtained by the success of his arms. He died on the 23d of August, 93, some say, from poison, while others attribute his death to the effects of chagrin at the unfeeling treatment of Domitian. His countrymen lamented his death, and Tacitus, his son-in-law, preserved the memory of his actions and his worth in the history of his life.

During the remainder of Domitian’s reign, and that of Hadrian his successor, North Britain appears to have enjoyed tranquillity; an inference which may be fairly drawn from the silence of the Roman historians. Yet as Hadrian in the year 121 built a wall between the Solway and the Tyne, some writers have supposed that the Romans had been driven by the Caledonians out of North Britain, in the reign of that Emperor. But if such was the case, how did Lollius Urbicus, the Roman general, about nineteen years after Hadrian’s wall was erected, penetrate without opposition to Agricola’s forts between the Clyde and the Forth? May we not rather suppose that the wall of Hadrian was built for the purpose of preventing incursions into the south by the tribes which inhabited the country between that wall and the Friths? But, be this as it may, little is known of the history of North Britain from the time of Agricola’s recall till the year 138, when Antoninus Pius assumed the imperial purple. That good and sagacious emperor was distinguished by the care which he took in selecting the fittest officers for the government of the Roman provinces; and his choice, for that of Britain, fell on Lollius Urbicus.

[10]

The positive information concerning the transactions of this general in North Britain is as meagre as could possibly be, the only clearly ascertained fact in connection with his command being that he built a wall between the Forth and Clyde, very nearly on a line with the forts established by Agricola. “The meagreness of all ancient record,” says Burton,[13] “of the achievements of Lollius Urbicus is worthy of emphatic mention and recollection, because his name has got into the ordinary abridged histories which speak of it, and of ‘his campaign in the north’ as well-known events, of which people naturally expect fuller information elsewhere. The usual sources for reference regarding him will however be found utterly dumb.” The story commonly given is that he proceeded north as far as the Moray Frith, throwing the extensive country between Forth and Clyde and the Moray Frith into the form of a regular Roman province, which, on the worthless authority of the pseudo-Richard, was named Vespasiana. All this may have been the case, and the remains[14] of Roman stations found throughout the wide tract just mentioned give some plausibility to the conjecture; but there is only the most slender grounds for connecting them with any northern expedition of Lollius Urbicus. At all events we may very safely conclude, from the general tone of the records which remain of his and of subsequent expeditions, as well as from the fact that they found it necessary to divide the Lowlands from the Highlands by a fortified wall, that the Romans considered the Caledonians of their time very troublesome, and found it exceedingly difficult if not impossible to bring them under their otherwise universal yoke.

It may not be out of place to give here some account of the wall of Antonine. The wall or rampart extended from Carriden on the Forth, two miles west from Blackness, and about the same distance east from Bo’ness, to West Kilpatrick on the Clyde. The date, which may be depended on, assigned to the building of the wall is between 138 and 140 A.D. Taking the length of this wall from Kilpatrick on the Clyde to Caeridden or Carriden on the Forth, its extent would be 39,726 Roman paces, which exactly agrees with the modern measurement of 36 English miles and 620 yards. This rampart, which was of earth, and rested on a stone foundation, was upwards of twenty feet high and four and twenty feet thick. Along the whole extent of the wall there was a vast ditch or prætentura on the outward or north side, which was generally twenty feet deep and forty feet wide, and which, there is reason to believe, might be filled with water when occasion required.[15][11] This ditch and rampart were strengthened at both ends, and throughout its whole extent, by about twenty forts, three being at each extremity, and the remainder placed between at the distance of about two English miles from one another; and it is highly probable that these stations were designedly placed on the previous fortifications of Agricola. The following, going from east to west, are the names and sites of some of the stations which have been identified:—Rough Castle, Castlecary, Westerwood, Bunhill, Auchindinny, Kirkintilloch, Bemulie, East Kilpatrick, Castlehill, Duntocher, West Kilpatrick. It will be seen that to a certain extent they are on the line of the Edinburgh and Glasgow railway, and throughout nearly its whole length that of the Forth and Clyde canal. Its necessary appendage, a military road, ran behind the rampart from end to end, for the use of the troops and for keeping up the usual communication between the stations or forts. From inscriptions on some of the foundation stones, which have been dug up, it appears that the Second legion, with detachments from the sixth and twentieth legions and some auxiliaries, executed these vast military works, equally creditable to their skill and perseverance. Dunglas near the western extremity, and Blackness near the eastern extremity of the rampart, afforded the Romans commodious harbours for their shipping, as also did Cramond, about five miles west from Edinburgh. This wall is called in the popular language of the country Grime’s or Graham’s Dyke.[16] In 1868 a large oblong slab, in first-rate preservation, was dug up at Bo’ness, in the parish of Kinneil (Bede’s Peanfahel, “the head of the wall”), containing an inscription as distinct as it was on the day when it came from a Roman chisel. We give here a cut of this remarkable stone, which is now in the Scottish Antiquarian Museum.

We have no distinct mention of the Caledonians again until the reign of Commodus, when, about the year 183, these troublesome barbarians appear to have broken through the northern wall, slain the general in command of the Roman forces, and pillaged the lowland country beyond. They were, however, driven back by Ulpius Marcellus, who succeeded by prudent management in maintaining peace for a number of years. In the beginning of the reign of Severus, however, the Caledonians again broke out, but were kept in check by Virius Lupus, who appears to have bribed rather than beaten the barbarians into conformity.

The irrepressible Highlanders again broke out about the year 207, and this time the Emperor Severus himself, notwithstanding his bad health and old age, came from Rome to Britain, determined apparently to “stamp out” the rebellion. On hearing of his arrival the tribes sent deputies to him to negotiate for peace, but the emperor, who was of a warlike disposition, and fond of military glory, declined to entertain any proposals.

After making the necessary preparations,[12] Severus began his march to the north in the year 208. He traversed the whole of North Britain, from the wall of Antoninus to the very extremity of the island, with an immense army. The Caledonians avoided coming to a general engagement with him, but kept up an incessant and harassing warfare on all sides. He, however, brought them to sue for peace; but the honours of this campaign were dearly earned, for fifty thousand of the Romans fell a prey to the attacks of the Caledonians, to fatigue, and to the severity of the climate. The Caledonians soon disregarded the treaty which they had entered into with Severus, which conduct so irritated him that he gave orders to renew the war, and to spare neither age nor sex; but his son, Caracalla, to whom the execution of these orders was intrusted, was more intent in plotting against his father and brother than in executing the revengeful mandate of the dying emperor, whose demise took place at York on the 4th February, 211, in the sixty-sixth year of his age, and in the third year of his administration in Britain.

It is in connection with this invasion that we first hear of the Meats or Mæatæ, who are mentioned by Dion Cassius, or rather his epitomiser Xiphiline, and who are supposed by some to have inhabited the country between the two walls, while others think it more likely that they were a part of the Caledonians, and inhabited the district between the Grampians and the wall of Antonine. We shall not, however, enter into this question here, but endeavour, as briefly as possible, to record all that is known of the remaining transactions of the Romans in the north of Scotland, reserving other matters for the next chapter.

It was not consistent with the policy by which Caracalla was actuated, to continue a war with the Caledonians; for the scene of his ambition lay in Rome, to which he made hasty preparations to depart on the death of his father. He therefore entered into a treaty with the Caledonians by which he gave up the territories surrendered by them to his father, and abandoned the forts erected by him in their fastnesses. The whole country north of the wall of Antonine appears in fact to have been given up to the undisputed possession of the Caledonians, and we hear of no more incursions by them till the reign of the emperor Constantius Chlorus, who came to Britain in the year 306, to repel the Caledonians and other Picts.[17] Their incursions were repelled by the Roman legions under Constantius, and they remained quiet till about the year 345, when they again entered the territories of the provincial Britons; but they were compelled, it is said, again to retreat by Constans, son of Constantine the Great.

Although these successive inroads had been always repelled by the superior power and discipline of the Romans, the Caledonians of the fourth century no longer regarded them in the formidable light in which they had been viewed by their ancestors, and their genius for war improving every time they came in hostile contact with their enemies, they meditated the design of expelling the intruders altogether from the soil of North Britain. The wars which the Romans had to sustain against the Persians in the East, and against the Germans on the frontiers of Gaul, favoured the plan of the Caledonians; and having formed a treaty with the Scots, whose name is mentioned for the first time in history in this connection by Ammianus Marcellinus, they, in conjunction with their new allies, about the year 360 invaded the Roman territories and committed many depredations. Julian, who commanded the Roman army on the Rhine, despatched Lupicinus, an able military commander, to defend the province against the Scots and Picts, but he was recalled before he had done much to repel them.

The Picts—who on this occasion are mentioned by Ammianus Marcellinus[18] as being divided into two nations, the Dicaledones and Vecturiones—and Scots, being joined by the Attacots, “a warlike race of men,” and the Saxons, numbers of whom appear at this early period to have settled in Britain, made another attack on the Roman provinces in the year[13] 364, on the accession of Valentinian. These appear to have made their way as far south as London, and it required all the valour and skill of Theodosius the Elder, father of the emperor of that name, who was sent to Britain in the year 367, to repel this aggression, and to repair the great ravages committed by the barbarians. The next outbreak occurred about the year 398, when the Picts and Scots again broke loose and ravaged the provinces, being repelled by a legion sent over by the great Stilicho, in answer to the petition of the helpless provincials for assistance.

In the beginning of the fifth century the enervated Romanized Britons again appear to have been subjected to the tender mercies of their wicked northern neighbours; and in reply to their cry for help, Honorius, in 416, sent over to their relief a single legion, which drove back the intruders. The Romans, as is well known, engrossed by overwhelming troubles nearer home, finally abandoned Britain about the year 446, advising the inhabitants, who were suffering from the ravages of the Picts and Scots, to protect themselves by retiring behind and keeping in repair the wall of Severus.

Such is a brief account of the transactions of the Romans in Britain so far as these were connected with the Highlands of Scotland. That energetic and insatiable people doubtless left their mark on the country and its inhabitants south of the Forth and Clyde, as the many Roman remains which exist there at the present day testify. The British provincials, indeed, appear in the end to have been utterly enervated, and, in the worst sense, Romanized, so that they became an easy prey to their Saxon helpers. It is quite evident, however, that the inhabitants of Caledonia proper, the district beyond the wall of Antonine, were to a very slight extent, if at all, influenced by the Roman invasion. Whether it was from the nature of the people, or from the nature of the country which they inhabited, or from both combined, they appear to have been equally impervious to Roman force and Roman culture. The best services that their enemies rendered to the Caledonians or Picts were that they forced them to unite against the common foe thus contributing towards the foundation of a future kingdom; and that they gave them a training in arms such as the Caledonians could never have obtained, had they not been brought into collision with the best-trained soldiers of the world in their time.

We have in what precedes mainly followed only one thread in the very intricate web formed by the early history of the Highlands, which, to a certain extent at this period, is the history of Scotland; but, as will have been seen, there are various other threads which join in from time to time, and which, after giving a short account of the traces of the Roman invasion still existing in the Highlands, we shall endeavour to catch up and follow out as far as possible.

It is not necessary in a history of the Highlands of Scotland, as we have defined that term, that much space should be given to an account of Roman remains; for, as we have already said, these Italian invaders appear never to have obtained anything like a firm footing in that rugged district, or made any definite or characteristic impression on its inhabitants. “The vestiges whence it is inferred that the Empire for a time had so far established itself in Scotland as to bring the natives over to the habits of peaceful citizens, belong almost exclusively to the country south of Antonine’s wall, between the Forth and Clyde. Coins and weapons have been found farther north, but scarcely any vestige of regular settlement. None of the pieces of Roman sculpture found in Scotland belong to the districts north of the wall. It is almost more significant still, that of the very considerable number of Scottish Roman inscriptions in the various collections, only one was found north of the wall, and that in the strongly-fortified station of Ardoch, where it commemorated that it was dedicated to the memory of a certain Ammonius Damionis.[19] On the other hand, it is in that unsubdued district that the memorials of Roman conquest chiefly abound.”[20]

The whole of Britain was intersected by Roman ways, and as, wherever a Roman army went, it was preceded by pioneers who cleared and made a durable road to facilitate its march, there can be no doubt that the north of Scotland[14] was to a considerable extent intersected by highways during the invasion of Agricola, Lollius Urbicus, and Severus. One road at least can be traced as far north as Aberdeenshire, and is popularly known in some districts as the Lang Causeway. This road appears to have issued from the wall of Antonine, passed through Camelon, the Roman port on the Carron, and pushing straight forward, according to the Roman custom, across the Carron, it pursued its course in a general north-east direction through Stirling, Perth, by Ardoch, through Forfar and Kincardine, to about Stonehaven.

It would appear that there are traces of Roman roads even farther north. Between the rivers Don and Urie in Aberdeenshire, on the eastern side of Bennachee, there exists an ancient road known in the country by the name of the Maiden Causeway, a name by which some of the Roman roads in the north of England are distinguished. This proceeds from Bennachee whereon there is said to have been a hill-fort, more than the distance of a mile into the woods of Pitodrie, when it disappears: it is paved with stones, and is about fourteen feet wide. Still farther north, from Forres to the ford of Cromdale on the Spey, there has been long known a road of very ancient construction, pointing to Cromdale, where the Romans may have forded the Spey. Various traces of very ancient roads are still to be seen by Corgarf and through Braemar: the tradition of the people in Strathdee and Braemar, supports the idea that there are remains of Roman roads which traverse the country between the Don and the Dee. Certain it is, that there are obvious traces of ancient roads which cross the wild districts between Strathdon and Strathdee, though it is impossible to ascertain when or by whom these ancient roads were constructed, in such directions, throughout such a country.

Along these roads there were without doubt many camps and stations, as it is well known that the Romans never halted even for a single night, without entrenching themselves behind secure fortifications. There are many remains of what are supposed to have been Roman camps still pointed out in various places north of the line occupied by Antonine’s wall. These are well known even to the peasantry, and are generally treated with respect. The line of these camps reaches as far as the counties of Aberdeen and Inverness, the most important of them, however, being found in Strathallan, Strathearn, and Strathmore. Besides the most important of these camps, that at Ardoch, traces of many others have been found. There was one on the river Earn, about six miles east of Ardoch, which would command the middle part of Strathearn lying between the Ochil hills on the south and the river Almond on the north. Another important station is supposed to have been established near Callander, where, on a tongue of land formed by the junction of the rivers Strathgartney and Strathyre, the two sources of the Teith, are seen the embankments referred to by Scott[21] as

Another camp is placed at Dalgenross, near the confluence of the Ruchel and the Earn, which, with Bochastle, would command the western district of Strathearn. Another important station was the East Findoch, at the south side of the Almond; it guarded the only practicable passage through the mountains northward, to an extent of thirty miles from east to west. The Roman camp here was placed on a high ground, defended by water on two sides, and by a morass with a steep bank on the other two sides. It was about one hundred and eighty paces long, and eighty broad, and was surrounded by a strong earthen wall nearly twelve feet thick, part of which still remains. The trenches are still entire, and in some places six feet deep.

On the eastern side of Strathearn, and between it and the Forth, are the remains of Roman posts; and at Ardargie a Roman camp was established with the design, it is supposed, of guarding the passage through the Ochil hills, by the valley of May water. Another camp at Gleneagles secured the passage of the same hills through Glendevon. With the design of guarding the narrow, but useful passage from[15] the middle Highlands, westward through Glenlyon to Argyle, the Romans fixed a post at Fortingal, about sixteen miles north-west from the station at East-Findoch.

A different line of posts became necessary to secure Angus and the Mearns. At Coupar Angus, on the east side of the Isla, about seven miles east from Inchtuthel, stood a Roman camp, of a square form, of twenty acres within the ramparts. This camp commanded the passage down Strathmore, between the Siedlaw hills on the south-east, and the Isla on the north-west. On Campmoor, little more than a mile south from Coupar Angus, appear the remains of another Roman fort. The great camp of Battledyke stood about eighteen miles north-east from Coupar Angus, being obviously placed there to guard the passage from the Highlands through Glen Esk and Glen Prosen. About eleven and a-half miles north-east of the camp at Battledykes was another Roman camp, the remains of which may still be traced near the mansion-house of Keithock. This camp is known by the name of Wardikes. The country below the Siedlaw hills, on the north side of the estuary of Tay, was guarded by a Roman camp near Invergowrie, which had a communication on the north-east with the camp at Harefaulds. This camp, which was about two hundred yards square, and fortified with a high rampart and a spacious ditch, stood about two miles west from Dundee.

Traces of a number of others have been found, but we need not go farther into detail. This account of the Roman transactions in Scotland would, however, be incomplete without a more particular notice of the well-known camp at Ardoch. Ardoch village, in Perthshire, lies on the east side of Knaigwater, ten miles north from Stirling, and is about two miles from the Greenloaning station of the Caledonian railway, the site of the camp being a little distance to the north-west of the village. As this station guarded the principal inlet into the interior of Caledonia, the Romans were particularly anxious to fortify so advantageous a position. “The situation of it,” says the writer of the Old Statistical Account of Muthill, “gave it many advantages; being on the north-west side of a deep moss that runs a long way eastward. On the west side, it is partly defended by the steep bank of the water of Knaik; which bank rises perpendicularly between forty and fifty feet. The north and east sides were most exposed; and there we find very particular care was taken to secure them. The ground on the east is pretty regular, and descends by a gentle slope from the lines of fortification, which, on that side, consists of five rows of ditches, perfectly entire, and running parallel to one another. These altogether are about fifty-five yards in breadth. On the north side, there is an equal number of lines and ditches, but twenty yards broader than the former. On the west, besides the steep precipices above mentioned, it was defended by at least two ditches. One is still visible; the others have probably been filled up, in making the great military road from Stirling to the north. The side of the camp, lying to the southward, exhibits to the antiquary a less pleasing prospect. Here the peasant’s rugged hand has laid in ruins a great part of the lines; so that it may be with propriety said, in the words of a Latin poet, ‘Jam seges est, ubi Troja fuit.’ The area of the camp is an oblong of 140 yards, by 125 within the lines. The general’s quarter rises above the level of the camp, but is not in the centre. It is a regular square, each side being exactly twenty yards. At present it exhibits evident marks of having been enclosed with a stone wall, and contains the foundation of a house, ten yards by seven.” There are two other encampments adjoining, having a communication with one another, and containing about 130 acres of ground. A subterranean passage is[16] said to have extended from the prætorium under the bed of the Knaik. Not far north of this station, on the way to Crieff, may be traced three temporary Roman camps of different sizes. Portions of the ramparts of these camps still exist. A mile west of Ardoch, an immense cairn lately existed, 182 feet long, 45 broad at the base, and 30 feet in sloping height. A human skeleton, 7 feet long, in a stone coffin, was found in it.[23]

The preceding chapter has been occupied almost entirely with an account of the transactions of the Romans in the north of Scotland, and it is now our duty to go back and narrate what is known of the internal history of the Highlands during the time of the Romans. In doing so we are brought face to face with certain much agitated questions which have for centuries engaged the attention of antiquaries, and in the discussion of which many bulky tomes have been written and incredible acrimony displayed. To enter with anything like minuteness into this discussion would occupy more space than can be devoted to the entire history, and, moreover, would be out of place in a popular work like the present, and distasteful to most of its readers. The following are some of the much-discussed questions referred to:—Who were the original inhabitants of Caledonia? To what race did they belong—were they Gothic or Celtic? and if Celtic, were they Cymric or Gaelic? When did they enter Scotland, and whence did they come—from the opposite continent, or from the south of Britain? Was the whole of Scotland, in the time of Agricola, occupied by one people, or by a mixed race, or by various races? Were the Picts and Caledonians the same people? What is the meaning and origin of Pict, and was Caledonia a native appellation? What were the localities of the Northern and Southern Picts? Who were the Scots? What was the nature of the union of the Scots and Picts under Kenneth Macalpin?

The notices of the early inhabitants of the Highlands in the contemporary Roman historians are so few, the information given so meagre and indefinite, and the ecclesiastical historians of a later time are so full of miracle, myth, and hearsay, and so little to be depended on, that it appears to us almost impossible, with the materials at present within the historian’s reach, to arrive at anything like a satisfactory answer to the above questions. The impression left after reading much that has been written on various sides, is one of dissatisfaction and bewilderment,—dissatisfaction with the far-fetched and irrelevant arguments frequently adduced, and the unreliable authorities quoted, and bewilderment amid the dust-cloud of words with which any one who enters this debatable land is sure to be enveloped. “It is scarcely necessary to observe, that there are few points of ethnology on which historians and antiquaries have been more at variance with each other, than respecting the real race of those inhabitants of a portion of Caledonia popularly known by the designation of Picts. The difficulty arising from this discrepancy of opinion is increased by the scanty and unsatisfactory nature of the materials now available to those who wish to form an independent judgment. No connected specimen of the Pictish language has been preserved; nor has any ancient author who knew them from personal observation, stated in direct terms that they approximated to one adjoining tribe more than another. They are indeed associated with the Scots or Irish as joint plunderers of the colonial Britons; and the expression of Gildas that they differed in some degree from the Scots in their customs, might seem to imply that they did bear an analogy to that nation in certain respects. Of course, where there is such a lack of direct evidence, there is more scope for conjecture;[17] and the Picts are pronounced by different investigators of their history to have been Germans, Scandinavians, Welsh, Gael, or something distinct from all the four. The advocates of the German hypothesis rest chiefly on Tacitus’s description of their physical conformation. Dr. Jamieson, assuming that the present Lowland Scotch dialect was derived from them, sets them down as Scandinavians; Bishop Lloyd and Camden conceive them to have been of Celtic race, probably related to the Britons; Chalmers, the author of ‘Caledonia,’ regards them as nothing more than a tribe of Cambrians or Welsh; while Skene, one of the latest authors on the subject, thinks he has proved that they were the ancestors of the present race of Scottish Highlanders.”[24]

The earliest known name applied to Britain is found in a treatise on the World ascribed to Aristotle, in which the larger island is called Albinn, and Ireland referred to as Ierne; and it is worthy of notice that at the present day the former is the name applied to Scotland by the Highlanders, who call themselves the Gael Albinnich. The first author, however, who gives us any information about the early inhabitants of the north part of Scotland is Tacitus, who, in his Life of Agricola, devotes a few lines, in a parenthetical way, to characterising each of the great divisions of the people who, in the time of that general, inhabited Britain. Tacitus tells us that in his time the inhabitants of Britain differed in the habit and make of their bodies, and from the ruddy locks and large limbs of the Caledonians he inferred that they were of German origin.[25] This glimpse is clear enough, but tantalizing in its meagreness and generality. What does Tacitus mean by German—does he use it in the same sense as we do at the present day? Does he mean by Caledonia the whole of the country north of the Forth and Clyde, or does it apply only to that district—Fife, Forfar, the east of Perth, &c.—with the inhabitants of which his father-in-law came in contact? We find Ptolemy the geographer, who flourished about the middle of the 2d century A.D., mentioning the Caledonians as one of the many tribes which in his time inhabited the north of Scotland. The term Caledonians is supposed by some authorities to have been derived from a native word signifying “men of the woods,” or the inhabitants of the woody country; this, however, is mere conjecture.

The next writer who gives any definite information as to the inhabitants of Caledonia is Dion Cassius, who flourished in the early part of the 3d century, and who wrote a history of Rome which has come down to us in a very imperfect state. Of the latter part, containing an account of Britain, we possess only an epitome made by Xiphilinus, an ecclesiastic of the 11th century, and which of course is very meagre in its details. The following are the particulars given by this writer concerning the early inhabitants of north Britain. “Of the Britons the two most ample nations are the Caledonians and the Mæatæ; for the names of the rest refer for the most part to these. The Mæatæ inhabit very near the wall[26] which divides the island into two parts; the Caledonians are after these. Each of them inhabit mountains, very rugged and wanting water, and also desert fields, full of marshes: they have neither castles nor cities, nor dwell in any: they live on milk and by hunting, and maintain themselves by the fruits of the trees: for fishes, of which there is a very great and numberless quantity, they never taste: they dwell naked in tents and without shoes: they use wives in common, and whatever is born to them they bring up. In the popular state they are governed, as for the most part: they rob on the highway most willingly: they war in chariots: horses they have, small and fleet; their infantry, also, are as well most swift at running, as most brave in pitched battle. Their arms are a shield and a short spear, in the upper part whereof is an apple of brass, that, while it is shaken, it may terrify the enemies with the sound: they have likewise daggers. They are able to bear hunger, cold, and all afflictions; for they merge themselves in marshes, and there remain many days, having only their head out of water: and in woods are nourished by the bark and roots of trees. But a certain kind of food they prepare for all occasions, of which if they take as much as ‘the[18] size’ of a single bean, they are in nowise ever wont to hunger or thirst.”[27]

From this we learn that in the 3d century there were two divisions of the inhabitants of the Highlands, known to the Romans as the Caledonians and Mæats or Mæatæ, the latter very probably inhabiting the southern part of that territory, next to the wall of Antonine, and the former the district to the north of this. As to whether these were Latinized forms of native names, or names imposed by the Romans themselves, we have no means of judging. The best writers on this subject think that the Caledonians and Mæats were two divisions of the same people, both living to the north of the Forth and Clyde, although Innes,[28] and one or two minor writers, are of opinion that the Mæats were provincial Britons who inhabited the country between the wall of Hadrian and that of Antonine, known as the province of Valentia. However, with Skene,[29] Mr. Joseph Robertson, and other able authorities, we are inclined to think that the evidence is in favour of their being the inhabitants of the southern portion of Caledonia proper.

Herodian,[30] who wrote about A.D. 240, tells us that the Caledonians were in the habit of marking or painting their bodies with figures of animals, and that they wore no clothes in order that these figures might be preserved and exhibited.

The next reference made by a Roman writer to the inhabitants of Caledonia we find in a panegyric pronounced in his presence on the Emperor Constantius Chlorus, by Eumenius, a professor of rhetoric at Augustodunum (Autun) in Gaul, in the year 296 or 297, who speaks of the Britons, in the time of Cæsar, having been attacked by the half-naked Picts and Irish. To what people the orator meant to apply the term Picts, around which there has clustered so much acrimonious disputation, we learn from another oration pronounced by him on the same emperor, before his son Constantine, in the year 309, in which, recording the actions of Constantius, he speaks of the woods and marshes of the Caledonians and other Picts.

After this no further mention is made of the Caledonians by any Roman writer, but towards the end of the 4th century Ammianus Marcellinus, in his account of the Roman transactions in Britain, speaks of the Picts in conjunction with the Saxons, Scots, and Attacots harassing the provincial Britons about the year 364. Further on he informs us that at this time the Picts were divided into two tribes or nations, the Dicaledones and Vecturiones, remarking, at the same time, that “the Attacots were a warlike race of men, and the Scots a people much given to wandering, and in the habit of ravaging or laying waste the districts into which they came.”[31]

Claudian the poet, writing, about 397, in praise of Honorius, mentions, among other actions of Theodosius, the grandfather of that emperor, his having subdued the Picts, who were fitly so named,[32] and makes various other references to this people and the Scots, which show that these two in combination were troubling the Roman provincials not a little.[33]

Such are most of the scanty details given by the only contemporary historians who take any notice of the inhabitants of North Britain; and the unprejudiced reader will see that the foundation thus afforded upon which to construct any elaborate theory is so narrow that every such theory must resemble a pyramid standing on its apex, liable at the slightest touch to topple over and be shattered to pieces. It appears to us that all the conclusions which it is safe to draw from the few facts stated by the contemporary Roman historians are, that at the commencement of the Christian era Caledonia proper, or the Highlands, was inhabited by a people or peoples apparently considerable in number, and who in all probability had been settled there for a considerable time, part of whom at least were known to the Romans by the name of Caledonians. That these Caledonians,[19] those of them at any rate with whom Agricola came in contact in the first century, were red or fair haired and large limbed, from which Tacitus inferred that they were of German extraction. In the beginning of the third century there were at least two divisions of the inhabitants of Caledonia,—the Caledonians and Mæats,—the former inhabiting the country to the north of the Grampians, and the latter, in all probability, that to the south and south-east of these mountains. They appear to have been in many respects in a condition little removed from that of savages, although they must have made wonderful attainments in the manufacture of implements of war.

In the latter part of the third century we found the Highlanders spoken of under a new name, Picti, which the Roman historians at least, undoubtedly understood to be the Latin word meaning ‘painted,’[34] and which all the best modern writers believe to have been imposed by the Romans themselves, from the fact that the indomitable Caledonians had retained the custom of self-painting after all the Romanized Britons had given it up. There is the strongest probability that the Caledonians spoken of as Picts by Eumenius were the same as the Caledonians of Tacitus, or that the Caledonians and Picts were the same people under different names. The immediate cause for this change of name we have no means of ascertaining. It is in every way improbable that the Picts were a new people, who had come in upon the Caledonians, and supplanted them some time after Agricola’s invasion. The Romans were constantly coming into contact with the Caledonians from the time of Agricola till they abandoned Britain entirely, and had such a supplantation taken place, it certainly could not have been done quietly, and without the cognizance of the Romans. But we find no mention in any contemporary historian of any such commotion, and we know that the inhabitants of the Highlands never ceased to harass the British provincials, showing that they were not much taken up with any internal disturbance. Indeed, writers who adopt the most diverse opinions on other points in connection with the Pictish question are all agreed as to this, that the Caledonians and Picts were the same people.[35]

We learn further from our authorities, that towards the end of the fourth century the inhabitants of Caledonia were known to the Romans under the names of Dicaledones and Vecturiones, it being conjectured that these correspond to the Caledonians and Mæats of Dio, and the Northern and Southern Picts of a later period. The connection of the latter part of the word Di-caledones with Caledonii is evident, although the significance of the first syllable is doubtful,—some authorities conjecturing that it is the Gaelic word du, meaning “genuine.” It appears at all events to be established that during the early history of the Highlands, whatever other divisions may have existed among the inhabitants, those dwelling to the north and those dwelling to the south of the Grampians were two separate confederacies, and were known by distinct names.

Another not unimportant fact to be learned from the Roman historians in relation to the Picts or Caledonians is, that about the middle of the 4th century they were assisted by the Attacots, Saxons, and Scots. As to who the Attacots were it is now impossible to conjecture with anything like certainty, there being no sufficient reason for believing that they were allied to the Irish Scots. It is well enough known who the Saxons were, but how they came at this early period to be acting in concert with the Picts it is difficult to say. It is possible that numbers of them may have effected a settlement, even at this early period, in North Britain, although it is more likely that they were roving adventurers, who had left their homes, from choice or on compulsion, to try their fortune in Britain. They were probably the first droppings of the abundant shower that overwhelmed South Britain a century later. The Romans at this period had an officer with the title of “Comes litoris Saxonici per Britanniam;” and Claudian, in his praises of Stilicho, introduces Britain, saying—

[20]

It is interesting to notice that this[36] is the first mention made of the Scots in connection with what is now Scotland; but whether there were settlements of them at this time among the Picts, or whether they had come over from Ireland for the purpose of assisting the latter to harass the Romans, it is difficult to say. Probably, as was the case with the Saxons, these were the harbingers of the great migration that reached its culmination about a century and a half later. They appear, from what Ammianus says, to have been at this time a set of destructive vagabonds. We shall have more to say about them further on.

From the general tone of these contemporary Roman historians we learn that, whether Celtic or Gothic, these Picts or Caledonians were a hardy, indomitable, determined race, with a strong love of liberty and of the country in which they dwelt, and a resolution never to be subject to the greedy Roman. Comparatively few and barbarous as they were, they caused the Romans far more trouble than all the rest of Britain together; to conquer the latter and Romanize it appears to have been comparatively smooth work, but the Italians acknowledged the Highlanders invincible by building walls and other fortifications, and maintaining extra garrisons to protect the provincials from their fierce and wasting inroads. Whether the present Highlanders are the descendants of these or not, they certainly possess many of their qualities.

It will have been seen that the Roman historians give us almost no clue to what we now deem of most interest and importance, the place of the early inhabitants among the families of men, the time and manner of their arrival, the language they spoke, and their internal history generally. Of course the records of contemporaries stand in the first place of importance as evidences, and although we have other sources, historical, linguistic, and antiquarian, which shed a little light upon the subject, these, for various reasons, must be used with great caution. The only statement approaching to anything like a hint as to the origin of the Caledonians is that of Tacitus, referring to their ruddy locks and large limbs as an evidence of their German origin. There is no reason to doubt that those with whom Agricola came in contact were of this make and complexion, which, at the present day, are generally held to be indicative of a Teutonic origin; whereas the true Celt is popularly believed to be of a small make and dark complexion.[37] It may have been, that in Agricola’s time the part of the country into which he penetrated was occupied by considerable numbers of Teutons, who had effected a settlement either by force, or by favour of the prior inhabitants. The statement of Tacitus, however, those who uphold the Celtic theory endeavour to explain away.

We may safely say then, that with regard to all the most important points that have excited the curiosity of modern enquirers, the only contemporary historians to whom we can appeal, leave us almost entirely in the dark.

The writers, next in order of importance to whom an appeal is made as witnesses in this perplexing case, are the ecclesiastical chroniclers, the chief of whom are Gildas, Adamnan, Bede, Nennius. “Much of the error into which former writers have been led, has arisen from an improper use of these authors; they should be consulted exclusively as contemporary historians—whatever they assert as existing or occurring in their own time, or shortly before it, we may receive as true; but when we consider the perverted learning of that period, and the little information which they appear to have possessed of the traditions of the people around them, we ought to reject their fables or fanciful origins as altogether undeserving of credit.”[38] Though this dictum may perhaps be too sweeping, still any one who examines the authors referred to for himself, must admit that it is in the main just. It is well known that these writers exercise little or no discrimination in the composition of their narratives, that tradition, miracle, and observed fact are placed side by side, as all equally worthy of belief. Even Bede, the most reliable and[21] cautious of these early chroniclers, lived as long after some of the events of which he professes to give an account, as we of the present day do after the time of the Crusades; almost his sole authority being tradition or hearsay. Moreover, the knowledge which these writers had of the distinction between the various races of mankind was so very hazy, the terms they use are to us so comparatively unintelligible, and the information they do contain on the points in dispute so brief, vague, and parenthetical, that their value as authorities is reduced almost to a minimum.

Whoever was the author of the work De Excidio Britanniæ, one of the latest and most acute writers[39] on ethnology has shown that he is almost totally unworthy of credit, the sources of his information being exceedingly suspicious, and his statements proved to be false by comparison with trustworthy contemporary Roman historians. There is every reason to believe that the so-called Gildas—for by Mr. Wright[40] he has been reduced to a nominis umbra—lived and wrote about the middle of the 6th century A.D., so that, had he used ordinary diligence and discrimination, he might have been of considerable assistance in enabling us to solve the perplexing mystery of the Pictish question. But indeed we have no right to look for much history in the work of Gildas, as it professes to be merely a complaint “on the general destruction of every thing that is good, and the general growth of evil throughout the land;” it is his purpose, he says, “to relate the deeds of an indolent and slothful race, rather than the exploits of those who have been valiant in the field.”[41] So far as the origin and early history of the Picts is concerned, Gildas is of almost no value whatever, the only time he mentions the Picts being incidentally to notice an invasion they had made into the Roman provinces.[42] If we can trust him, the Picts and their allies, the Scots, must have been very fierce enemies to deal with. They went about, he tells us, almost entirely destitute of clothes, having their faces covered with bushy hair, and were in the habit of dragging the poor enervated Britons from the top of their protecting wall with hooked weapons, slaughtering them without mercy. Some writers infer from this narrative that, during the Roman occupation, no permanent settlement of Scots had been effected in present Scotland, but that the Scots who assisted the Picts came over from their native Scotland (Ireland) for that purpose; he tells us that the Scots came from the north-west, and the Picts from the north.[43] “North-west” here, however, would apply quite as well to Argyle as to Ireland.

The writer next in chronological order from whom we derive any information of consequence concerning the Picts is Adamnan, a member of the early Irish Church, who was born in the county of Donegal about the year 625, elected abbot of Iona in 679, and who died in the year 704. Adamnan wrote a life of his great predecessor St. Columba, in which is contained much information concerning that great missionary’s labours among the Northern Picts; and although he narrates many stories which are palpably incredible, still the book contains much which may with confidence be accepted as fact. In connection with the questions under consideration, we learn that, in the time of Columba and Adamnan, there were—as formerly, in the time of the Roman writers—two divisions of the Picts, known in the 7th century and afterwards as the Northern and Southern Picts. Adamnan informs us that Columba’s mission was to the Northern Picts alone,—the southern division having been converted by St. Ninian in the 5th century. There has been much disputation as to the precise district inhabited by each of these two divisions of the Picts,—some maintaining that the southern division occupied the country to the south of the Forth and Clyde, while the Northern Picts occupied the whole district to the north of these estuaries. The best authorities, however, are of opinion that both divisions dwelt to the north of Antonine’s wall, and were divided from each other by the Grampians.

What more immediately concerns our present purpose is a passage in Adamnan’s work in which he speaks of Columba preaching to the Picts through an interpreter. Now Columba[22] was an Irish Scot, whose native tongue was Gaelic, and it is from this argued that the Picts to whom he preached must have spoken a different language, or at least dialect, and belonged to a different race or tribe from the saint himself. Mr. Skene,[44] who ably advocates the Gaelic origin of the Picts, perceiving this difficulty, endeavours to explain away the force of the passage by making it mean that Columba “interpreted or explained the word of God, that is, the Bible, which, being written in Latin, would doubtless require to be interpreted to them.” The passage as quoted by Skene is, “Verbo Dei per interpretorem recepto.” Garnett, however, one of the most competent and candid writers on this question in its philological aspect, and who maintains, with the greatest clearness and ability, the Cymric origin of the Picts, looks at the passage in a different light. The entire passage, he says,[45] as it stands in Colganus, is as follows:—“Alio in tempore quo sanctus Columba in Pictorum provincia per aliquot demorabatur dies, quidam cum tota plebeius familia, verbum vitæ per interpretorem, Sancto prædicante viro, audiens credidit, credensque baptizatus est.”[46] “Here it will be observed,” continues Garnett, “Adamnan does not say, ‘verbum Dei,’ which might have been construed to mean the Scripture, but ‘verbum vitæ, Sancto prædicante viro,’ which can hardly mean anything but ‘the word of life, as it was preached by the Saint.’” Certainly, we think, the unprejudiced reader must admit that, so far as this point is concerned, Mr. Garnett has the best of it. Although at that time the Gaelic and Cymric dialects may have had much more in common than they have at the present day, nevertheless it appears to be beyond a doubt that the difference between the two was so great that a Gael would be unintelligible to a speaker of Cymric.[47]

The next and most important authority of this class on this quæstio vexata is the Venerable Bede, who, considering the age in which he lived, exercised so much caution and discrimination, that he deserves to be listened to with respect. Bede was born about 673. He was educated in the Monastery of Wearmouth, whence he removed to Jarrow, where he was ordained deacon in his nineteenth year, and priest in his thirtieth, and where he spent the rest of his days, dying in 735. He wrote many works, but the most important is the Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, the materials for which he obtained chiefly from native chronicles and biographies, records and public documents, and oral and written communications from contemporaries.

We shall transcribe most of the passage in which Bede speaks of the ancient inhabitants of Britain; so that our readers may be able to judge for themselves of the nature and value of the testimony borne by this venerable author. It must, however, be kept in mind that Bede does not pretend to give any but the ecclesiastical history of the English nation, everything else being subsidiary to this.

“This island at present, following the number of the books in which the Divine law was written, contains five nations, the English, Britons, Scots, Picts, and Latins, each in its own peculiar dialect cultivating the sublime study of Divine truth. The Latin tongue is, by the study of the Scriptures, become common to all the rest. At first this island had no other inhabitants but the Britons, from whom it derived its name, and who coming over into Britain, as is reported, from Armorica, possessed themselves of the southern parts thereof. When they, beginning at the south, had made themselves master of the greatest part of the island, it happened, that the nation of the[23] Picts coming into the ocean from Scythia, as is reported, in a few tall ships, were driven by the winds beyond the shores of Britain and arrived off Ireland, on the northern coasts, where, finding the nation of the Scots, they requested to be allowed to settle among them, but could not succeed in obtaining their request. The Scots answered, that the island could not contain them both; but ‘we can give you good advice,’ said they, ‘what to do; we know there is another island, not far from ours, to the eastward, which we often see at a distance, when the days are clear. If you will repair thither, you may be able to obtain settlements; or if they should oppose you, you may make use of us as auxiliaries.’ The Picts accordingly sailing over into Britain, began to inhabit the northern parts thereof, for the Britons were possessed of the southern. Now the Picts having no wives, and asking them of the Scots, they would not consent to grant them upon any other terms, than that when any difficulty should arise, they should rather choose themselves a king from the female royal race than from the male; which custom, as is well known, has been observed among the Picts to this day. In process of time, Britain, besides the Britons and the Picts, received a third nation, the Scots, who, departing out of Ireland under their leader Reuda, either by fair means, or by force of arms, secured to themselves those settlements among the Picts which they still possess. From the name of their commander, they are to this day called Dalreudins; for in their language Dal signifies a part.... It is properly the country of the Scots, who, migrating from thence, as has been said, added a third nation in Britain to the Britons and the Picts. There is a very large gulf of the sea, which formerly divided the nation of the Picts from the Britons; which gulf runs from the west very far into the land, where, to this day, stands the strong city of the Britons, called Alcluith. The Scots arriving on the north side of this bay, settled themselves there.”[48]

Here then Bede informs us that in his time the common report was that the Picts came into Scotland from Scythia, which, like the Germania of Tacitus, may be taken to mean the northern countries of Europe generally. This is substantially the same statement as that of the author of the Historia Britonum, commonly called Nennius, who lived in the 9th century, and who informs us that the Picts coming to Scotland about 300 B.C., occupied the Orkney Islands, whence issuing, they laid waste many regions, and seized those on the left-hand side, i.e. the north of Britain, where they still remained in the writer’s time, keeping possession of a third part of Britain.[49]

Supposing that Bede’s report was quite in accordance with truth, still it gives us but small help in coming to a conclusion as to the place of these Picts among the families of men. It is certain that by far the greater part of Europe had at one time a Celtic population who preceded, but ultimately gave way to another wave of emigrants from the east. Now, if we knew the date at which this so-called migration of the Picts took place it might be of considerable assistance to us; but as we cannot now find out whether these emigrants proceeded from a Celtic or a Teutonic stock, the statement of Bede, even if reliable, helps us not at all towards a solution of the question as to the race of the Picts. Innes[50] remarks very justly on this point—“Now, supposing that there were any good ground for the opinion of these two writers, which they themselves give only as a conjecture or hearsay, and that we had any certainty of the Caledonians, or Picts, having had their origin from the more northern parts of the European continent, it were an useless, as well as an endless discussion, to examine in particular from which of all the northern nations of the continent the first colony came to Caledonia; because that these nations of the north were almost in perpetual motion, and changing habitations, as Strabo remarks; and he assigns for it two reasons: the one, because of the barrenness of the soil, they tilled not the ground, and built habitations only for a day; the other, because being often overpowered by their neighbours, they were forced to remove. Another reason why it is impossible to know from which of[24] those nations the northern parts of Britain, (supposing they came from thence) were at first peopled, is because we have but very lame accounts of these northern nations from the Greek or Roman writers, (from whom alone we can look for any thing certain in those early times) especially of those of Scandia, to the north of the Baltic sea, as the same Strabo observes. Besides, it appears that Caledonia was peopled long before the inhabitants of these northern parts of the continent were mentioned, or even known by the most ancient writers we have; and perhaps before the first nations mentioned by them were settled in those parts.”

There is, however, another statement made by Bede in the passage quoted, upon which, as it refers to his own time, much more reliance can be placed; it is, that in his time Britain contained five nations, each having its own peculiar dialect, viz., the English, Britons, Scots, Picts, and Latins. We know that the English spoke in the main Saxon; the Britons, i.e., the inhabitants of Wales, Cumbria, &c., Welsh; the Scots, Gaelic; the Latins, we suppose, being the Romanized Britons and ecclesiastics. What language then did the Picts speak? As we know that Bede never travelled, he must have got his information from an informant or by hearsay, which circumstance rather detracts from its value. But supposing we take the passage literally as it stands, we learn that in Bede’s time there were five distinct peoples or nations, whose names he gives, sharing among them the island. He does not say there were five distinct tongues, which would have been quite a different statement; he speaks of them not so much in respect of their language as in respect of their being the separate items which composed the inhabitants of Britain. In his time they were all quite distinct, in a measure independent of and at enmity with each other. He does not classify them in respect of the race to which they belonged, but with reference to the particular districts which they inhabited, and perhaps with regard to the time and means of their conversion to Christianity, each having been converted at a different time and by a different saint. The substance then of what he says appears to be, that there were in his time five distinct tribes or congregations of people in Britain, each converted to Christianity, and each having the gospel preached in its own tongue. Supposing that the Picts and Scots, or Picts and Britons, or Picts and English did speak exactly the same tongue, it is not at all likely that Bede, in the present case, would have classed them together as both being one nation. Moreover, suppose we allow that Bede did mean that each of these nations spoke a language quite distinct from all the others, then his statement cuts equally at the Gothic and Celtic theory. The conclusion we are forced to is, that from this passage nothing can be gained to help us out of our difficulty.

There is a statement at the end of the passage quoted to which we would draw the reader’s attention, as being Bede’s way, and no doubt the universal way in his time, of accounting for a peculiar law which appears to have regulated the succession to the Pictish throne, and which ultimately, according to some, was the means of placing on that throne a Scottish monarch; thus accounting to some extent for the sudden disappearance and apparent destruction of the Pictish people and language.

We shall here refer to one other passage in the same historian, which has perhaps given rise to greater and more acrimonious contention than any other point in connection with this wordy discussion. The only word that has come down to us, which, with the exception of the names of the Pictish kings, we can be sure is a remnant of the Pictish language, is the name said by Bede to have been given to the eastern termination of the wall of Antonine. Bede,[51] in speaking of the turf wall built by the Britons of Valentia in the beginning of the 5th century, says, “it begins at about two miles distance from the monastery of Abercorn on the west, at a place called in the Pictish language Peanfahel, but in the English tongue Penneltum.” This statement of Bede’s is straightforward and clear enough, and has never been disputed by any writer on any one of the three sides of the question. Nevertheless it has been used by the advocates respectively of the Gothic, Gaelic, and[25] Cymric origin of the Picts, as an undoubted proof of the correctness of each of these theories. Pinkerton, whose dishonesty and acrimoniousness are well known, and must detract considerably from the force of his arguments, claims it as being entirely Gothic or Teutonic. “The Pictish word,” he says,[52] “is broad Gothic; Paena ‘to extend,’ Ihre; and Vahel, a broad sound of veal, the Gothic for ‘wall,’ or of the Latin vallum, contracted val; hence it means ‘the extent or end of the wall.’” This statement of Pinkerton’s may be dismissed as too far-fetched and awkward to merit much consideration, and we may safely regard the word as capable of satisfactory explanation only in Celtic. Innes, who upholds the British, i.e. the Cymric, origin of the Picts, says,[53] “we nowhere find a clearer proof of the Pictish language being the same as the British [Welsh], than in Bede, where he tells us that Penuahel in Pictish signifies the head of the wall, which is just the signification that the same two words Pen and Uahel have in the British.” In this opinion Chalmers and other advocates of the Cymric theory coincide. Mr. Garnett, who essentially agrees with Innes and Chalmers as to the Cymric origin of the Picts, lays little stress upon this word as furnishing an argument in support of his theory. “Almost the only Pictish word given us by an ancient writer is the well-known Pen val (or as it appears in the oldest MSS. of Bede (Peann fahel)), the name given by the Picts to the Wall’s End, or eastern termination of the Vallum of Antoninus. It is scarcely necessary to say the first part of the word is decidedly Cymric; pen, head, being contrary to all Gaelic analogy. The latter half might be plausibly claimed as the Gaelic fal; gwall being the more common termination in Welsh for a wall or rampart. Fal, however, does occur in Welsh in the sense of inclosure, a signification not very remote.”[54]

The two most recent and able supporters[55] of the Gaelic theory are of much the same mind as Garnett, and appear to regard this tantalizing word as affording no support to either side. Burton[56] cannot admit that anything has been made out of this leading to a historical conclusion.

We may safely conclude, then, that this so called Pictish word, or, indeed, any information which we find in Bede, affords us no key to the perplexing question of the origin and race of the Picts.

We learn, however, one fact from Bede[57] which is so far satisfactory, viz., that in his time there were two divisions of the Picts, known as the Northern and Southern Picts, which were separated from each other by steep and rugged mountains. On reading the passage in Bede, one very naturally supposes that the steep and rugged mountains must be the Grampians, to which the expression applies more aptly than to any other mountain-chain in Scotland. Even this, however, has been made matter of dispute, it being contended by some that the locality of the Southern Picts was in the south-west and south of Scotland, where some writers set up a powerful Pictish kingdom. Mr. Grub,[58] however, has clearly shown that the locality of the Southern Picts was to the north of the Forth and Clyde, and to the south of the Grampians. “The mistake formerly so common in regard to the country of the Southern Picts converted by St. Ninian, was in part owing to the situation of Candida Casa. It was supposed that his see must have been in the country of those whom he converted.” He clearly proves that it was not so in reality, and that there was nothing so unusual in the situation as to justify the conclusion which was drawn from it. “It was, no doubt, the case that the teachers by whom the chief Celtic and Teutonic nations were converted generally fixed their seat among those whom they instructed in the faith. But there was no necessity for this, especially when the residence of the teacher was in the neighbourhood of his converts. St. Columba was primate of all the churches of the Northern Picts, but he did not permanently reside among that nation. St. Ninian had ready access to his[26] Pictish converts, and could govern them as easily from his White Church on the Solway, as Columba could instruct and rule the Northern Picts from his monastery in Iona.”[59]

Other authorities appealed to by the upholders of each of the Celtic theories are the Welsh traditions, the Irish Annals, the Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, and various legendary documents of more or less value and authenticity. As these are of no greater authority than the writers with whom we have been dealing, and as the partisans of each theory claim the various passages as either confirming, or, at any rate, not contradicting their views, we shall not further trouble the reader with specimens of the manner in which they are dealt with. There is one passage, however, in the Welsh Triads, which the advocates of the Gaelic hypothesis claim as strongly confirmatory of their theory. After referring to the coming in of the Cymry, the Britons, etc., the Triads[60] go on to say, “Three tribes came, under protection, into the Island of Britain, and by the consent and permission of the nation of the Cymry, without weapon, without assault. The first was the tribe of the Caledonians in the north. The second was the Gwyddelian Race, which are now in Alban (Scotland). The third were the men of Galedin, who came into the Isle of Wight. Three usurping tribes came into the Island of Britain and never departed out of it. The first were the Coranied, who came from the land of Pwyl. The second were the Gwyddelian Ffichti, who came into Alban over the sea of Llychlyn (Denmark). The third were the Saxons.” “The Triads,” says Skene[61] in connection with this, “appear distinctly to have been written previous to the Scottish conquest in the ninth century, and they mention among the three usurping tribes of Britain the ‘Gwyddyl Ffichti,’ and add immediately afterwards, ‘and these Gwyddyl Ffichti are in Alban, along the shore of the sea of Llychlyn.’ In another place, among the treacherous tribes of Britain, the same Triads mention the ‘Gwyddyl coch o’r Werddon a ddaethant in Alban,’ that is ‘the Red Gwyddyl from Ireland, who came into Alban,’ plainly alluding to the Dalriads, who were an Irish colony, and who have been acknowledged by all to have been a Gaelic race. It will be observed from these passages that the Welsh Triads, certainly the oldest and most unexceptionable authority on the subject, apply the same term of Gwyddyl to the Picts and to the Dalriads, and consequently they must have been of the same race, and the Picts a Gaelic people. Farther, the Welsh word ‘Gwyddyl,’ by which they distinguish that race, has been declared by all the best authorities to be exactly synonymous with the word Gael, the name by which the Highlanders have at all times been distinguished, and the Welsh words ‘Gwyddyl Ffichti’ cannot be interpreted to mean any thing else than ‘The Gaelic Picts,’ or ‘Pictish Gael.’”

The following is the substance of the information given by the Irish writers as to the origin, race, and early history of the Picts. The greater part of it is, of course, mere tradition, accumulating as it grew older, and heightened by the imagination of the writers themselves.[62] The Picts were called by the Irish writers Cruithnidh, which O’Brien considers to be the same as Britneigh, or Britons; but according to others the name was derived from Cruthen, who founded the kingdom of the Picts in North Britain, in the first century; others derive the name from Cruit, a harp, hence Cruitneach, the Irish for Pict, also signifies a harper, as they are said to have been celebrated harpers. The ancient Britons are mentioned by Cæsar, and other Roman writers, to have painted their bodies of a blue colour, with the juice of a plant called woad, hence the painted Britons were called by the Romans Picti. The Picts or Cruthneans, according to the Psalter of Cashel, and other ancient annals, came from Thrace, in the reign of the Milesian monarch Heremon, nearly a thousand years before the Christian era, and landed at Inver Slainge, now the Bay of Wexford, under two chief commanders named Gud and Cathluan, but not being permitted to settle in Ireland, they sailed to Albain, or that part of North Britain, now Scotland, their chiefs having been kindly[27] supplied with wives of Irish birth. The Cruthneans became possessed of North Britain, and founded there the kingdom of the Picts. A colony of the Cruthneans, or Picts, from North Britain, settled in Ulster in early times, and are often mentioned from the first to the ninth century; they resided chiefly in Dalaradia and Tir Eogain, or parts of Down, Antrim, and Derry, and became mixed by intermarriages with the old Irish of the Irian race, and were ruled over by their own princes and chiefs; and some of those Picts, also settled in Connaught, in the county of Roscommon. According to the Irish writers, the Picts, in their first progress to Ireland from Thrace, settled a colony in Gaul, and the tribes called Pictones and Pictavi, in that country, were descended from them, and they gave name to Pictavia, or the city of Poictiers, and the province of Poitou; and from these Picts were descended the Vendeans of France. The Caledonians, or first inhabitants of Scotland, are considered to have been the same as the Picts, and mixed with Cimbrians or Britons, and some of the Milesian Scots from Ireland.

The advocates of the various theories, apparently aware of how little can be made of the meagre and suspicious information afforded by these early histories and chronicles, have latterly made language the principal battle-ground on which to fight out this endless and profitless strife. Most of them take for granted that if the language spoken by any people can be found out, a sure indication is afforded of the race to which that people belonged; and that the topography of a country must necessarily have been imposed by the earliest inhabitants of whom we have record; and that, if so, the limits of their territory must have been co-extensive with the limits of such topography. This, however, is going too far. All the length to which we are permitted in fairness to go, when we find in any district or country an abundance of names of natural objects, as rivers and mountains, which can with certainty be traced to any particular language, is, that at one time or other, a race of people speaking this language must have passed over and dwelt for some time in that particular district or country. We find Celtic names of rivers and mountains scattered all over Europe, in the midst of peoples who are admitted on all hands to have little or none of the Celtic element in them.[63] So that an unprejudiced judge must admit that the fact of Cymric and Gaelic words being found in certain districts of the north of Scotland argues only that at one time people speaking these dialects must have dwelt in these districts. It affords no proof by itself that the people whom we first meet with in these districts are the people who spoke these dialects, and who imposed these names; nor indeed, if we could be sure that the people whom we first meet with as inhabitants also spoke the dialect to which such names belong, does it prove that they were the imposers of these names, that the dialect was their native and original tongue, and that they had not acquired it either as conquerors or conquered. Nor can it be adduced as a proof of sameness of race, that the present inhabitants of any particular district speak the same language as those who inhabited that district 1800 years ago or less. “He who trusts to language, and especially to written language, alone, as an index to race, must be prepared to maintain that the Gallic nation emigrated from the seven hills of Rome, and that the Franks came with them; that the Romans extirpated the Celts and Iberians of Spain, and that the Goths and Moors spoke nearly the same language as the Romans; that the Negroes of the United States and Jamaica were exported from England when in their infancy. So would Philology, if left to herself, interpret phenomena, of which we know, from other sources of information, that the causes are totally different.”[64] “The clearest proof that a mountain or river has a Celtic name, only shows that at some time or other Celts had been there; it does not tell us when they were there. Names, as the experience of the world amply shows, live after the people who bestowed them have long disappeared, and that through successive races of occupants.”[65]

The materials which have been wrought up into a linguistic argument by the upholders of each of the three Pictish theories, Gothic, Gaelic, and Cymric, are chiefly a list of Pictish[28] kings which, we believe, may be depended on as authentic, and the topography of the country to the east and south-east of the Grampians, together with the single so-called Pictish word Peanfahel, which we have already considered. The theorists differ as much in their interpretation of the significance of what remains of the Pictish language, as we have seen they do in their interpretation of any references to the subject in dispute in ancient chronicles. The names of the kings, and the names of places have been traced by the disputants to Gothic, Gaelic and Cymric roots. As an amusing specimen of the ingenuity displayed in this hunt after roots, we give below a small table from Burton, comparing the different etymologies of names of kings given by Pinkerton, Chalmers, and Jamieson.[66]

It is, however, generally admitted at the present day, that so far as language is concerned, the Gothic theory has not the remotest chance; that names of places and of kings are most satisfactorily and straightforwardly explained by Cymric roots. As the Gothic or Teutonic theory cannot stand the test of modern criticism, we shall content ourselves with giving specimens of the manner in which the linguistic, or, more strictly, topographical argument is used by the advocates of the Cymric and Gaelic hypotheses respectively.

The Cymric argument is clearly, ably, and succinctly stated by Mr. Garnett in his essay on “The Relation of the Pict and Gael;” he, however, it must be remembered, looked at the whole question mainly in its philological aspect. In stating the argument we shall use chiefly his own words.[67] “That the Picts were actually Celts, and not of Teutonic race, is proved to a demonstration by the names of their kings; of whom a list, undoubtedly genuine from the fifth century downwards, was published by Innes, from a manuscript in the Colbertine library. Some of those appellations are, as far as we know at present, confined to the Pictish sovereigns; but others are well-known Welsh and Gaelic names. They differ, however, slightly in their forms, from their Cymric equivalents; and more decidedly so from the Gaelic ones; and, as far as they go, lead to the supposition that those who bore them spoke a language bearing a remote analogy to the Irish with its cognates, but a pretty close one to the Welsh.

“In the list furnished by Innes the names Maelcon, Elpin, Taran (i.e. thunder), Uven (Owen), Bargoit, are those of personages well known in British history or tradition. Wrgust, which appears as Fergus in the Irish annals, is the Welsh Gwrgust. Talorg, Talorgan, evidently contain the British word Tal, forehead, a common element in proper names; ex. gr. Talhaiarn, Iron Forehead; Taliesin, splendid forehead, &c. Taleurgain would signify in Welsh golden or splendid front. Three kings are represented as sons of Wid, in the Irish annals of Foit or Foith. In Welsh orthography it would be Gwydd, wild; a common name in Brittany at the present day, under the form of Gwez. The names Drust, Drostan, Wrad, Necton (in Bede Naitan), closely resemble the Welsh Trwst, Trwstan, Gwriad, Nwython. It will be sufficient to compare the entire list with the Irish or Highland genealogies, to be convinced that there must have been a material distinction between the two [29]branches. Most of the Pictish names are totally unknown in Irish or Highland history, and the few that are equivalent, such as Angus and Fergus, generally differ in form. The Irish annalists have rather obscured the matter, by transforming those names according to their national system of orthography; but it is remarkable that a list in the ‘Book of Ballymote,’ partly given by Lynch in his ‘Cambrensis Eversus,’ agrees closely with Innes, even preserving the initial w or u where the Gaelic would require f. The philological inferences to be deduced from this document may be thus briefly summed up:—1. The names of the Pictish kings are not Gaelic, the majority of them being totally unknown both in the Irish and Highland dialects, while the few which have Gaelic equivalents decidedly differ from them in form. Cineod (Kenneth) and Domhnall or Donnel, appear to be the only exceptions. 2. Some of them cannot be identified as Welsh; but the greater number are either identical with or resemble known Cymric names; or approach more nearly to Welsh in structure and orthography than to any other known language. 3. There appears nevertheless to have been a distinction, amounting, at all events, to a difference in dialect. The Pictish names beginning with w would in Welsh have gw, as Gwrgust for Wrgust, and so of the rest. There may have been other differences sufficient to justify Bede’s statement that the Pictish language was distinct from the British, which it might very well be without any impeachment of its claim to be reckoned as closely cognate.”

We have already referred to the use made of the Pictish word Peannfahel, preserved by Bede, and to the phrase in Adamnan concerning Columba’s preaching by means of an interpreter. It is contended by the upholders of the Cymric theory that the ancient topographical appellations of the Pictish territory can in general only be explained by the Cymric dialects, one strong point being the number of local names beginning with the Welsh prefix aber, which, according to Chalmers, was in several instances subsequently changed by the Gael into inver. Skene,[68] who felt the force of this argument, tried to get rid of it by contending that aber is essentially a Gaelic word, being compounded of ath, ford, and bior, water. Garnett thinks this explanation utterly gratuitous, and observes that the term may be much more satisfactorily accounted for by a different process. “There are,” he observes,[69] “three words in Welsh denoting a meeting of waters—aber, cynver, and ynver,—respectively compounded of the particles a, denoting juxtaposition, cyn (Lat. con), and yn, with the root ber, flowing, preserved in the Breton verb beri, to flow, and all virtually equivalent to our word confluence. Inver is the only term known in any Gaelic dialect, either as an appellative or in proper names; and not a single local appellation with the prefix aber occurs either in Ireland or the Hebrides, or on the west coast of Scotland. Indeed, the fact that inver was substituted for it after the Gaelic occupation of the Pictish territories, is decisive evidence on the point; for, if aber was a term familiar to the Gael, why should they change it?”

“In Scotland,” says Isaac Taylor,[70] who upholds the Cymric hypothesis, “the invers and abers are distributed in a curious and instructive manner. If we draw a line across the map from a point a little south of Inverary, to one a little north of Aberdeen, we shall find that (with very few exceptions) the invers lie to the north west of the line, and the abers to the south-east of it. This line nearly coincides with the present southern limit of the Gaelic tongue, and probably also with the ancient division between the Picts and Scots. Hence we may conclude that the Picts, a people belonging to the Cymric branch of the Celtic stock, and whose language has now ceased to be anywhere vernacular, occupied the central and eastern districts of Scotland, as far as the Grampians; while the Gadhelic Scots have retained their language, and have given their name to the whole country. The local names prove, moreover, that in Scotland the Cymry did not encroach on the Gael, but the Gael on the Cymry. The intrusive names are invers, which invaded the land of the abers. Thus on the shore of the Frith of Forth we find a few invers among the abers. The Welsh word uchel, high, may also[30] be adduced to prove the Cymric affinities of the Picts. This word does not exist in either the Erse or the Gaelic languages, and yet it appears in the name of the Ochil Hills, in Perthshire. Again, the Erse bally, a town, occurs in 2,000 names in Ireland; and, on the other hand, is entirely absent in Wales and Brittany. In Scotland this most characteristic test-word is found frequently in the inver district, while it never appears among the abers. The evidence of these names makes it impossible to deny that the Celts of the Scottish Lowlands must have belonged to the Cymric branch of the Celtic stock.”

We infer from what Mr. Taylor says, that he is of opinion that at one time the language of the whole of the north of Scotland was Cymric, but that the district in which the Scots obtained a settlement afterwards underwent a change of topography. But it is admitted on all hands that the Scottish Dalriada comprehended no more than the modern Argyllshire, extending no farther north than Loch Leven and Loch Linnhe; and that the Irish Scots had little influence on the people or their language to the north-west of the Grampians. Indeed, Skene[71] maintains that this district, in which he places the Northern Picts, was never subjected to the Scots, and that it was only the Southern Picts who latterly came under their sway. Yet we find that the abers here are few and far between, or, indeed, any indications of Cymric possession such as we find in the southern district. Is it possible that the Northern and Southern Picts were representatives of the two great divisions of the Celts,—the former claiming a Gaelic origin, and the latter a Cymric? Perhaps after all the Welsh Triads may in course of time be of some help in the solution of this dark problem, as, according to them, there was more than one Celtic settlement in Scotland before the migration of the Scots. The passages above quoted are, to all appearance, much more favourable to the Gaelic than to the Cymric hypothesis, and have been made much of by Skene and other supporters of that side of the question.

The Cymric origin of the Picts, besides Garnett and Taylor, is supported by such names as Innes, Chalmers, Ritson, Whittaker, Grub, and others.

Pinkerton, it is well known, is the great and unscrupulous upholder of the Gothic origin of the Picts; while the Gaelic theory has for its supporters such writers, of undoubted ability and acuteness, as Skene, E. W. Robertson, Forbes-Leslie, &c. Burton[72] is of opinion that the Highlanders of the present day are the true representatives of the Dalriadic Scots of the West.

We shall, as we have done in the case of the other side, allow the upholders of the Gaelic hypothesis to state for themselves the Gaelic topographical argument. We shall use the words of Colonel Forbes-Leslie, who, in his invaluable work on the “Early Races of Scotland,”[73] says, “The Celtic words Inver and Aber have nearly the same meaning; and the relative position in which they occur in names of places has been employed as if it were a sufficient argument for defining the presence or preponderance of the British or Gaelic Celts in certain districts. In this way Aber, prefixed to names of places, has been urged as adequate proof that the Picts of Caledonia were Celts of the British branch. The value of these and some other words requires examination. Inver is to be found in names of places in Wales. It may possibly be a British word. It certainly is a Gaelic one. Aber, although undoubtedly British, is also Gaelic—compounded of the two words Ath and Bior—and signifying the same as Inver, viz., the confluence of two streams, or the entrance to a river. If the word Aber had been unknown to the Gaelic scholars of modern days, its former existence in that language might have been presumed from the ancient names of places in the districts of Caledonia, where it occurs most frequently, being generally Gaelic and not British.

“Beyond the limits of Caledonia on the south of the Forth and Clyde, but within the boundary of modern Scotland, the word Inver, generally pronounced Inner, is of common occurrence, and bears witness to a Gaelic nomenclature. Thus, Inner or Inverkip, in the county of Renfrew; Innerwell, in the county of Wigton;[31] Innerwick, in the county of Haddington; Innerleithen, in the county of Peebles; Inverleith and Inveresk, in the county of Edinburgh, derive their names from their situation in regard to the rivers Kip, Leithen, Esk, &c. &c.

“From the Moray Frith to the Forth, in the eastern counties of Caledonia, the prefix Inver or Aber is used indiscriminately in contiguous places. At the confluence of lesser streams with the river Dee, in Aberdeenshire, we find Inverey, Abergeldie, Invercauld, Invercanny, Aberdeen. Yet in those counties—viz., Aberdeen, Kincardine, Forfar, Perth, and Fife, in which were situated the capitals, and which were the richest provinces of the southern Picts—the number of names of places beginning with Inver is three times as numerous as those commencing with Aber; there being, in a list taken from land-registers, which do not go farther back than the middle of the sixteenth century, seventy-eight with Inver to twenty-four with Aber. It may, however, be admitted that, although Aber is Gaelic, its use is far more general by Celts of the British tribes; and that the predominance of Inver in the districts north of the Spey, and the intermixture of places the names of which commence with Inver or Aber, not unfrequently used in records of nearly the same date for the same place in the country lying between the Moray and the Solway Friths, is, to a certain extent, evidence of a British element of population extending into Caledonia. The Britons, in earlier times, may have been pressing on to the north by gradual intrusion, and were probably afterwards increased by bodies of exiles escaping from the severity of Roman bondage and the punishment of unsuccessful revolt.

“That names of places containing the words Bal, from Bail, a place or residence, and Ard, a height or rising ground, are so common in Ireland, and comparatively rare, so it is alleged, in Caledonia, has also been used as an argument to prove that the language of the Picts and other Caledonians of the southern and eastern districts was British, not Gaelic. But the foundation of the argument has been assumed, and is easily disproved. It is true that of large towns and places that appear in gazeteers, names commencing with Bal and Ard are not numerous. But in fact such names are extremely common. In the lowlands of Aberdeenshire—that is, in the portion of one county, and in the part of Caledonia farthest removed from the settlements of the intrusive Gaels, viz., the Scots from Ireland—registers of land show upwards of fifty places the names of which commence with Bal, and forty which commence with Ard. In the Pictish territory, from the Moray Frith to the Forth, I soon collected upwards of four hundred names of places beginning with Bal, and upwards of one hundred with Ard; and the number might easily be doubled.”

Mr. E. W. Robertson, one of the latest and ablest upholders of this theory, thinks[74] there is scarcely sufficient evidence to justify any very decided conclusion as to the pre-existence of a Cymric population; and that, whilst it would be unquestionably erroneous to ascribe a Cymric origin to the Picts, the existence of a Celtic element akin to the Cymri, amongst the population of Alban before the arrival of the Gwyddel Ffichti, must remain to a certain extent an open question.

Of all a priori theories that have hitherto been advanced as to how Scotland was likely to have been at first peopled, that of Father Innes, the first writer who investigated the subject thoroughly and critically, appears to us to be the most plausible and natural, although even it is beset with many difficulties. It appears to him more natural and probable that the Caledonian Britons, or Picts, were of the same origin as the Britons of the south; that as these came in originally from the nearest coast of Gaul, as they multiplied in the island, they advanced to the north and settled there, carrying with them the customs and language of the South Britons.[75]

We have thus endeavoured to lay before the reader, as fully as space permits, and as clearly and unprejudicedly as possible, the materials at present existing by means of which to form an opinion on the Pictish question, and the arguments pro and con, mainly in their own words, urged by the partisans of the different theories. It appears to us that[32] the data within reach are far too scanty to justify any one in coming to a settled conclusion, and that we must wait for more light before we can be justified in finally making up our minds on this perplexing subject.[76]

At the present day we find that nearly the whole of the territory said to have been originally occupied by the Picts, is inhabited, and has been for centuries, by a population which in appearance is far more Teutonic than Celtic, and which undoubtedly speaks a broad Teutonic dialect.[77] And even in the district where the Gaelic language has been triumphant for ages, it is acknowledged even by the most devoted partisans of the Gaelic theory, that among the population there is a very considerable intermixture of the Teutonic element. Burton thinks, from a general view of the whole question, that the proportion of the Teutonic race that came into the use of the Gaelic, was much greater than the proportion of the Gaelic that came into the use of the Teutonic or Saxon, and that this may account for the contrasts of physical appearance to be seen in the Highlands.

We certainly have not exhausted the statement of the question, have not stated fully and completely all the points in dispute; nor do we pretend to have given with fulness all the arguments pro and con on the various sides. We have, however, given as much as will enable any ordinary reader to form for himself a fair idea of the present state of the Pictish question, and indicated the sources whence more information may be derived, should any one wish to pursue the subject farther. In the words of the latest and greatest Scottish historian “this brief survey of the great Pictish controversy leaves nothing but a melancholy record of wasted labour and defeated ambition. It has been more fruitless than a polemical or a political dispute, for these leave behind them, either for good or evil, their marks upon the conduct and character of the populations among whom they have raged; while here a vast outlay of learning, ingenuity, enthusiasm, and, it must be added, temper, have left no visible monument but a pile of forbidding volumes, in which should any one who has not studied the matter fundamentally expect to find instructive information, he will assuredly be led into a tangled maze of unintelligible pedantry, from which he will come forth with no impression but a nightmare feeling of hopeless struggle with difficulties.”[78]

A.D. 446–843.

As we have already said, the materials for the internal history of the Highlands during the Roman occupation are of the scantiest, nearly all that can be recorded being the struggles of the northern tribes with the Roman invaders, and the incursions of the former and their allies into the territories of the Romanized Britons. Doubtless many events as worthy of record as these, an account of which has been[33] preserved, were during this period being transacted in the northern part of Scotland, and we have seen that many additions, from various quarters, must have been made to the population. However, there are no records extant which enable us to form any distinct notion of the nature of these events, and history cannot be manufactured.

After the departure of the Romans, the provincial Britons of the south of Scotland were completely at the mercy of the Picts as well as the Saxons, who had been invited over by the South Britons to assist them against the northern barbarians. These Saxons, we know, very soon entered into alliance with those whom they came to repel, and between them the Britons south of the friths were eventually driven into the West, where for centuries they appear to have maintained an independent kingdom under the name of Strathclyde, until ultimately they were incorporated with the Scots.[79]

Although both the external and internal history of the Highlands during this period is much better known than in the case of the Roman period, still the materials are exceedingly scanty. Scottish historians, from Fordun and Boece downwards, made it their business to fill up from their own imaginations what is wanting, so that, until the simple-minded but acute Innes put it in its true light, the early history of Scotland was a mass of fable.

Undoubtedly the two most momentous events of this period are the firm settlement in Argyle of a colony of Scots from Ireland and some of the neighbouring isles in 503,[80] and the conversion of the Northern Picts to Christianity by Columba about 563.

At the time of the Roman abandonment of Britain the Picts were under the sway of a king or chieftain named Drust, son of Erp, concerning whom the only record remaining is, that he lived a hundred years and fought a hundred battles. In fact, little is known with certainty of the Pictish history for upwards of one hundred years after the departure of the Romans, although some ancient chronicles afford us lists of Pictish kings or princes, a chronological table of whom, from Drust downwards, will be found at the end of this chapter. The Pictish chronicle contains the names of thirty-six others who are said to have reigned before Drust, but these are generally regarded as almost entirely spurious.

Before proceeding farther with the Pictish history, it may be proper to give a brief account of the settlement of the Irish Scots or Dalriads, as they are frequently called, in the Pictish territory.

The time of the settlement of the Scots in present Scotland was for long a subject of disputation, the early Scottish historians, from a false and unscrupulous patriotism, having pushed it back for many centuries before its actual occurrence. This dispute is now, however, fairly set at rest, there being no foundation for believing that the Scots found their way from Ireland to Scotland earlier than a century or two before the birth of Christ. As we have already seen, we find the first mention of the Scots in Ammianus Marcellinus about the year 360 A.D.; and their name occurs in the same connection frequently afterwards, during the Roman occupation of Scotland. Burton[81] is of opinion that the migration did not take place at any particular time or under any particular leader, but that it was gradual, that the Scots “oozed” out of Ireland upon the western coast of Scotland.

It belongs to the history of Ireland to trace the origin and fix the race of the Scots, to settle the time of their coming into Ireland, and discover whence they came. Some suppose that they migrated originally from Britain to Ireland, while Innes and others bring them either from Scandinavia or Spain, and connect them with the Scyths, asserting that Scot is a mere corruption of Scyth, and dating the settlement at about the commencement of the Christian era. The Irish traditions connect them with a certain Scota, daughter of Pharaoh, and date their coming to Ireland upwards of 1,000 years B.C. E. W. Robertson[82] and others consider them to have been Irish Picts or Cruithne.

Wherever the Scots came from and to whatever race they belong, whether Teutonic or[34] Celtic, they certainly appear not to have been the first settlers in Ireland, and at the time at which they first appear in authentic history occupied a district in Ireland corresponding to Connaught, Leinster, and part of Munster. They were also one of the most powerful of the Irish tribes, seeing that for many centuries Ireland was, after them, called Scotia or Scotland. It is usually said that a particular corner in the north-east of Ireland, about 30 miles in extent, corresponding to the modern county of Antrim, was the kingdom of the particular band of Scots who migrated to Scotland; and that it received its name, Dal-Riada (‘the portion of Riada’), from Carbre-Riada, a leader of the Scots who conquered this particular part, previously inhabited by Cruithne or Irish Picts. Robertson,[83] however, considers all this fable and the kingdom of Dalriada as mythical, Tighernach and the early Irish annalists never applying the name to any other locality than British Dalriada. At all events, this particular district was spoken of by the later chroniclers under the name of Dalriada, there being thus a Dalriada both in Scotland and Ireland.[84] At the time of the migration of the Scots from Ireland to Scotland, they were to all intents and purposes a Celtic race, speaking Trish Gaelic, and had already been converted to Christianity.

The account of the Scottish migration usually given is, that in the year 503 A.D.,[85] a new colony of Dalriads or Dalriadic Scots, under the leadership of Fergus son of Erc, a descendant of Carbre-Riada, along with his brothers Lorn and Angus, left Ireland and settled on the western coast of Argyle and the adjacent islands. “The territories which constituted the petty kingdoms of Dalriada can be pretty well defined. They were bounded on the south by the Frith of Clyde, and they were separated on the east from the Pictish kingdom by the ridge of the great mountain chain called Drumalban. They consisted of four tribes,—the genus or Cinel Lorn, descended from Lorn, the elder of the three brothers; the Cinel Gabran and Cinel Comgall, descended from two sons of Domangart, son of Fergus, the second of the brothers; and the Cinel Angus, descended from the third brother, Angus. The Cinel Comgall inhabited the district formerly called Comgall, now corrupted into Cowall. The Cinel Gabran inhabited what was called the Airgiallas, or the district of Argyle proper, and Kintyre. The Cinel Angus inhabited the islands of Islay and Jura, and the Cinel Lorn, the district of Lorn. Beyond this, on the north, the districts between Lorn and the promontory of Ardnamurchan, i.e., the island of Mull, the district of Morven, Ardgower, and probably part of Lochaber, seem to have formed a sort of debatable ground, the population of which was Pictish, while the Scots had settlements among them. In the centre of the possessions of the Cinel Gabran, at the head of the well-sheltered loch of Crinan, lies the great Moss of Crinan, with the river Add flowing through it. In the centre of the moss, and on the side of the river, rises an isolated rocky hill called Dunadd, the top of which is strongly fortified. This was the capital of Dalriada, and many a stone obelisk in the moss around it bears silent testimony to the contests of which it was the centre. The picturesque position of Dunolly Castle, on a rock at the entrance of the equally sheltered bay of Oban, afforded another fortified summit, which was the chief stronghold of the tribe of Lorn. Of Dunstaffnage, as a royal seat, history knows nothing.”[86]

It would appear that Lorn and Fergus at first reigned jointly, the latter becoming sole monarch on the decease of the former. The succession appears not to have been confined to any particular line, and a disputed succession not unfrequently involved the Scots in civil war.

There is no portion of history so obscure or so perplexing as that of the Scoto-Irish kings, and their tribes, from their first settlement, in the year 503, to their accession to the Pictish throne in 843. Unfortunately no contemporaneous[35] written records appear ever to have existed of that dark period of our annals, and the efforts which the Scotch and Irish antiquaries have made to extricate the truth from the mass of contradictions in which it lies buried, have rather been displays of national prejudice than calm researches by reasonable inquirers. The annals, however, of Tigernach, and of Ulster, along with the brief chronicles and historical documents first brought to light by the industrious Innes, in his Critical Essay, have thrown some glimpses of light on a subject which had long remained in almost total darkness.[87]

The next authentic event of importance that falls to be recorded in connection with the history of the Highlands, is the conversion of the Northern Picts to Christianity, about the year 563. The Southern Picts, i.e. those living to the south and east of the Grampians, were converted by St. Ninian (360–432) about the beginning of the 5th century; but the Northern Picts, until the date above-mentioned, continued Pagans. That there were no Christians among them till that time appears very improbable, considering their close neighbourhood and constant intercourse with the Southern Picts and the Scots of Dalriada; but there can be no doubt that the court and the great bulk of the people adhered to their ancient superstitions.

The religion of the Picts before their conversion is supposed by the majority of writers on this subject to have been that which prevailed in the rest of Britain and in Celtic Gaul, Druidism. The incredulous Burton, however, if we may judge from his History of Scotland,[88] as well as from an article of his in the Edinburgh Review, seems to believe that the whole system of Druidism has been elaborated by the imaginations of modern historians. That the Picts previous to their conversion had a religion, and a religion with what may be called priests and religious services, cannot be doubted, if we may trust Tacitus and Adamnan, the biographer of Columba; the former of whom tells us that, previous to the battle of the Grampians, the union of the various tribes was ratified by solemn rites and sacrifices, and the latter, that Columba’s efforts at conversion were strenuously opposed by the diabolical arts and incantations of the Magi. It appears from Adamnan that fountains were particularly objects of veneration; the superstitious awe with which many fountains and wells are regarded at the present day, being doubtless a remnant of the ancient Pictish religion. Trees, rivers, and lakes, as well as the heavenly bodies, appear also to have been objects of religious regard, and not a few of the customs which exist in Scotland at the present day have been inherited from our Pictish ancestors. Such are many of the rites performed on Hallowe’en, Beltane, Midsummer, &c., and many every-day superstitions still prevalent in the country districts of Scotland.

“Druidism is said to have acknowledged a Supreme Being, whose name was synonymous with the Eastern Baal, and if so, was visibly represented by the sun; and such remnants of the ancient worship as are still traceable in the language of the people, would indicate its having been a species of sun-worship. To this day the four leading points of the compass bear, in the terms which designate them among the Gael, marks of this. The east is ear, like the Latin oriens, from the Gaelic eiridh, ‘to rise;’ the west is iar, ‘after,’ used also as a preposition; the south is deas, and the north tuath; and it is in the use of these terms that the reverence for the solar luminary chiefly appears. Deas, ‘the south,’ is in all circumstances right; it is the right hand, which is easily intelligible, from the relation of that hand to the south when the face looks eastward; and it is expressive of whatever is otherwise right. Deas also means complete, trim, ready; whatever is deas, or southerly, is just as it should be. Tuath, ‘north,’ is the very opposite. Tuathaisd is a ‘stupid fellow;’ Tuathail is ‘wrong’ in every sense: south and north, then, as expressed in the words deiseal and tuathail, are, in the Gaelic language, the representatives of right and wrong. Thus everything that is to move prosperously among many of the Celts, must move sunwise: a boat going to sea must turn sunwise; a man or woman immediately after marriage, must make a turn sunwise. There are relics of fire-worship too;[36] certain days are named from fire-lighting; Beallteine, or ‘the first day of summer,’ and saimhtheine, ‘the first day of winter,’—the former supposed to mean the fire of Baal or Bel, the latter closing the saimhré, or summer period of the year, and bringing in the geamhré, or winter period, are sufficient evidence of this. There are places in Scotland where within the memory of living men the teine eigin, or ‘forced fire,’ was lighted once every year by the rubbing of two pieces of wood together, while every fire in the neighbourhood was extinguished in order that they might be lighted anew from this sacred source.”[89]

Many of the antiquities which are scattered over the north of Scotland, such as stone circles, monoliths, sculptured stones, rocking stones, &c., are very generally supposed to have been connected with religion. From the resemblance of the circles especially, to those which exist in South Britain and in France, it has been supposed that one religion prevailed over these countries. As Druidism is so commonly believed to have prevailed among the Picts as well as among the other inhabitants of Britain, we shall here give a very brief account of that system, chiefly as we find it given in Cæsar.[90] The following is the account given by Cæsar of the character and functions of the Druids:—“They attend to divine worship, perform public and private sacrifices, and expound matters of religion. A great number of youths are gathered round them for the sake of education, and they enjoy the highest honour in that nation; for nearly all public and private quarrels come under their jurisdiction; and when any crime has been committed, when a murder has been perpetrated, when a controversy arises about a legacy, or about landmarks, they are the judges too. They fix rewards and punishments; and should any one, whether a private individual or a public man, disobey their decrees, then they exclude him from the sacrifices. All these Druids have one chief, who enjoys the highest authority amongst them. When he dies, he is succeeded by the member of the order who is most prominent amongst the others, if there be any such single individual; if, however, there are several men equally distinguished, the successor is elected by the Druids. Sometimes they even go to war about this supremacy.

“The Druids take no part in warfare; nor do they pay taxes like the rest of the people; they are exempt from military service, and from all public burdens. Attracted by such rewards, many come to be instructed by their own choice, while others are sent by their parents. They are reported to learn in the school a great number of verses, so that some remain there twenty years. They think it an unhallowed thing to commit their lore to writing, though in the other public and private[37] affairs of life they frequently make use of the Greek alphabet.... Beyond all things, they are desirous to inspire a belief that men’s souls do not perish, but transmigrate after death from one individual to another; and besides, they hold discourses about the stars, about the size of the world and of various countries, about the nature of things, and about the power and might of the immortal gods.”

Among the objects of druidical veneration the oak is said to have been particularly distinguished; for the Druids imagined that there was a supernatural virtue in the wood, in the leaves, in the fruit, and above all in the mistletoe. Hence the oak woods were the first places of their devotion; and the offices of their religion were there performed without any covering but the broad canopy of heaven. The part appropriated for worship was inclosed in a circle, within which was placed a pillar of stone set up under an oak, and sacrifices were offered thereon. The pillars which mark the sites of these places of worship are still to be seen; and so great is the superstitious veneration paid by the country people to these sacred stones, as they are considered, that few persons have ventured to remove them.

Besides the immunities before-mentioned enjoyed by the Druids, they also possessed both civil and criminal jurisdiction, they decided all controversies among states as well as among private persons; and whoever refused to submit to their awards was exposed to the most severe penalties. The sentence of excommunication was pronounced against him; he was debarred all intercourse with his fellow-citizens; his company was universally shunned as profane and dangerous; he was refused the protection of law; and death itself became an acceptable relief from the misery and infamy to which he was exposed.

St. Columba was born in the county of Donegal, in Ireland, in the year 521, and was connected both on his father’s and mother’s side with the Irish royal family. He was carefully educated for the priesthood, and, after having finished his ecclesiastical studies, founded monasteries in various parts of Ireland. The year of his departure from Ireland is, on good authority, ascertained to have been 563, and it is generally said that he fled to save his life, which was in jeopardy on account of a feud in which his relations were involved. Mr. Grub[91] believes that “the love of God and of his brethren was to him a sufficient motive for entering on the great work to which he was called. His immediate objects were the instruction of the subjects of Conal, king of the British Scots, and the conversion of their neighbours the heathen Picts of the North.” In the year 563, when Columba was 42 years of age, he arrived among his kindred on the shores of Argyle, and immediately set himself to fix on a suitable site for a monastery which he meant to erect, from which were to issue forth the apostolic missionaries destined to assist him in the work of conversion, and in which also the youth set apart for the office of the holy ministry were to be educated. St. Columba espied a solitary isle lying apart from the rest of the Hebridean group, near the south-west angle of Mull, then known by the simple name I, whose etymology is doubtful, afterwards changed by Bede into Hy, latinized by the monks into Iova or Iona, and again honoured with the name of I-columb-cil,[38] the island of St. Columba of the church. This island, Conal, who was then king of the Christian Scots of Argyle, presented to Columba, in order that he might erect thereon a monastery for the residence of himself and his disciples. No better station could have been selected than this islet during such barbarous times.

In pursuance of his plan, St. Columba settled with twelve disciples in Hy. “They now,” says Bede, “neither sought, nor loved, anything of this world,”—true traits in the missionary character. For two years did they labour with their own hands erecting huts and building a church of logs and reeds. “The monastery of Iona, like those previously founded by Columba in Ireland, was not a retreat for solitaries whose chief object was to work out their own salvation; it was a great school of Christian education, and was specially designed to prepare and send forth a body of clergy trained to the task of preaching the Gospel among the heathen.”[92] Having established his missionary institution, and having occupied himself for some time in the instruction of his countrymen the Scots of Argyle, the pious Columba set out on his apostolic tour among the Picts, probably in the year 565. At this time Bridei or Brude, whose reign extended from 536 to 586, the son of Mailcon, a powerful and influential prince, reigned over the Northern Picts, and appears also to have had dominion over those of the south. Judging well that if he could succeed in converting Brude, who, when Columba visited him was staying at one of his residences on the banks of the Ness, the arduous task he had undertaken of bringing over the whole nation to the worship of the true God would be more easily accomplished, he first began with the king, and by great patience and perseverance succeeded in converting him.

The first Gaelic entry in the Book of Deer lets us see the great missionary on one of his tours, and describes the founding of an important mission-station which became the centre of instruction for all the surrounding country. The following is the translation given of the Gaelic original:—“Columcille, and Drostán son of Cosgrach, his pupil, came from Hí, as God had shown to them, unto Abbordoboir, and Bede the Pict was mormaer of Buchan before them, and it was he that gave them that town in freedom for ever from mormaer and toisech. They came after that to the other town, and it was pleasing to Columcille because it was[39] full of God’s grace, and he asked of the mormaer, to wit Bede, that he should give it to him; and he did not give it, and a son of his took an illness after [or in consequence of] refusing the clerics, and he was nearly dead [lit. he was dead but if it were a little]. After this the mormaer went to entreat the clerics that they should make prayer for the son, that health should come to him; and he gave in offering to them from Cloch in tiprat to Cloch pette meic Garnait. They made the prayer, and health came to him. After that Columcille gave to Drostán that town, and blessed it, and left as (his) word, ‘Whosoever should come against it, let him not be many-yeared [or] victorious.’ Drostán’s tears came on parting from Columcille. Said Columcille, ‘Let Déar be its name henceforward.’”

The Abbordoboir here spoken of is Aberdour on the north coast of Aberdeenshire, and Dear probably occupied the site of what is now Old Deer, about twelve miles inland from Aberdour. There is every reason for believing in the substantial truth of the narrative. The two saints, probably from the banks of the Ness, came to Aberdour and “tarried there for a time and founded a monastery on the land which had been granted them. In later times the parish church of Aberdour was dedicated to St. Drostan.” One would almost be inclined to suppose, from the manner in which the missionaries were apparently received, that Christianity had been heard of there before; possibly Bede the Pictish mormaer had been converted at the court of King Brude, and had invited Columba to pay him a visit in Buchan and plant the gospel among the inhabitants. Possibly St. Ninian, the apostle of the southern Picts, may, during his mission among them, have penetrated as far north as Buchan. On the side of the choir of the old parish church of Turriff, a few miles west of Deer, was found painted the figure of St. Ninian, which was probably as old as the 16th century. At all events, Columba and his companion appear to have been made most welcome in Buchan, and were afforded every facility for prosecuting their sacred work. The above record doubtless gives us a fair notion of Columba’s mode of procedure in prosecuting his self-imposed task of converting the inhabitants of Alba. As was the case in Buchan, he appears to have gone from district to district along with his missionary companions, seen the work of conversion fairly begun, planted a monastery in a suitable place, and left one or more of his disciples as resident missionaries to pursue the work of conversion and keep Christianity alive in the district.[93]

Columba soon had the happiness of seeing the blessings of Christianity diffusing themselves among a people who had hitherto sat in the darkness of paganism. Attended by his disciples he traversed the whole of the Pictish territories, spreading everywhere the light of faith by instructing the people in the truths of the Gospel. To keep up a succession of the teachers of religion, he established, as we have seen, monasteries in every district, and from these issued, for many ages, men of apostolic earnestness, who watered and tended the good seed planted by Columba, and carried it to the remotest parts of the north of Scotland and its islands, so that, in a generation or two after Columba, Christianity became the universal religion. These monasteries or cells were long subject to the Abbey of Iona, and the system of church government which proceeded from that centre was in many respects peculiar, and has given rise to much controversy between presbyterians and episcopalians.

St. Columba died on the 9th of June, 597, after a glorious and well-spent life, thirty-four years of which he had devoted to the instruction of the nation he had converted. His influence was very great with the neighbouring princes, and they often applied to him for advice, and submitted to him their differences, which he frequently settled by his authority. His memory was long held in reverence by the Scots and Caledonians.

Conal, the fifth king of the Scots in Argyle, the kinsman of St. Columba, and under whose auspices he entered on the work of conversion, and to whom it is said he was indebted for Hy, died in 571. His successor Aidan went over to Iona in 574, and was there ordained and inaugurated by the Abbot according to the ceremonial of the liber vitreus,[40] the cover of which is supposed to have been encrusted with crystal.

To return to the history of the Picts, we have already observed that little is known of Pictish history for more than a hundred years after the Roman abdication; and even up to the union of the Picts and Scots, the materials for the history of both are about as scarce as they could possibly be, consisting mostly of meagre chronicles containing the names of kings, the dates of their accession and death, and occasionally the names of battles and of the contending nations. Scotland during this period appears to have been the scene of unceasing war between the Scots, Picts, Britons of Strathclyde, English, and Danes, the two first being continually at strife not only with each other but among themselves. We shall endeavour to give, as clearly and as faithfully as possible, the main reliable facts in the history of the Scots and Picts until the union of these two nations.

The reign of Brude was distinguished by many warlike exploits, but above all, as we have seen, by his conversion and that of his people to Christianity, which indeed formed his greatest glory. His chief contests were with the Scoto-Irish or Dalriads, whom he defeated in 557, and slew Gauran their king. Brude died in 586, and for several ages his successors carried on a petty system of warfare, partly foreign and partly domestic. Passing over a domestic conflict, at Lindores in 621, under Kenneth, son of Luthrin, we must notice the important battle of Dun-Nechtan, fought in 685, between the Picts under Brude, the son of Bili,[94] and the Saxons, under the Northumbrian Egfrid. The Saxon king, it is said, greedy of conquest, attacked the Picts without provocation, and against the advice of his court. Crossing the Forth from Lothian, he entered Strathearn and penetrated through the defiles of the Pictish kingdom, leaving fire and desolation in his train. His career was stopt at Dun-Nechtan, the hill of Nechtan, a hill in the parish of Dunnichen, about the centre of Forfarshire; and by a neighbouring lake, long known by the name of Nechtan’s mere, a short distance east from the town of Forfar, did Egfrid and his Saxons fall before Brude and his exasperated Picts. This was a sad blow to the Northumbrian power; yet the Northumbrians, in 699, under Berht, an able leader, again ventured to try their strength with the Picts, when they were once more defeated by Brude, the son of Dereli, who had recently mounted the Pictish throne.

The wars between the Picts and Northumbrians were succeeded by various contests for power among the Pictish princes, which gave rise to a civil war. Ungus, honoured by the Irish Annalists with the title of great, and Elpin, at the head of their respective partisans, tried their strength at Monacrib, supposed by some to be Moncrieff in Strathearn, in the year 727, when the latter was defeated; and the conflict was renewed at Duncrei (Crieff), when victory declared a second time against Elpin, who was obliged to flee from the hostility of Ungus. Nechtan next tried his strength with Ungus, in 728, at a place called Monacurna by the Annalists—possibly Moncur in the Carse of Gowrie—but he was defeated, and many of his followers perished. Talorgan, the son of Congus, was defeated by Brude, the son of Ungus, in 730, and in the same year the Picts appear to have entered into a treaty of peace with the English nation.

The victorious Ungus commenced hostilities against the Dalriads, or Scoto-Irish, in the year 736, and appears to have got the better of the latter. The Scots were again worsted in another battle in 740 by Ungus, who in the same year repulsed an attack of the Northumbrians under Eadbert. In the year 750 he defeated the Britons of the Cumbrian kingdom in the battle of Cato or Cath-O, in which his brother Talorgan was killed. Ungus, who appears to have been a powerful and able monarch, but whom Bede[95] characterizes as having conducted himself “with bloody wickedness, a tyrant and an executioner,” died about 760. A doubtful victory was gained by Ciniod, or Kenneth, the Pictish king, over Aodh-fin, the Scottish king, in 767. Constantine, having overcome Conall, the son of Tarla, in 789, succeeded him in the throne.[96]

[41]

Up to this period the Norsemen from Scandinavia, or the Vikingr, i.e. men of the voes or bays, as they were termed, had confined their ravages to the Baltic; but, in the year 787 they for the first time appeared on the east coast of England. Some years afterwards they found their way to the Caledonian shores, and in 795 made their first attack on Iona, which frequently afterwards, along with the rest of the Hebrides, suffered grievously from their ravages. In 839 the Vikingr entered the Pictish territories. A murderous conflict ensued between them and the Picts under Uen their king, in which both he and his only brother Bran, as well as many of the Pictish chiefs, fell. This event, no doubt, hastened the downfall of the Pictish monarchy; and as the Picts were unable to resist the arms of Kenneth, the Scottish king, he carried into execution, in the year 843, a project he had long entertained, of uniting the Scots and Picts, and placing both crowns on his head. That anything like a total extermination of the Picts took place is now generally discredited, although doubtless there was great slaughter both of princes and people. Skene[97] asserts indeed that it was only the Southern Picts who became subject to Kenneth, the Northern Picts remaining for long afterwards independent of, but sometimes in alliance with, the Scots. This is substantially the opinion of Mr. E. W. Robertson,[98] who says, “the modern shires of Perth, Fife, Stirling, and Dumbarton, with the greater part of the county of Argyle, may be said to have formed the actual Scottish kingdom to which Kenneth succeeded.” The Picts were recognised as a distinct people even in the tenth century, but before the twelfth they lost their characteristic nominal distinction by being amalgamated with the Scots, their conquerors.

The Scoto-Irish after their arrival in Argyle did not long continue under the separate authority of the three brothers, Lorn, Fergus, and Angus. They were said to have been very far advanced in life before leaving Ireland, and the Irish chroniclers assert that St. Patrick gave them his benediction before his death, in the year 493. The statement as to their advanced age derives some support from their speedy demise after they had laid the foundations of their settlements, and of a new dynasty of kings destined to rule over the kingdom of Scotland. Angus was the first who died, leaving a son, Muredach, who succeeded him in the small government of Ila. After the death of Lorn the eldest brother, Fergus, the last survivor, became sole monarch of the Scoto-Irish; but he did not long enjoy the sovereignty, for he died in 506.

Fergus was succeeded by his son Domangart, or Dongardus, who died in 511, after a short but troubled reign of about five years. His two sons Comgal and Gabhran or Gauran, successively enjoyed his authority. Comgal had a peaceful reign of four and twenty years, during which he extended his settlements. He left a son named Conal, but Gauran his brother, notwithstanding, ascended the throne in the year 535 without opposition. Gauran reigned two and twenty years, and, as we have already observed, was slain in a battle with the Picts under Bridei their king.

Conal, the son of Comgal, then succeeded in 557, and closed a reign of fourteen years in 571. It was during his reign that Columba’s mission to the Picts took place. A civil war ensued between Aodhan or Aidan, the son of Gauran, and Duncha or Duncan, the son of Conal, for the vacant crown, the claim to which was decided on the bloody field of Loro or Loco in Kintyre in 575, where Duncha was slain. Aidan, the son of Gauran, had been formally inaugurated by St. Columba in Iona, in 574. In the time of Aidan there were frequent wars between the Dalriads and the English Saxons. Many battles were fought in which the Scots were generally defeated, the principal being that of Degsastan or Dalston near Carlisle, in 603, in which nearly the whole of the Scottish army was defeated. The wars with the Saxons weakened the power of the Dalriads very considerably, and it was not till after a long period of time that they again ventured to meet the Saxons in the field.

During a short season of repose, Aidan, attended by St. Columba, went to the celebrated council of Drum-keat in Ulster, in the year 590. In this council he claimed the principality of Dalriada, the land of his fathers, and[42] obtained an exemption from doing homage to the kings of Ireland, which his ancestors, it would appear, had been accustomed to pay. Aidan died in 605 or 608, at the advanced age of eighty, and was buried In the church of Kil-keran, the ruins of which are still to be seen in the midst of Campbelton.

Aidan was succeeded in the throne by his son Eocha-bui, or the “yellow,” who reigned sixteen years. He carried on war with the Cruithne of Ulster. After him came his brother Kenneth-Cear, or the “left-handed,” who was followed by Ferchar, son of Eogan, of the race of Lorn.

Donal, surnamed breac or freckled, the son of Eocha’-bui, of the race of Gauran, succeeded Ferchar about 637. He was a warlike prince and had distinguished himself in the wars against the Cruithne of Ireland. Congal-Claon, the son of Scanlan, the king of the Cruithne in Ulster, having slain Suibne-Mean, a powerful king of Ireland, was attacked by Domnal II., supreme king of Ireland, who succeeded Suibne, and was defeated in the battle of Duncetheren, in 629. Congal sought refuge in Cantyre, and having persuaded Donal-breac, the kinsman of Domnal, to join him in a war against the latter, they invaded Ireland with a heterogeneous mass of Scoto-Irish, Picts, Britons, and Saxons, commanded by Donal and his brothers. Cealach, the son of Maelcomh, the nephew of the reigning king, and as tanist or heir-apparent, the leader of his army, attacked Donal-breac in the plain of Magh Rath or Moyra in Down, in 637, and completely defeated him after an obstinate and bloody engagement. Congal, the murderer of his sovereign, met his merited fate, and Donal-breac was obliged to secure his own and his army’s safety by a speedy return to Cantyre. St. Columba had always endeavoured to preserve an amicable understanding between the Cruithne of Ulster and the Scoto-Irish, and his injunctions were, that they should live in constant peace; but Donal disregarded the wise advice of the saint, and paid dearly for so doing. He was not more successful in an enterprise against the Picts, having been defeated by them in the battle of Glinne Mairison, Glenmairison, or Glenmoreson, probably in West Lothian,[99] during the year 638. He ended his days at Straith-cairmaic or Strathcarron, possibly in the neighbourhood of Falkirk, by the sword of Hoan or Owen, one of the reguli of Strathcluyd, in the year 642. His son Cathasuidh fell by the same hand in 649.

Conal II., the grandson of Conal I., who was also of the Fergusian race of Congal, next ruled over the tribes of Cantyre and Argyle; but Dungal, of the race of Lorn, having obtained the government of the tribe of Lorn, questioned the right of Conal. He did not, however, carry his pretensions far, for Conal died, in undisturbed possession of his dominions, in 652, after a reign of ten years. To Donal-duin, or the brown, son of Conal, who reigned thirteen years, succeeded Maolduin, his brother, in 665. The family feuds which had long existed between the Fergusian races of Comgal and Tauran, existed in their bitterest state during the reign of Maolduin. Domangart, the son of Donal-breac, was murdered in 672, and Conal, the son of Maolduin, was assassinated in 675.

Ferchar-fada, or the tall, apparently of the race of Lorn, and either the son or grandson of Ferchar, who died in 637, seized the reins of government upon the death of Maolduin. On the death of Ferchar, in 702, the sceptre passed again to the Fergusian race in the person of Eocha’-rineval, remarkable for his Roman nose, the son of Domangart. The reign of this prince was short and unfortunate. His sceptre was seized by Ainbhcealach, the son of Ferchar-fada, who succeeded Eocha’ in 705. He was of an excellent disposition, but after reigning one year, was dethroned by his brother, Selvach, and obliged, in 706, to take refuge in Ireland. Selvach attacked the Britons of Strathcluyd, and gained two successive victories over them, the one at Longecoleth in 710, and the other at the rock of Mionuirc in 716. At the end of twelve years, Ainbhcealach returned from Ireland, to regain a sceptre which his brother had by his cruelties shown himself unworthy to wield, but he perished in the battle of Finglein, perhaps Glen Fyne at the head of Loch Fyne, in 719. Selvach met a more formidable rival in Duncha-beg, who was descended from Fergus, by the line of Congal; he assumed the government of Cantyre and[43] Argail, and confined Selvach to his family settlement of Lorn. These two princes appear to have been fairly matched in disposition and valour, and both exerted themselves for the destruction of one another, thus bringing many miseries upon their tribes. In an attempt which they made to invade the territories of each other in 719 by means of currachs, a naval combat ensued off Airdeanesbi, (probably Ardaness on the coast of Argyle,) in which Selvach was overcome by Duncha; but Selvach was not subdued. The death of Duncha in 721 put an end to his designs; but Eocha’ III., the son of Eocha’-rineval, the successor of Duncha, being as bent on the overthrow of Selvach as his predecessor, continued the war. The rival chiefs met at Irroisfoichne in 727, where a battle was fought, which produced nothing but irritation and distress. This lamentable state of things was put an end to by the death of Selvach in 729. This event enabled Eocha to assume the government of Lorn, and thus the Dalriadan kingdom which had been alternately ruled by chiefs of the houses of Fergus and Lorn became again united under Eocha. He died in 733, after a reign of thirteen years, during nine of which he ruled over Cantyre and Argyle, and four over all the Dalriadic tribes.

Eocha was succeeded in the kingdom by Muredach, the son of Ainbhceallach, of the race of Lorn. His reign was short and unfortunate. In revenge for an act of perfidy committed by Dungal, the son of Selvach, who had carried off Forai or Torai, the daughter of Brude, and the niece of Ungus, the great Pictish king, the latter, in the year 736, led his army from Strathearn, through the passes of the mountains into Lorn, which he wasted with fire and sword. He seized Dunad, in Mid-Lorn, and burned Creic, another fortress in the Ross of Mull, taking Dungal and Feradach, the two sons of Selvach, prisoners. Muredach went in pursuit of his enemy, and having overtaken him at Knock Cairpre, at Calatros, on the shores of the Linne,[100] a battle ensued, in which the Scots were repulsed with great slaughter. Talorgan, the brother of Ungus, commanded the Picts on this occasion, and pursued the flying Scots. In this pursuit Muredach is supposed to have perished, after a reign of three years.

Eogban or Ewan, the son of Muredach, took up the fallen succession in 736, and died in 739, in which year the Dalriadic sceptre was assumed by Aodh-fin, the son of Eocha’ III., and grandson of Eocha’-rineval, descended from the Fergusian race of Gauran. In 740 he measured his strength with the celebrated Ungus; but victory declared for neither, and during the remainder of Ungus’ reign, he did not attempt to renew hostilities. After the death of Ungus, in 761, Aodh-fin declared war against the Picts, whose territories he entered from Upper Lorn, penetrating through the passes of Glenorchy and Breadalbane. In 767 he reached Forteviot, the Pictish capital in Strathearn, where he fought a doubtful battle with Ciniod the Pictish king. Aodh-fin died in 769, after a splendid reign of thirty years.[101]

Fergus II., son of Aodh-fin, succeeded to the sceptre on the demise of his father, and died after an unimportant reign of three years. Selvach II., the son of Eogan, assumed the government in 772. His reign, which lasted twenty-four years, presents nothing very remarkable in history.

A new sovereign of a different lineage, now mounted the throne of the Scots in 796, in the person of Eocha or Auchy, the son of Aodh-fin[44] of the Gauran race. Eocha’ IV. is known also by the latinized appellation of Achaius. The story of the alliance between Achaius and Charlemagne has been shown to be a fable; although it is by no means improbable that he entered into an important treaty with the Picts, by marrying Urgusia, the daughter of Urguis, an alliance which, it is said, enabled his grandson Kenneth afterwards to claim and acquire the Pictish sceptre, in right of Urgusia his grandmother. Eocha died in 826, after a happy and prosperous reign of thirty years. He was succeeded by Dungal, the son of Selvach II., of the race of Lorn, being the last of that powerful family who swayed the Dalriadic sceptre. After a feeble but stormy reign of seven years, he died in 833.

Alpin, the last of the Scoto-Irish kings, and the son of Eocha IV. and of Urgusia, now mounted the throne. He was killed in 836, near the site of Laicht castle, on the ridge which separates Kyle from Galloway. The fiction that Alpin fell in a battle with the Picts, when asserting his right to the Pictish throne, has long been exploded.

In 836 Kenneth, the son of Alpin, succeeded his father. He was a prince of a warlike disposition, and of great vigour of mind and body. He avenged the death of his father by frequent inroads among the people dwelling to the south of the Clyde; but the great glory of his reign consists in his achievements against the Picts, which secured for him and his posterity the Pictish sceptre. The Pictish power had, previous to the period of Kenneth’s accession, been greatly enfeebled by the inroads of the Danish Vikingr; but it was not till after the death of Uven, the Pictish king, in 839, after a distracted reign of three years, that Kenneth made any serious attempt to seize the Pictish diadem. On the accession of Wred, Kenneth, in accordance with the principle of succession said by Bede to have prevailed among the Picts, claimed the Pictish throne in right of Urgusia, his grandmother; Wred died in 842, and after an arduous struggle, Kenneth wrested the sceptre from Bred, his successor, in 843, after he had reigned over the Scots seven years.

Burton[102] thinks there can be no doubt that the two countries were prepared for a fusion whenever a proper opportunity offered, but that this was on account of a matrimonial alliance between the two royal houses cannot with certainty be ascertained.[103] As we have said already, it is extremely improbable that Kenneth gained his supremacy by extermination. The Picts certainly appear to have suffered severe defeat, but the likelihood is that after Kenneth succeeded to the throne, a gradual fusion of the two people took place, so that in course of time they became essentially one, speaking one language, obeying the same laws, and following the same manners and customs. If we knew for certain to what race the Picts belonged, and what language they spoke, it might help us not a little to understand the nature and extent of the amalgamation; but as we know so little about these, and as the chroniclers, in speaking of this event, are so enigmatical and meagre, we are left almost entirely to conjecture. We are certain, at any rate, that from some cause or other, the kings of the Dalriadic Scots, about the middle of the 9th century, obtained supremacy over at least the Southern Picts, who from that time forward ceased to be a separate nation.[104]

[45]

The history of the Scoto-Irish kings affords few materials either amusing or instructive; but it was impossible, from the connexion between that history and the events that will follow in detail, to pass it over in silence. The Scoto-Irish tribes appear to have adopted much the same form of government as existed in Ireland at the time of their departure from that kingdom; the sovereignty of which, though nominally under one head, was in reality a pentarchy, which allowed four provincial kings to dispute the monarchy of the fifth. This system was the prolific source of anarchy, assassinations, and civil wars. The Dalriads were constantly kept in a state of intestine commotion and mutual hostility by the pretensions of their rival chiefs, or princes of the three races, who contended with the common sovereign for pre-eminence or exemption. The dlighe-tanaiste, or law of tanistry, which appears to have been generally followed as in Ireland, as well in the succession of kings as in that of chieftains, rather increased than mitigated these disorders; for the claim to rule not being regulated by any fixed law of hereditary succession, but depending upon the capricious will of the tribe, rivals were not found wanting to dispute the rights so conferred. There was always, both in Ireland and in Argyle, an heir presumptive to the Crown chosen, under the name of tanist, who commanded the army during the life of the reigning sovereign, and who succeeded to him after his demise. Budgets, and committees of supply, and taxes, were wholly unknown in those times among the Scots, and the monarch was obliged to support his dignity by voluntary contributions of clothes, cattle, furniture, and other necessaries.

There is reason to believe that tradition supplied the place of written records for many ages after the extinction of the Druidical superstition. Hence among the Scots, traditionary usages and local customs long supplied the place of positive or written laws. It is a mistake to suppose, as some writers have done,[46] that the law consisted in the mere will of the Brehon or judge. The office of Breitheamhuin or Brehon was hereditary, and it is quite natural to infer, that under such a system of jurisprudence, the dictum of the judge might not always comport with what was understood to be the common law or practice; but from thence, to argue that the will of the judge was to be regarded as the law itself, is absurd, and contrary to every idea of justice. As the principle of the rude jurisprudence of the Celtic tribes had for its object the reparation, rather than the prevention of crimes, almost every crime, even of the blackest kind, was commuted by a mulct or payment. Tacitus observes in allusion to this practice, that it was “a temper wholesome to the commonwealth, that homicide and lighter transgressions were settled by the payment of horses or cattle, part to the king or community, part to him or his friends who had been wronged.” The law of Scotland long recognised this system of compensation. The fine was termed, under the Brehon law, eric, which not only signifies a reparation, but also a fine, a ransom, a forfeit. Among the Albanian Scots it was called cro, a term preserved in the Regiam Majestatem, which has a whole chapter showing “the cro of ilk man, how mikil it is.”[105] This law of reparation, according to O’Connor, was first promulgated in Ireland, in the year 164.[106] According to the Regiam Majestatem, the cro of a villain was sixteen cows; of an earl’s son or thane, one hundred; of an earl, one hundred and forty; and that of the king of Scots, one thousand cows, or three thousand oras, that is to say, three oras for every cow.

Besides a share of the fines imposed, the Brehon or judge obtained a piece of arable land for his support. When he administered justice, he used to sit sometimes on the top of a hillock or heap of stones, sometimes on turf, and sometimes even on the middle of a bridge, surrounded by the suitors, who, of course, pleaded their own cause. We have already seen that, under the system of the Druids, the offices of religion, the instruction of youth, and the administration of the laws, were conducted in the open air; and hence the prevalence of the practice alluded to. But this practice was not peculiar to the Druids; for all nations, in the early stages of society, have followed a similar custom. The Tings of the Scandinavians, which consisted of circular enclosures of stone, without any covering, and within which both the judicial and legislative powers were exercised, afford a striking instance of this. According to Pliny,[107] even the Roman Senate first met in the open air, and the sittings of the Court of the Areopagus, at Athens, were so held. The present custom of holding courts of justice in halls is not of very remote antiquity in Scotland, and among the Scoto-Irish, the baron bailie long continued to dispense justice to the baron’s vassals from a moothill or eminence, which was generally on the bank of a river, and near to a religious edifice.

Of the various customs and peculiarities which distinguished the ancient Irish, as well as the Scoto-Irish, none has given rise to greater speculation than that of fosterage; which consisted in the mutual exchange, by different families, of their children for the purpose of being nursed and bred. Even the son of the chief was so entrusted during pupilarity with an inferior member of the clan. An adequate reward was either given or accepted in every case, and the lower orders, to whom the trust was committed, regarded it as an honour rather than a service. “Five hundred kyne and better,” says Campion, “were sometimes given by the Irish to procure the nursing of a great man’s child.” A firm and indissoluble attachment always took place among foster-brothers, and it continues in consequence to be a saying among Highlanders, that “affectionate to a man is a friend, but a foster-brother is as the life-blood of his heart.” Camden observes, that no love in the world is comparable by many degrees to that of foster-brethren in Ireland.[108] The close connexion which the practice of fosterage created between families, while it frequently prevented civil feuds, often led to them. But the strong attachment thus created was not confined to foster-brothers, it also extended to their parents. Spenser relates of the foster-mother to Murrough O’Brien, that, at his execution, she sucked the blood from his[47] head, and bathed her face and breast with it, saying that it was too precious to fall to the earth.

It is unnecessary, at this stage of our labours, to enter upon the subject of clanship; we mean to reserve our observations thereon till we come to the history of the clans, when we shall also notice some peculiarities or traits of the Highlanders not hitherto mentioned. We shall conclude this chapter by giving lists of the Pictish and Scoto-Irish Kings, which are generally regarded as authentic. A great many other names are given by the ancient chroniclers previous to the points at which the following lists commence, but as these are considered as totally untrustworthy, we shall omit them.

A CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF THE PICTISH KINGS, CHIEFLY ACCORDING TO THE PICTISH CHRONICLE.

[48]

A CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF THE SCOTO-IRISH KINGS, FROM THE YEAR 503 TO 843.

It is right to mention that the Albanic Duan omits the names between Ainbhcealach and Dungal (17–27), most of which, however, are contained in the St. Andrews’ list.

A.D. 843–1107.

For about two centuries after the union of the two kingdoms, the principal facts to be recorded are the extension of the Scottish dominion southwards beyond the Forth and Clyde, towards the present border, and northwards beyond Inverness, and the fierce contests that took place with the “hardy Norsemen” of Scandinavia and Denmark, who during this period continued not only to pour down upon the coasts and islands of Scotland, but to sway the destinies of the whole of Europe. During this time the history of the Highlands is still to a great extent the history of Scotland, and it was not till about the 12th century that the Highlanders became, strictly speaking, a peculiar people, confined to the territory whose boundaries were indicated in the first chapter, having for their neighbours on the east and south a population of undoubtedly Teutonic origin. The Norse invasions not only kept Scotland in continual commotion at the time, but must have exercised an important influence on its whole history, and contributed a new and vigorous element to its population. These Vikingr, about the end of the[49] 9th century, became so powerful as to be able to establish a separate and independent kingdom in Orkney and the Western Islands, which proved formidable not only to the king of Scotland, but also to the powerful king of Norway. “It is difficult to give them distinctness without risk of error, and it is even hard to decide how far the mark left by these visitors is, on the one hand, the brand of the devastating conqueror; or, on the other hand, the planting among the people then inhabiting Scotland of a high-conditioned race—a race uniting freedom and honesty in spirit with a strong and healthy physical organization. It was in the north that the inroad preserved its most distinctive character, probably from its weight, as most completely overwhelming the original population, whatever they might be; and though, in the histories, the king of Scots appears to rule the northern end of Britain, the territory beyond Inverness and Fort-William had aggregated in some way round a local magnate, who afterwards appears as a Maormor. He was not a viceroy of the king of Norway: and if he was in any way at the order of the King of Scotland, he was not an obedient subordinate.”[109]

Up to the time of Macbeda or Macbeth, the principle of hereditary succession to the throne, from father to son, appears not to have been recognised; the only principle, except force, which seems to have been acted upon being that of collateral succession, brother succeeding to brother, and nephew to uncle. After the time of Macbeth, however, the hereditary principle appears to have come into full force, to have been recognised as that by which alone succession to the throne was to be regulated.

The consolidation of the Scottish and Pictish power under one supreme chief, enabled these nations not only to repel foreign aggression, but afterwards to enlarge their territories beyond the Forth, which had hitherto formed, for many ages, the Pictish boundary on the south.

Although the power of the tribes to the north of the Forth was greatly augmented by the union which had taken place, yet all the genius and warlike energy of Kenneth were necessary to protect him and his people from insult. Ragnor Lodbrog (i.e., Ragnor of the Shaggy Bones,) with his fierce Danes infested the country round the Tay on the one side, and the Strathclyde Britons on the other, wasted the adjoining territories, and burnt Dunblane. Yet Kenneth overcame these embarrassments, and made frequent incursions into the Saxon territories in Lothian, and caused his foes to tremble. After a brilliant and successful reign, Kenneth died at Forteviot, the Pictish capital, 7 miles S.W. of Perth, on the 6th of February, 859, after a reign of twenty-three years. Kenneth, it is said, removed the famous stone which now sustains the coronation chair at Westminster Abbey, from the ancient seat of the Scottish monarchy in Argyle, to Scone. Kenneth (but according to some Constantine, the Pictish king, in 820), built a church at Dunkeld, to which, in 850, he removed the relics of St. Columba from Iona, which at this time was frequently subjected to the ravages of the Norsemen. He is celebrated also as a legislator, but no authentic traces of his laws now appear, the Macalpine laws attributed to the son of Alpin being clearly apocryphal.

The sceptre was assumed by Donald III., son of Alpin. He died in the year 863, after a short reign of four years. It is said he restored the laws of Aodh-fin, the son of Eocha III. They were probably similar to the ancient Brehon laws of Ireland.

Constantine, the son of Kenneth, succeeded his uncle Donald, and soon found himself involved in a dreadful conflict with the Danish pirates. Having, after a contest which lasted half a century, established themselves in Ireland, and obtained secure possession of Dublin, the Vikingr directed their views towards the western coasts of Scotland, which they laid waste. These ravages were afterwards extended to the whole of the eastern coast, and particularly to the shores of the Frith of Forth; but although the invaders were often repulsed, they never ceased to renew their attacks. In the year 881, Constantine, in repelling an attack of the pirates, was slain at a place called Merdo-fatha, or Werdo, probably the present Perth, according to Maclauchlan.

Aodh or Hugh, the fair-haired, succeeded his brother Constantine. His reign was unfortunate,[50] short, and troublesome. Grig, who was Maormor, or chief, of the country between the Dee and the Spey, having become a competitor for the crown, Aodh endeavoured to put him down, but did not succeed; and having been wounded in a battle fought at Strathallan, (or possibly Strathdon,) he was carried to Inverurie, where he died, after lingering two months, having held the sceptre only one year.

Grig now assumed the crown, and, either to secure his possession, or from some other motive, he associated with him in the government Eocha, son of Ku, the British king of Strathclyde, and the grandson, by a daughter, of Kenneth Macalpin. After a reign of eleven years, both Eocha and Grig were forced to abdicate, and gave way to Donald IV., who succeeded them in 893.

During his reign the kingdom was infested by the piratical incursions of the Danes. Although they were defeated by Donald in a bloody action at Collin, said to be on the Tay, near Scone, they returned under Ivar O’Ivar, from Ireland, in the year 904, but were gallantly repulsed, and their leader killed in a threatened attack on Forteviot, by Donald, who unfortunately also perished, after a reign of eleven years. In his reign the kings of present Scotland are no longer called reges Pictorum by the Irish Annalists, but Ri Alban, or kings of Alban; and in the Pictish Chronicle Pictavia gives place to Albania.

Constantine III., the son of Aodh, a prince of a warlike and enterprising character, next followed. He had to sustain, during an unusually long reign, the repeated attacks of the Danes. In one invasion they plundered Dunkeld, and in 908, they attempted to obtain the grand object of their designs, the possession of Forteviot in Strathearn, the Pictish capital; but in this design they were again defeated, and forced to abandon the country. The Danes remained quiet for a few years, but in 918 their fleet entered the Clyde, from Ireland, under the command of Reginald, where they were attacked by the Scots in conjunction with the Northern Saxons, whom the ties of common safety had now united for mutual defence. Reginald is said to have drawn up his Danes in four divisions; the first headed by Godfrey O’Ivar; the second by Earls; the third by Chieftains; and the fourth by Reginald himself, as a reserve. The Scots, with Constantine at their head, made a furious attack on the first three divisions, which they forced to retire. Reginald’s reserve not being available to turn the scale of victory against the Scots, the Danes retreated during the night, and embarked on board their fleet.

After this defeat of the Danes, Constantine enjoyed many years’ repose. A long grudge had existed between him and Æthelstane, son of Edward, the elder, which at last came to an open rupture. Having formed an alliance with several princes, and particularly with Anlof, king of Dublin as well as of Northumberland, and son-in-law of Constantine, the latter collected a large fleet in the year 937, with which he entered the Humber. The hope of plunder had attracted many of the Vikingr to Constantine’s standard, and the sceptre of Æthelstane seemed now to tremble in his hand. But that monarch was fully prepared for the dangers with which he was threatened, and resolved to meet his enemies in battle. After a long, bloody, and obstinate contest at Brunanburg, near the southern shore of the Humber, victory declared for Æthelstane. Prodigies of valour were displayed on both sides, especially by Turketel, the Chancellor of England; by Anlof, and by the son of Constantine, who lost his life. The confederates, after sustaining a heavy loss, sought for safety in their ships. This, and after misfortunes, possibly disgusted Constantine with the vanities of this world, for, in the fortieth year of his reign, he put into practice a resolution which he had formed of resigning his crown and embracing a monastic life. He became Abbot of the Monastery of St. Andrews in 943, and thus ended a long and chequered, but vigorous, and, on the whole, successful reign in a cloister, like Charles V. Towards the end of this reign the term Scotland was applied to this kingdom by the Saxons, a term which before had been given by them to Ireland. Constantine died in 952.

Malcolm I., the son of Donald IV., obtained the abdicated throne. He was a prince of great abilities and prudence, and Edmund of England courted his alliance by ceding Cumbria, then consisting of Cumberland and part of Westmoreland, to him, in the year 945, on[51] condition that he would defend that northern county, and become the ally of Edmund. Edred, the brother and successor of Edmund, accordingly applied for, and obtained the aid of Malcolm against Anlaf, king of Northumberland, whose country, according to the barbarous practice of the times, he wasted, and carried off the people with their cattle. Malcolm, after putting down an insurrection of the Moray-men under Cellach, their Maormor, or chief, whom he slew, was sometime thereafter slain, as is supposed, at Ulurn or Auldearn in Moray, by one of these men, in revenge for the death of his chief.

Indulph, the son of Constantine III., succeeded the murdered monarch in the year 953. He sustained many severe conflicts with the Danes, and ultimately lost his life in 961, after a reign of eight years, in a successful action with these pirates, on the moor which lies to the westward of Cullen.

Duff, the son of Malcolm I., now mounted the throne; but Culen, the son of Indulf, laid claim to the sceptre which his father had wielded. The parties met at Drum Crup (probably Crieff), and, after a doubtful struggle, in which Doncha, the Abbot of Dunkeld, and Dubdou, the Maormor of Athole, the partisans of Culen, lost their lives, victory declared for Duff. But this triumph was of short duration, for Duff was afterwards obliged to retreat from Forteviot into the north, and was assassinated at Forres in the year 965, after a brief and unhappy reign of four years and a half.

Culen, the son of Indulf, succeeded, as a matter of course, to the crown of Duff, which he stained by his vices. He and his brother Eocha were slain in Lothian, in an action with the Britons of Strathclyde in 970, after an inglorious reign of four years and a half. During his reign Edinburgh was captured from the English, this being the first known step in the progress of the gradual extension of the Scottish kingdom between the Forth and the Tweed.[110]

Kenneth III., son of Malcolm I., and brother of Duff, succeeded Culen the same year. He waged a successful war against the Britons of Strathclyde, and annexed their territories to his kingdom. During his reign the Danes meditated an attack upon Forteviot, or Dunkeld, for the purposes of plunder, and, with this view, they sailed up the Tay with a numerous fleet. Kenneth does not appear to have been fully prepared, being probably not aware of the intentions of the enemy; but collecting as many of his chiefs and their followers as the spur of the occasion would allow, he met the Danes at Luncarty, in the vicinity of Perth. Malcolm, the Tanist, prince of Cumberland, it is said, commanded the right wing of the Scottish army; Duncan, the Maormor of Athole, had the charge of the left: and Kenneth, the king, commanded the centre. The Danes with their battle-axes made dreadful havoc, and compelled the Scottish army to give way; but the latter was rallied by the famous Hay, the traditional ancestor of the Kinnoul family, and finally repulsed the Danes, who, as usual, fled to their ships. Burton thinks the battle of Luncarty “a recent invention.”

The defeat of the Danes enabled Kenneth to turn his attention to the domestic concerns of his kingdom. He appears to have directed his thoughts to bring about a complete change in the mode of succession to the crown, in order to perpetuate in and confine the crown to his own descendants. This alteration could not be well accomplished as long as Malcolm, the son of Duff, the Tanist of the kingdom, and prince of Cumberland, stood in the way; and, accordingly, it has been said that Kenneth was the cause of the untimely death of prince Malcolm, who is stated to have been poisoned. It is said that Kenneth got an act passed, that in future the son, or nearest male heir, of the king, should always succeed to the throne; and that in case that son or heir were not of age at the time of the king’s demise, that a person of rank should be chosen Regent of the kingdom, until the minor attained his fourteenth year, when he should assume the reins of government; but whether such a law was really passed on the moot-hill of Scone or not, of which we have no evidence, certain it is that two other princes succeeded to the crown before Malcolm the son of Kenneth. Kenneth, after a reign of twenty-four years, was, it is said, in 994 assassinated at Fettercairn by[52] Finella,[111] the wife of the Maormor of the Mearns, and the daughter of Cunechat, the Maormor of Angus, in revenge for having put her only son to death. It has been thought that till this time the Maormorship of Angus was in some measure independent of the Scottish crown, never having thoroughly yielded to its supremacy, that the death of the young chief took place in course of an effort on the part of Kenneth for its reduction, and that Kenneth himself was on a visit to the quarter at the time of his death, for exacting the usual royal privileges of cain and cuairt, or a certain tax and certain provision for the king and his followers when on a journey, due by the chiefs or landholders of the kingdom.[112]

Constantine IV., son of Culen, succeeded; but his right was disputed by Kenneth, the Grim, i.e. strong, son of Duff. The dispute was decided at Rathveramon, i.e. the castle at the mouth of the Almond, near Perth, where Constantine lost his life in the year 995.

Kenneth IV., the son of Duff, now obtained the sceptre which he had coveted; but he was disturbed in the possession thereof by Malcolm, the son of Kenneth III., heir presumptive to the crown. Malcolm took the field in 1003, and decided his claim to the crown in a bloody battle at Monivaird, in Strathearn, in which Kenneth, after a noble resistance, received a mortal wound.

Malcolm II. now ascended the vacant throne, but was not destined to enjoy repose. At the very beginning of his reign he was defeated at Durham by the army of the Earl of Northumberland, under his son Uchtred, who ordered a selection of good-looking Scotch heads to be stuck on the walls of Durham.

The Danes, who had now obtained a firm footing in England, directed their attention in an especial manner to Scotland, which they were in hopes of subduing. Sigurd, the Earl of Orkney, carried on a harassing and predatory warfare on the shores of the Moray Frith, which he continued even after a matrimonial alliance he formed with Malcolm, by marrying his daughter; but this was no singular trait in the character of a Vikingr, who plundered friends and foes with equal pleasure. The scene of Sigurd’s operations was chosen by his brother northmen for making a descent, which they effected near Speymouth. They carried fire and sword through Moray, and laid siege to the fortress of Nairn, one of the strongest in the north. The Danes were forced to raise the siege for a time, by Malcolm, who encamped his army in a plain near Kilflos or Kinloss. In this position he was attacked by the invaders, and, after a severe action, was forced to retreat, after being seriously wounded.

Malcolm, in 1010, marched north with his army, and encamped at Mortlach. The Danes advanced to meet the Scots, and a dreadful and fierce conflict ensued, the result of which was long dubious. At length the northmen gave way and victory declared for Malcolm. Had the Danes succeeded they would in all probability have obtained as permanent a footing in North Britain as they did in England; but the Scottish kings were determined, at all hazards, never to suffer them to pollute the soil of Scotland by allowing them even the smallest settlement in their dominions. In gratitude to God for his victory, Malcolm endowed a religious house at Mortlach, with its church erected near the scene of action. Maclauchlan, however, maintains that this church was planted by Malcolm Ceanmore.

Many other conflicts are narrated with minute detail by the later chroniclers as having taken place between Malcolm and the Danes, but it is very doubtful how far these are worthy of credit. That Malcolm had enough to do to prevent the Danes from overrunning Scotland and subduing the inhabitants can readily be believed; but as we have few authentic particulars concerning the conflicts which took place, it would serve no purpose to give the imaginary details invented by comparatively recent historians.

Some time after this Malcolm was engaged in a war with the Northumbrians, and, having led his army, in 1018, to Carham, near Werk, on the southern bank of the Tweed, where he was met by Uchtred, the Earl of Northumberland, a desperate battle took place, which was[53] contested with great valour on both sides.[113] The success was doubtful on either side, though Uchtred claimed a victory; but he did not long enjoy the fruits of it, as he was soon thereafter assassinated when on his road to pay obeisance to the great Canute. Endulf, the brother and successor of Uchtred, justly dreading the power of the Scots, was induced to cede Lothian to Malcolm for ever, who, on this occasion, gave oblations to the churches and gifts to the clergy, and they in return transmitted his name to posterity. He was designed, par excellence, by the Latin chroniclers, rex victoriosissimus; by St. Berchan, the Forranach or destroyer.

The last struggle with which Malcolm was threatened, was with the celebrated Canute, who, for some cause or other not properly explained, entered Scotland in the year 1031; but these powerful parties appear not to have come to action. Canute’s expedition appears, from what followed, to have been fitted out to compel Malcolm to do homage for Cumberland, for it is certain that Malcolm engaged to fulfil the conditions on which his predecessors had held that country, and that Canute thereafter returned to England.

But the reign of Malcolm was not only distinguished by foreign wars, but by civil contests between rival chiefs. Finlegh, the Maormor of Ross, and the father of Macbeth, was assassinated in 1020, and about twelve years thereafter, Maolbride, the Maormor of Moray, grandfather of Lulach, was, in revenge for Finlegh’s murder, burnt within his castle, with fifty of his men.

At length, after a splendid reign of thirty years, Malcolm slept with his fathers, and his body was transferred to Iona, and interred with due solemnity among the remains of his predecessors. By some authorities he is said to have been assassinated at Glammis.

Malcolm was undoubtedly a prince of great acquirements. He made many changes and some improvements in the internal policy of his kingdom, and in him religion always found a guardian and protector. But although Malcolm is justly entitled to this praise, he by no means came up to the standard of perfection assigned him by fiction. In his reign Scotland appears to have reached its present boundary on the south, the Tweed, and Strathclyde was incorporated with the rest of the kingdom. Malcolm was the first who was called Rex Scotiæ, and might justly claim to be so designated, seeing that he was the first to hold sway over nearly the whole of present Scotland,—the only portions where his authority appears to have been seriously disputed being those in which the Danes had established themselves.

Duncan, son of Bethoc or Beatrice, daughter of Malcolm II., succeeded his grandfather in the year 1033. “In the extreme north, dominions more extensive than any Jarl of the Orkneys had hitherto acquired, were united under the rule of Thorfinn, Sigurd’s son, whose character and appearance have been thus described:—‘He was stout and strong, but very ugly, severe and cruel, but a very clever man.’ The extensive districts then dependant upon the Moray Maormors were in the possession of the celebrated Macbeth.”[114] Duncan, in 1033, desiring to extend his dominions southwards, attacked Durham, but was forced to retire with considerable loss. His principal struggles, however, were with his powerful kinsman, Thorfinn, whose success was so great that he extended his conquests as far as the Tay. “His men spread over the whole conquered country,” says the Orkneyinga Saga,[115] “and burnt every hamlet and farm, so that not a cot remained. Every man that they found they slew; but the old men and women fled to the deserts and woods, and filled the country with lamentation. Some were driven before the Norwegians and made slaves. After this Earl Thorfinn returned to his ships, subjugating the country everywhere in his progress.” Duncan’s last battle, in which he was defeated, was in the neighbourhood of Burghead, near the Moray Frith; and shortly after this, on the 14th August, 1040, he was assassinated in Bothgowanan,—which, in Gaelic, is said to mean “the smith’s hut,”—by his kinsman the[54] Maormor Macbeda or Macbeth. Duncan had reigned only five years when he was assassinated by Macbeth, leaving two infant sons, Malcolm and Donal, by a sister of Siward, the Earl of Northumberland. The former fled to Cumberland, and the latter took refuge in the Hebrides, on the death of their father.

Macbeth, “snorting with the indigested fumes of the blood of his sovereign,” immediately seized the gory sceptre. As several fictions have been propagated concerning the history and genealogy of Macbeth, we may mention that, according to the most authentic authorities, he was by birth Thane of Ross, and by his marriage with the Lady Gruoch,—who had a claim to the throne, as granddaughter of Kenneth,—became also Thane of Moray, during the minority of Lulach, the infant son of that lady, by her former marriage with Gilcomgain, the Maormor or Thane of Moray. Lady Gruoch was the daughter of Boedhe, son of Kenneth IV.; and thus Macbeth united in his own person many powerful interests which enabled him to take quiet possession of the throne of the murdered sovereign. He, of course, found no difficulty in getting himself inaugurated at Scone, under the protection of the clans of Moray and Ross, and the aid of those who favoured the pretensions of the descendants of Kenneth IV.

Various attempts were made on the part of the partisans of Malcolm, son of Duncan, to dispossess Macbeth of the throne. The most formidable was that of Siward, the powerful Earl of Northumberland, and the relation of Malcolm, who, at the instigation or command of Edward the Confessor, led a numerous army into Scotland in the year 1054. They marched as far north as Dunsinnan, where they were met by Macbeth, who commanded his troops in person. A furious battle ensued, but Macbeth fled from the field after many displays of courage. The Scots lost 3,000 men, and the Saxons 1,500, including Osbert, the son of Siward. Macbeth retired to his fastnesses in the north, and Siward returned to Northumberland; but Malcolm continued the war till the death of Macbeth, who was slain by Macduff, Thane of Fife, in revenge for the cruelties he had inflicted on his family, at Lumphanan, in Aberdeenshire, in the year 1056, although, according to Skene (Chronicles), it was in August, 1057.

Macbeth was unquestionably a man of great vigour, and well fitted to govern in the age in which he lived; and had it not been for the indelible character bestowed upon him by Shakespere (who probably followed the chronicle of Holinshed), his character might have stood well with posterity. “The deeds which raised Macbeth and his wife to power were not in appearance much worse than others of their day done for similar ends. However he may have gained his power, he exercised it with good repute, according to the reports nearest to his time.”[116] Macbeth, “in a manner sacred to splendid infamy,” is the first king of Scotland whose name appears in the ecclesiastical records as a benefactor of the church, and, it would appear, the first who offered his services to the Bishop of Rome. According to the records of St. Andrews, he made a gift of certain lands to the monastery of Lochleven, and certainly sent money to the poor of Rome, if, indeed, he did not himself make a pilgrimage to the holy city.

After the reign of Macbeth, the former irregular and confusing mode of succession ceased, and the hereditary principle was adopted and acted upon.

Lulach, the great-grandson of Kenneth IV., being supported by the powerful influence of his own family, and that of the deceased monarch, ascended the throne at the age of twenty-five or twenty-six; but his reign lasted only a few months, he having fallen in battle at Essie, in Strathbogie, in defending his crown against Malcolm. The body of Lulach was interred along with that of Macbeth, in Iona, the common sepulchre, for many centuries, of the Scottish kings.

Malcolm III., better known in history by the name of Malcolm Ceanmore, or great head, vindicated his claim to the vacant throne, and was crowned at Scone, 25th April, 1057. His first care was to recompense those who had assisted him in obtaining the sovereignty, and it is said that he created new titles of honour, by substituting earls for thanes; but this has been disputed, and there are really no[55] data from which a certain conclusion can be drawn.

In the year 1059 Malcolm paid a visit to Edward the Confessor, during whose reign he lived on amicable terms with the English; but after the death of that monarch he made a hostile incursion into Northumberland, and wasted the country. He even violated the peace of St. Cuthbert in Holy Island.

William, Duke of Normandy, having overcome Harold in the battle of Hastings, on the 14th October, 1066, Edgar Ætheling saw no hopes of obtaining the crown, and left England along with his mother and sisters, and sought refuge in Scotland. Malcolm, on hearing of the distress of the illustrious strangers, left his royal palace at Dunfermline to meet them, and invited them to Dunfermline, where they were hospitably entertained. Margaret, one of Edgar’s sisters, was a princess of great virtues and accomplishments; and she at once won the heart of Malcolm.

The offer of his hand was accepted, and their nuptials were celebrated with great solemnity and splendour. This queen was a blessing to the king and to the nation, and appears to have well merited the appellation of Saint. There are few females in history who can be compared with Queen Margaret.

It is quite unnecessary, and apart from the object of the present work, to enter into any details of the wars between Malcolm and William the Conqueror, and William Rufus. Suffice it to say that both Malcolm and his eldest son Edward were slain in a battle on the Alne, on the 13th November, 1093, after a reign of thirty-six years. Queen Margaret, who was on her death-bed when this catastrophe occurred, died shortly after she received the intelligence with great composure and resignation to the will of God. Malcolm had six sons, viz., Edward, who was killed along with his father, Edmund, Edgar, Ethelred, Alexander, and David, and two daughters, Maud, who was married to Henry I. of England, and Mary, who married Eustache, Count of Boulogne. Of the sons, Edgar, Alexander, and David, successively came to the crown.

Thorfinn, Earl of Orkney, died in 1064, and his extensive possessions in Scotland did not revert to his descendants, but to the native chiefs, who had had the original right to possess them. These chiefs appear to have been independent of the Scottish sovereign, and to have caused him no small amount of trouble. A considerable part of Malcolm’s reign was spent in endeavouring to bring them into subjection, and before his death he had the satisfaction of seeing the whole of Scotland, with perhaps the exception of Orkney, acknowledging him as sole monarch. The Norwegian conquest appears to have effected a most important change in the character of the population and language of the eastern lowlands of the north of Scotland. The original population must in some way have given way to a Norwegian one, and, whatever may have been the original language, we find after this one of a decidedly Teutonic character prevailing in this district, probably introduced along with the Norse population. “In the more mountainous and Highland districts, however, we are warranted in concluding that the effect must have been very different, and that the possession of the country by the Norwegians for thirty years could have exercised as little permanent influence on the population itself, as we are assured by the Saga it did upon the race of their chiefs.

“Previously to this conquest the northern Gaelic race possessed the whole of the north of Scotland, from the western to the eastern sea, and the general change produced by the conquest must have been, that the Gael were for the first time confined within those limits which they have never since exceeded, and that the eastern districts became inhabited by that Gothic race, who have also ever since possessed them.”[117]

On the demise of Malcolm, Donal-bane his brother assumed the government; but Duncan, the son of Malcolm, who had lived many years in England, and held a high military rank under William Rufus, invaded Scotland with a large army of English and Normans, and forced Donal to retire for safety to the Hebrides. Duncan, whom some writers suppose to have been a bastard, and others a legitimate son of Malcolm by a former wife, enjoyed the crown only six months, having been assassinated by[56] Maolpeder, the Maormor of the Mearns, at Menteith, at the instigation, it is believed, of Donal. Duncan left, by his wife Ethreda, daughter of Gospatrick, a son, William, sometimes surnamed Fitz-Duncan.

Donal-bane again seized the sceptre, but he survived Duncan only two years. Edgar Ætheling having assembled an army in England, entered Scotland, and made Donal prisoner in an action which took place in September 1097. He was imprisoned by orders of Edgar, and died at Roscobie in Forfarshire, after having been deprived of his eyesight, according to the usual practice of the age. The series of the pure Scoto-Irish kings may be said to have ended with Donal-bane.

The reign of Edgar, who appears to have been of a gentle and peaceful disposition, is almost devoid of incident, the principal events being the marriage of his sister Matilda to the English Henry, and the wasting and conquest of the Western Islands by Magnus Olaveson and his Norwegians. This last event had but little effect on Scotland proper, as these Islands at that time can hardly be said to have belonged to it. These Norsemen appear to have settled among and mixed with the native inhabitants, and thus to have formed a population, spoken of by the Irish Annalists under the name of Gallgael, “a horde of pirates, plundering on their own account, and under their own leaders, when they were not following the banner of any of the greater sea-kings, whose fleets were powerful enough to sweep the western seas, and exact tribute from the lesser island chieftains.”[118] Edgar died in 1107, and was succeeded by his brother Alexander, whom he enjoined to bestow upon his younger brother David the district of Cumbria.

We have now arrived at an era in our history, when the line of demarcation between the inhabitants of the Lowlands and Highlands of Scotland begins to appear, and when, by the influx of a Gothic race into the former, the language of that part of North Britain is completely revolutionized, when a new dynasty or race of sovereigns ascends the throne, and when a great change takes places in the laws and constitution of the kingdom.

Although the Anglo-Saxon colonization of the Lowlands of Scotland does not come exactly within the design of the present work; yet, as forming an important feature in the history of the Lowlands of Scotland, as contradistinguished from the Highlands, a slight notice of it may not be uninteresting.

Shortly after the Roman abdication of North Britain in the year 446, which was soon succeeded by the final departure of the Romans from the British shores, the Saxons, a people of Gothic origin, established themselves upon the Tweed, and afterwards extended their settlements to the Frith of Forth, and to the banks of the Solway and the Clyde. About the beginning of the sixth century the Dalriads, as we have seen, landed in Kintyre and Argyle from the opposite coast of Ireland; and colonized these districts, whence, in the course of little more than two centuries, they overspread the Highlands and western islands, which their descendants have ever since continued to possess. Towards the end of the eighth century, a fresh colony of Scots from Ireland settled in Galloway among the Britons and Saxons, and having overspread the whole of that country, were afterwards joined by detachments of the Scots of Kintyre and Argyle, in connection with whom they peopled that[57] peninsula. Besides these three races, who made permanent settlements in Scotland, the Scandinavians colonized the Orkney and Shetland islands, and also established themselves on the coasts of Caithness and Sutherland, and in the eastern part of the country north of the Frith of Tay.

But notwithstanding these early settlements of the Gothic race, the era of the Saxon colonization of the Lowlands of Scotland is, with more propriety, placed in the reign of Malcolm Ceanmore, who, by his marriage with a Saxon princess, and the protection he gave to the Anglo-Saxon fugitives who sought an asylum in his dominions from the persecutions of William the Conqueror and his Normans, laid the foundations of those great changes which took place in the reigns of his successors. Malcolm, in his warlike incursions into Northumberland and Durham, carried off immense numbers of young men and women, who were to be seen in the reign of David I. in almost every village and house in Scotland. The Gaelic population were quite averse to the settlement of these strangers among them, and it is said that the extravagant mode of living introduced by the Saxon followers of Queen Margaret, was one of the reasons which led to their expulsion from Scotland, in the reign of Donal-bane, who rendered himself popular with his people by this unfriendly act.

This expulsion was, however, soon rendered nugatory, for on the accession of Edgar, the first sovereign of the Scoto-Saxon dynasty, many distinguished Saxon families with their followers settled in Scotland, to the heads of which families the king made grants of land of considerable extent. Few of these foreigners appear to have come into Scotland during the reign of Alexander I., the brother and successor of Edgar; but vast numbers of Anglo-Saxons, Anglo-Normans, and Flemings, established themselves in Scotland in the reign of David I. That prince had received his education at the court of Henry I., and had married Maud or Matilda, the only child of Waltheof, Earl of Northumberland and Huntingdon, by Judith, niece to William the Conqueror on the mother’s side. This lady had many vassals, and when David came to the throne, in the year 1124, he was followed by a thousand Anglo-Normans, to whom he distributed lands, on which they and their followers settled. Many of the illustrious families in Scotland originated from this source.

Malcolm Ceanmore had, before his accession to the throne, resided for some time in England as a fugitive, under the protection of Edward the Confessor, where he acquired a knowledge of the Saxon language; which language, after his marriage with the princess Margaret, became that of the Scottish court. This circumstance made that language fashionable among the Scottish nobility, in consequence of which and of the Anglo-Saxon colonization under David I., the Gaelic language was altogether superseded in the Lowlands of Scotland in little more than two centuries after the death of Malcolm. A topographical line of demarcation was then fixed as the boundary between the two languages, which has ever since been kept up, and presents one of the most singular phenomena ever observed in the history of philology.

The change of the seat of government by Kenneth, on ascending the Pictish throne, to Abernethy, also followed by the removal of the marble chair, the emblem of sovereignty, from Dunstaffnage to Scone, appears to have occasioned no detriment to the Gaelic population of the Highlands; but when Malcolm Ceanmore transferred his court, about the year 1066, to Dunfermline,—which also became, in place of Iona, the sepulchre of the Scottish kings,—the rays of royal bounty, which had hitherto diffused their protecting and benign influence over the inhabitants of the Highlands, were withdrawn, and left them a prey to anarchy and poverty. “The people,” says General David Stewart, “now beyond the reach of the laws, became turbulent and fierce, revenging in person those wrongs for which the administrators of the laws were too distant and too feeble to afford redress. Thence arose the institution of chiefs, who naturally became the judges and arbiters in the quarrels of their clansmen and followers, and who were surrounded by men devoted to the defence of their rights, their property, and their power; and accordingly the chiefs established within their own territories a jurisdiction almost wholly independent of their liege lord.”

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The connection which Malcolm and his successors maintained with England, estranged still farther the Highlanders from the dominion of the sovereign and the laws; and their history, after the population of the Lowlands had merged into and adopted the language of the Anglo-Saxons, presents, with the exception of the wars between rival clans which will be noticed afterwards, nothing remarkable till their first appearance on the military theatre of our national history in the campaigns of Montrose, Dundee, and others.

On the accession of Alexander I., then, Scotland was divided between the Celt and the Saxon, or more strictly speaking, Teuton, pretty much as it is at the present day, the Gaelic population having become gradually confined very nearly to the limits indicated in the first chapter. They never appear, at least until quite recently, to have taken kindly to Teutonic customs and the Teutonic tongue, and resented much the defection of their king in court, in submitting to Saxon innovations. Previous to this the history of the Highlands has been, to a very great extent, the history of Scotland, and even for a considerable time after this, Scotia was applied strictly to the country north of the Forth and Clyde, the district south of that being known by various other names. During and after Edgar’s time, the whole of the country north of the Tweed became more and more a counterpart of England, with its thanes, its earls, and its sheriffs; and even the Highland maormors assumed the title of earl, in deference to the new customs. The Highlanders, however, it is well known, for centuries warred against these Saxon innovations, becoming more and more a peculiar people, being, up till the end of the last century, a perpetual thorn in the flesh of their Saxon rulers and their Saxon fellow-subjects. They have a history of their own, which we deem worthy of narration.[119]

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF THE SCOTTISH KINGS, FROM 843 TO 1097, ADJUSTED FROM THE BEST AUTHORITIES.

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A.D. 1107–1411.

KINGS OF SCOTLAND DURING THE PERIOD:—

The reign of Alexander I. was disturbed, about the year 1116, by an attempt made by the men of Moray and Merne to surprise the king while enjoying himself at his favourite residence at Invergowrie, on the north bank of the Tay, not far from its mouth. The king, however, showed himself more than a match for his enemies, as he not only defeated their immediate purpose, but, pursuing them with his army across the Moray Frith, chastised them so effectually as to keep them quiet for the remainder of his reign, which ended by his death, in April, 1124. In 1130, six years after the accession of King David I. to the Scottish throne, while he was in England, the Moraymen again rose against the semi-Saxon king, but were defeated at Strickathrow, in Forfarshire, by Edward the Constable, son of Siward Beorn, Angus the Earl of Moray being left among the dead, Malcolm his brother escaping to carry on the conflict. In 1134 David himself took the field against these Highlanders, and, with the assistance of the barons of Northumberland, headed by Walter L’Espec, completely subdued the Moraymen, confiscated the whole district, and bestowed it upon knights in whose fidelity he could place confidence, some of these being Normans.

This was manifestly, according to Dr. Maclauchlan, the period of the dispersion of the ancient Moravienses. Never till then was the power of the Moray chiefs thoroughly broken, and only then were the inhabitants proscribed, and many of them expelled. The Murrays, afterwards so powerful, found their way to the south, carrying with them the name of their ancient country, and some of the present tribes of Sutherland, as well as of Inverness-shire, who, there is reason to believe, belonged to the Scoto-Pictish inhabitants of Moray, removed their dwellings to those portions of the country which they have occupied ever since. The race of Mac Heth may appear among the Mac Heths or Mac Aoidhs, the Mackays of Sutherland, nor is this rendered less probable by the Morganaich or sons of Morgan, the ancient name of the Mackays, appearing in the Book of Deer as owning possessions and power in Buchan in the 10th or 11th century.[121]

The next enterprise of any note was undertaken by Somerled, thane of Argyle and the Isles, against the authority of Malcolm IV., who, after various conflicts, was repulsed, though not subdued, by Gilchrist, Earl of Angus. A peace, concluded with this powerful chieftain in 1153, was considered of such importance as to form an epoch in the dating of Scottish charters. A still more formidable insurrection broke out among the Moraymen, under Gildominick, on account of an attempt, on the part of the Government, to intrude the Anglo-Norman jurisdiction, introduced into the Lowlands, upon their Celtic customs, and the settling of Anglo-Belgic colonists among them. These insurgents laid waste the neighbouring counties; and so regardless were they of the royal authority, that they actually hanged the heralds who were sent to summon them to lay down their arms. Malcolm despatched the gallant Earl Gilchrist with an army to subdue them, but he was defeated, and forced to re-cross the Grampians.

This defeat aroused Malcolm, who was naturally of an indolent disposition. About the year 1160 he marched north with a powerful army, and found the enemy on the moor of Urquhart, near the Spey, ready to give him battle. After passing the Spey, the noblemen in the king’s army reconnoitred the enemy;[60] but they found them so well prepared for action, and so flushed with their late success, that they considered the issue of a battle rather doubtful. On this account, the commanders advised the king to enter into a negotiation with the rebels, and to promise, that in the event of a submission their lives would be spared. The offer was accepted, and the king kept his word. According to Fordun,[122] the king, by the advice of his nobles, ordained that every family in Moray which had been engaged in the rebellion should, within a limited time, remove out of Moray to other parts of the kingdom, where lands would be assigned to them, and that their places should be supplied with people from other parts of the kingdom. For the performance of this order, they gave hostages, it is said,[123] and at the time appointed transplanted themselves, some into the northern, but the greater number into the southern counties. Chalmers considers this removal of the Moray men as “an egregious improbability,” because “the dispossessing of a whole people is so difficult an operation, that the recital of it cannot be believed without strong evidence;”[124] it is very probable that only the ringleaders and their families were transported. The older historians say that the Moraymen were almost totally cut off in an obstinate battle, and strangers brought into their place.[125]

About this time Somerled, the ambitious and powerful lord of the Isles, made another and a last attempt upon the king’s authority, Having collected a large force, chiefly in Ireland, he landed, in 1164, near Renfrew; but he was defeated by the brave inhabitants and the king’s troops in a decisive battle, in which he and his son Gillecolum were slain.

The reign of William the Lion, who succeeded his brother in 1165, was marked by many disturbances in the Highlands. The Gaelic population could not endure the new settlers whom the Saxon colonization had introduced among them, and every opportunity was taken to vex and annoy them. An open insurrection broke out in Ross-shire, headed by Donald Bane, known also as MacWilliam, which obliged William, in the year 1181, to march into the north, where he built the two castles of Eddirton and Dunscath to keep the people in check. He restored quiet for a few years; but, in 1187, Donald Bane again renewed his pretensions to the crown, and raised the standard of revolt in the north. He took possession of Ross, and wasted Moray. William lost no time in leading an army against him. While the king lay at Inverness with his army, a party of 3,000 faithful men, under the command of Roland, the brave lord of Galloway, and future Constable of Scotland, fell in with Donald Bane and his army upon the Mamgarvy moor, on the borders of Moray. A conflict ensued in which Donald and five hundred of his followers were killed. Roland carried the head of Donald to William, “as a savage sign of returning quiet.” After this comparative quietness prevailed in the north till the year 1196, when Harold, the powerful Earl of Orkney and Caithness, disturbed its peace. William dispersed the insurgents at once; but they again appeared the following year near Inverness, under the command of Torphin, the son of Harold. The rebels were again overpowered. The king seized Harold, and obliged him to deliver up his son, Torphin, as an hostage. Harold was allowed to retain the northern part of Caithness, but the king gave the southern part of it, called Sutherland, to Hugh Freskin, the progenitor of the Earls of Sutherland. Harold died in 1206; but as he had often rebelled, his son suffered a cruel and lingering death in the castle of Roxburgh, where he had been confined.

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During the year 1211 a new insurrection broke out in Ross, headed by Guthred or Godfrey, the son of Donald Bane or MacWilliam, as he was called. Great depredations were committed by the insurgents, who were chiefly freebooters from Ireland, the Hebrides, and Lochaber. For a long time they baffled the king’s troops; and although the king built two forts to keep them in check, and took many prisoners, they maintained for a considerable period a desultory and predatory warfare. Guthred even forced one of the garrisons to capitulate, and burnt the castle; but being betrayed by his followers into the hands of William Comyn, Earl of Buchan, the Justiciary of Scotland, he was executed in the year 1212.

Shortly after the accession of Alexander II. in 1214, the peace of the north was attempted to be disturbed by Donald MacWilliam, who made an inroad from Ireland into Moray; but he was repulsed by the tribes of that country, led by M’Intagart, the Earl of Ross. In 1222, notwithstanding the formidable obstacles which presented themselves from the nature of the country, Alexander carried an army into Argyle, for the purpose of enforcing the homage of the western chiefs. His presence so alarmed the men of Argyle, that they immediately made their submission. Several of the chiefs fled for safety, and to punish them, the king distributed their lands among his officers and their followers. After this invasion Argyle was brought under the direct jurisdiction of the Scottish king, although the descendants of the race of Somerled, Lord of the Isles, still continued to be the chief magnates.

During the same year a tumult took place in Caithness, on account of the severity with which the tithes were exacted by Adam, the bishop, who, with his adviser, Serlo, was murdered by the bonders. The king, who was at the time at Jedburgh, hearing of this murder, immediately hastened to the north with a military force, and inflicted the punishment of death upon the principal actors in this tragedy, who amounted, it is said, to four hundred persons; and that their race might become extinct, their children were emasculated, a practice very common in these barbarous times. The Earl of Caithness, who was supposed to have been privy to the murder, was deprived of half of his estate, which was afterwards restored to him on payment of a heavy fine. The Earl is said to have been murdered by his own servants in the year 1231, and in order to prevent discovery, they laid his body into his bed and set fire to the house.

In 1228 the country of Moray became the theatre of a new insurrection, headed by a Ross-shire freebooter, named Gillespoc M’Scolane. He committed great devastations by burning some wooden castles in Moray, and spoiling the crown lands. He even attacked and set fire to Inverness. A large army of horse and foot, under the command of John Comyn, Earl of Buchan, Justiciary of Scotland, was, in 1229, sent against this daring rebel, who was captured, with his two sons, and their heads sent to the king.

The lords of Argyle usually paid homage to the king of Norway for some of the Hebrides which belonged to that monarch, but Ewen, on succeeding his father Duncan of Argyle in 1248, refused his homage to the Scottish king, who wished to possess the whole of the Western Isles. Though Ewen was perfectly loyal, and indeed was one of the most honourable men of his time, Alexander marched an army against him to enforce obedience, but his Majesty died on his journey in Kerrera, a small island near the coast of Argyle opposite Oban, on July 8, 1249, in the fifty-first year of his age, and the thirty-fifth of his reign.

According to the custom of the times, his son, Alexander III., then a boy only in his eighth year, was seated on the royal chair, or sacred stone of Scone, which was placed before the cross that stood within the burying-ground. Immediately before his inauguration, the bishop of St. Andrews girded him with the sword of state, and explained to him, first in Latin and afterwards in Norman French, the nature of the compact he and his subjects were about to enter into. The crown, after the king had been seated, was placed on his head, and the sceptre put into his hand. He was then covered with the royal mantle, and received the homage of the nobles on their knees, who, in token of submission, threw their robes beneath his feet. On this occasion, agreeably to ancient practice, a Gaelic sennachy, or bard, clothed in a red mantle, and venerable for his great age and[62] hoary locks, approached the king, and in a bended and reverential attitude, recited, from memory, in his native language, the genealogy of all the Scottish kings, deducing the descent of the youthful monarch from Gathetus, the fabulous founder of the nation.[126] The reign of this prince was distinguished by the entire subjugation of the western islands to the power of the Scottish crown. The Scandinavian settlers were allowed to leave the islands, if inclined, and such of them as remained were bound to observe the Scottish laws.

Shortly after the accession of Alexander III., an insurrection broke out against the Earl of Ross, of some of the people of that province. The Earl apprehended their leader or captain, whom he imprisoned at Dingwall. In revenge, the Highlanders seized upon the Earl’s second son at Balnagown, took him prisoner, and detained him as a hostage till their captain should be released. The Monroes and the Dingwalls immediately took up arms, and having pursued the insurgents, overtook them at a place called Bealligh-ne-Broig, between Ferrandonald and Loch Broom, where a bloody conflict ensued. “The Clan Iver, Clan-Talvich, and Clan-Laiwe,” says Sir Robert Gordon, “wer almost uterlie extinguished and slain.” The Monroes and Dingwalls lost a great many men. Dingwall of Kildun, and seven score of the surname of Dingwall, were killed. No less than eleven Monroes of the house of Foulis, who were to succeed one after another, fell, so that the succession of Foulis opened to an infant then lying in his cradle. The Earl’s son was rescued, and to requite the service performed, he made various grants of lands to the Monroes and Dingwalls.[127]

In 1263, Haco, the aged king of Norway, sailed with a large and powerful fleet, determined to enforce acknowledgment of his claims as superior of the Western Islands on their chiefs, as well as upon the king of Scotland. Sailing southwards among the islands, one chief after another acknowledged his supremacy, and helped to swell his force, the only honourable exception being the stanch Ewen of Argyle. Meantime Haco brought his fleet to anchor in the Frith of Clyde, between Arran and the Ayrshire coast, his men committing ravages on the neighbouring country, as, indeed, they appear to have done during the whole of his progress. Negotiations entered into between Haco and Alexander III. came to nothing, and as winter was approaching, and his fleet had suffered much from several severe storms which caught it, the former was fain to make his way homewards. A number of his men, however, contrived to effect a landing near Largs, where they were met by a miscellaneous Scottish host, consisting of cavalry and country people, and finally completely routed. The date of this skirmish, which is known as the battle of Largs, is October 2d, 1263. Haco died in the end of the same year in Orkney, and in 1266 Magnus IV., his successor, ceded the whole of the[63] Scottish Islands held by Norway, except Orkney and Shetland, the Scottish king paying a small annual rent. Those of the islesmen who had proved unfaithful to the Scottish king were most severely and cruelly punished.

No event of any importance appears to have occurred in the Highlands till the time of King Robert Bruce, who was attacked, after his defeat at Methven, by Macdougall of Lorn, and defeated in Strathfillan. But Bruce was determined that Macdougall should not long enjoy his petty triumph. Having been joined by his able partisan, Sir James Douglas, he entered the territory of Lorn. On arriving at the narrow pass of Ben Cruachan, beween Loch Awe and Loch Etive, Bruce was informed that Macdougall had laid an ambuscade for him. Bruce divided his army into two parts. One of these divisions, consisting entirely of archers who were lightly armed, was placed under the command of Douglas, who was directed to make a circuit round the mountain, and to attack the Highlanders in the rear. As soon as Douglas had gained possession of the ground above the Highlanders, Bruce entered the pass, and, as soon as he had advanced into its narrow gorge, he was attacked by the men of Lorn, who, from the surrounding heights, hurled down stones upon him accompanied with loud shouts. They then commenced a closer attack, but, being instantly assailed in the rear by Douglas’s division, and assaulted by the king with great fury in front, they were thrown into complete disorder, and defeated with great slaughter. Macdougall, who was, during the action, on board a small vessel in Loch Etive, waiting the result, took refuge in his castle of Dunstaffnage. After ravaging the territory of Lorn, and giving it up to indiscriminate plunder, Bruce laid siege to the castle, which, after a slight resistance, was surrendered by the lord of Lorn, who swore homage to the king; but John, the son of the chief, refused to submit, and took refuge in England.

During the civil wars among the competitors for the Scottish crown, and those under Wallace and Bruce for the independence of Scotland, the Highlanders scarcely ever appear as participators in those stirring scenes which developed the resources, and called forth the chivalry of Scotland; but we are not to infer from the silence of history that they were less alive than their southern countrymen to the honour and glory of their country, or that they did not contribute to secure its independence. General Stewart says that eighteen Highland chiefs[128] fought under Robert Bruce at Bannockburn; and as these chiefs would be accompanied by their vassals, it is fair to suppose that Highland prowess lent its powerful aid to obtain that memorable victory which secured Scotland from the dominion of a foreign yoke.

After Robert Bruce had asserted the independence of his country by the decisive battle of Bannockburn, the whole kingdom, with the exception of some of the western islands, under John of Argyle, the ally of England, submitted to his authority. He, therefore, undertook an expedition against those isles, in which he was accompanied by Walter, the hereditary high-steward of Scotland, his son-in-law, who, by his marriage with Marjory, King Robert’s daughter, laid the foundation of the Stewart dynasty. To avoid the necessity of doubling the Mull of Kintyre, which was a dangerous attempt for the small vessels then in use, Robert sailed up Loch-Fyne to Tarbert with his fleet, which he dragged across the narrow isthmus between the lochs of East and West Tarbert, by means of a slide of smooth planks of trees laid parallel to each other. It had long been a superstitious belief amongst the inhabitants of the Western Islands, that they should never be subdued till their invaders sailed across this neck of land, and it is said that Robert was thereby partly induced to follow the course he did to impress upon the minds of the islanders a conviction that the time of their subjugation had arrived. The islanders were quickly subdued, and John of Lorn, who, for his services to Edward of England, had been invested with the title of Admiral of the Western fleet of England, was captured and imprisoned first in Dumbarton[64] castle, and afterwards in the castle of Loch Leven, where he died.

The feeble and effeminate reign of David II. was disturbed by another revolt by the Lord of the Isles, who was backed in his attempt to throw off his dependence by a great number of the Highland chiefs. David, with “an unwonted energy of character, commanded the attendance of the steward, with the prelates and barons of the realm, and surrounded by this formidable body of vassals and retainers, proceeded against the rebels in person. The expedition was completely successful. The rebel prince, John of the Isles, with a numerous train of those wild Highland chieftains who followed his banner, and had supported him in his attempt to throw off his dependence, met the king at Inverness, and submitted to his authority. He engaged in the most solemn manner, for himself and his vassals, that they should yield themselves faithful and obedient subjects to David, their liege lord; and not only give due and prompt obedience to the ministers and officers of the king in suit and service, as well as in the payment of taxes and public burdens, but that they would coerce and put down all others, of whatever rank or degree, who dared to raise themselves in opposition to the royal authority, and would compel them either to submit, or would pursue and banish them from their territories: for the fulfilment of which obligation the Lord of the Isles not only gave his own oath, under the penalty of forfeiting his whole principality if it was broken, but offered the high-steward, his father-in-law, as his security, and delivered his lawful son, Donald, his grandson, Angus, and his natural son, also named Donald, as hostages for the strict performance of the articles of the treaty.”[129] The deed by which John of the Isles bound himself to the performance of these stipulations is dated 15th November, 1369.[130]

To enable him the better to succeed in reducing the inhabitants of the Highlands and islands to the obedience of the laws, it is stated by an old historian,[131] that David used artifice by dividing the chiefs, and promising high rewards to those who should slay or capture their brother chiefs. The writer says that this diabolical plan, by implanting the seeds of disunion and war amongst the chiefs, succeeded; and that they gradually destroyed one another, a statement, to say the least of it, highly improbable. Certain it is, however, that it was in this reign that the practice of paying manrent began, when the powerful wished for followers, and the weak wanted protection, a circumstance which shows that the government was too weak to afford protection to the oppressed, or to quell the disputes of rival clans.

In the year 1333,[132] John Monroe, the tutor of Foulis, in travelling homeward, on his journey from Edinburgh to Ross, stopped on a meadow in Stratherdale that he and his servants might get some repose. While they were asleep, the owner of the meadow cut off the tails of their horses. Being resolved to wipe off this insult, he immediately, on his return home to Ross, summoned his whole kinsmen and followers, and, after informing them how he had been used, craved their aid to revenge the injury. The clan, of course, complied; and, having selected 350 of the best and ablest men among them, he returned to Stratherdale, which he wasted and spoiled; killed some of the inhabitants, and carried off their cattle. In passing by the isle of Moy, on his return home, Macintosh, the chief of the clan Chattan, being urged by some person who bore Monroe a grudge, sent a message to him demanding a share of the spoil. This was customary among the Highlanders when a party drove cattle which had been so taken through a gentleman’s land, and the part so exacted was called a Staoig Rathaid, or Staoig Creich, that is, a Road Collop. Monroe, not being disposed to quarrel, offered Macintosh a reasonable share, but this he was advised not to accept, and demanded the half of the booty. Monroe refused to comply with such an unreasonable demand, and proceeded on his journey. Macintosh, determined to enforce compliance, immediately collected his clansmen, and went in pursuit of Monroe, whom he overtook at Clach-na-Haire, near Inverness.[65] As soon as Monroe saw Macintosh approaching, he sent home five of his men to Ferrindonald with the cattle, and prepared for action. But Macintosh paid dearly for his rapacity and rashness, for he and the greater part of his men were killed in the conflict. Several of the Monroes also were slain, and John Monroe himself was left for dead in the field of battle, and might have died if the predecessor of Lord Lovat had not carried him to his house in the neighbourhood, where he was cured of his wounds. One of his hands was so mutilated, that he lost the use of it the remainder of his life, on which account he was afterwards called John Bac-laimh, or Ciotach.[133]

Besides the feuds of the clans in the reign of David II., the Highlands appear to have been disturbed by a formidable insurrection against the government, for, in a parliament which was held at Scone, in the year 1366, a resolution was entered into to seize the rebels in Argyle, Athole, Badenoch, Lochaber, and Ross, and all others who had risen up against the royal authority, and to compel them to submit to the laws. The chief leaders in this commotion (of which the bare mention in the parliamentary record is the only account which has reached us,) were the Earl of Ross, Hugh de Ross, John of the Isles, John of Lorn, and John de Haye, who were all summoned to attend the parliament and give in their submission, but they all refused to do so in the most decided manner; and as the government was too weak to compel them, they were suffered to remain independent.

In the year 1386, a feud having taken place between the clan Chattan and the Camerons, a battle took place in which a great number of the clan Chattan were killed, and the Camerons were nearly cut off to a man. The occasion of the quarrel was as follows. The lands of Macintosh[134] in Lochaber, were possessed by the Camerons, who were so tardy in the payment of their rents that Macintosh was frequently obliged to levy them by force by carrying off his tenants’ cattle. The Camerons were so irritated at having their cattle poinded and taken away, that they resolved to make reprisals, preparatory to which they marched into Badenoch to the number of about 400 men, under the command of Charles Macgilony. As soon as Macintosh became acquainted with this movement he called his clan and friends, the Macphersons and Davidsons, together. His force was superior to that of the Camerons, but a dispute arose among the chiefs which almost proved fatal to them. To Macintosh, as captain of the clan Chattan, the command of the centre of the army was assigned with the consent of all parties; but a difference took place between Cluny and Invernahavon, each claiming the command of the right wing. Cluny demanded it as the chief of the ancient clan Chattan, of which the Davidsons of Invernahavon were only a branch; but Invernahavon contended that to him, as the oldest branch, the command of the right wing belonged, according to the custom of the clans. The Camerons came up during this quarrel about precedency, on which Macintosh, as umpire, decided against the claim of Cluny. This was a most imprudent award, as the Macphersons exceeded both the Macintoshes and Davidsons in numbers, and they were, besides, in the country of the Macphersons. These last were so offended at the decision of Macintosh that they withdrew from the field, and became, for a time, spectators of the action. The battle soon commenced, and was fought with great obstinacy. Many of the Macintoshes, and almost all the Davidsons, were cut off by the superior number of the Camerons.[66] The Macphersons seeing their friends and neighbours almost overpowered, could no longer restrain themselves, and friendship got the better of their wounded pride. They, therefore, at this perilous crisis, rushed in upon the Camerons, who, from exhaustion and the loss they had sustained, were easily defeated. The few that escaped, with their leader, were pursued from Invernahavon, the place of battle, three miles above Ruthven, to Badenoch. Charles Macgilony was killed on a hill in Glenbenchir, which was long called Torr-Thearlaich, i.e., Charles’-hill.[136]

In the opinion of Shaw this quarrel about precedency was the origin of the celebrated judicial conflict, which took place on the North Inch of Perth, before Robert III., his queen, Annabella Drummond, and the Scottish nobility, and some foreigners of distinction, in the year 1396, and of which a variety of accounts have been given by our ancient historians. The parties to this combat were the Macphersons, properly the clan Chattan, and the Davidsons of Invernahavon, called in the Gaelic Clann-Dhaibhidh. The Davidsons were not, as some writers have supposed, a separate clan, but a branch of the clan Chattan. These rival tribes had for a long period kept up a deadly enmity with one another, which was difficult to be restrained; but after the award by Macintosh against the Macphersons, that enmity broke out into open strife, and for ten years the Macphersons and the Davidsons carried on a war of extermination, and kept the country in an uproar.

To put an end to these disorders, it is said that Robert III. sent Dunbar, Earl of Moray, and Lindsay of Glenesk, afterwards Earl of Crawford, two of the leading men of the kingdom, to endeavour to effect an amicable arrangement between the contending parties; but having failed in their attempt, they proposed that the differences should be decided in open combat before the king. Tytler[137] is of opinion that, the notions of the Norman knights having by this time become familiar to the fierce mountaineers, they adopted the singular idea of deciding their quarrel by a combat of 30 against 30. Burton, however, with his usual sagacity, remarks that, “for a whole race to submit to the ordeal of battle would imply the very highest devotion to those rules of chivalry which were an extravagant fashion in all the countries under the Norman influence, but were utterly unknown to the Highlanders, who submitted when they must submit, and retaliated when they could. That such an adjustment could be effected among them is about as incredible as a story about a parliamentary debate in Persia, or a jury trial in Timbuctoo.”[138] The beautiful and perfectly level meadow on the banks of the Tay at Perth, known as the North Inch, was fixed on, and the Monday before Michaelmas was the day appointed for the combat. According to Sir Robert Gordon, who is followed by Sir Robert Douglas and Mr. Mackintosh, it was agreed that no weapon but the broad sword was to be employed, but Wyntoun, who lived about the time, adds bows, battle-axes, and daggers.

The numbers on each side have been variously reported. By mistaking the word triceni, used by Boece and Buchanan, for treceni, some writers have multiplied them to 300. Bower, the continuator of Fordun and Wyntoun, however, mentions expressly 60 in all, or 30 on either side.

On the appointed day the combatants made their appearance on the North Inch of Perth, to decide, in presence of the king, his queen, and a large concourse of the nobility, their respective claims to superiority. Barriers had been erected on the ground to prevent the spectators from encroaching, and the king and his party took their stations upon a platform from which they could easily view the combat. At length the warriors, armed with sword and target, bows and arrows, short knives and battle-axes, advanced within the barriers, and eyed one another with looks of deadly revenge. When about to engage, a circumstance occurred which postponed the battle, and had well-nigh prevented it altogether. According to some accounts, one of the Macphersons fell sick; but Bower says, that when the troops had been[67] marshalled, one of the Macphersons, panic-struck, slipped through the crowd, plunged into the Tay and swam across, and, though pursued by thousands, effected his escape. Sir Robert Gordon merely observes, that, “at their entrie into the feild, the clan Chattan lacked one of their number, who wes privilie stolne away, not willing to be pertaker of so deir a bargane.” A man being now wanting on one side, a pause ensued, and a proposal was made that one of the Davidsons should retire, that the number on both sides might be equal, but they refused. As the combat could not proceed from this inequality of numbers, the king was about to break up the assembly, when a diminutive and crooked, but fierce man, named Henry Wynd, a burgher of Perth, better known to readers of Scott as Hal o’ the Wynd, and an armourer by trade, sprung within the barriers, and, as related by Bower, thus addressed the assembly: “Here am I. Will any one fee me to engage with these hirelings in this stage play? For half a mark will I try the game, provided, if I escape alive, I have my board of one of you so long as I live. Greater love, as it is said, hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. What, then, shall be my reward, who stake my life for the foes of the commonwealth and realm?” This demand of Gow Crom, “Crooked Smith,” as Henry was familiarly styled, adds Bower, was granted by the king and nobles. A murderous conflict now began. The armourer, bending his bow, and sending the first arrow among the opposite party, killed one of them. After showers of arrows had been discharged on both sides, the combatants, with fury in their looks, and revenge in their hearts, rushed upon one another, and a terrific scene ensued, which appalled the heart of many a valorous knight who witnessed the bloody tragedy. The violent thrusts of the daggers, and the tremendous gashes inflicted by the two-handed swords and battle-axes, hastened the work of butchery and death. “Heads were cloven asunder, limbs were lopped from the trunk. The meadow was soon flooded with blood, and covered with dead and wounded men.”[139]

After the crooked armourer had killed his man, as already related from Bower, it is said that he either sat down or drew aside, which being observed by the leader of Cluny’s band, he asked his reason for thus stopping; on which Wynd said, “Because I have fulfilled my bargain, and earned my wages.”—“The man,” exclaimed the other, “who keeps no reckoning of his good deeds, without reckoning shall be repaid,” an observation which tempted the armourer to earn, in the multiplied deaths of his opponents, a sum exceeding by as many times the original stipulation. This speech of the leader has been formed into the Gaelic adage,

which Macintosh thus renders,

Victory at last declared for the Macphersons, but not until 29 of the Davidsons had fallen prostrate in the arms of death. Nineteen of Cluny’s men also bit the dust, and the remaining 11, with the exception of Henry Wynd, who by his excellence as a swordsman had mainly contributed to gain the day, were all grievously wounded. The survivor of the clan Davidson escaped unhurt. Mackintosh following Buchanan, relates that this man, after all his companions had fallen, threw himself into the Tay, and making the opposite bank, escaped; but this is most likely a new version of Bower’s account of the affrighted champion before the commencement of the action.

The leader of the clan Kay or Davidsons is called by Bower Schea-beg, and by Wyntoun, Scha-Ferquharis son, Boece calls him Strat-berge. Who Christi-Mac-Iain, or Christi-Jonson was genealogically, we are not informed; but one thing is pretty clear, that he, not Schea-beg, or Shaw Oig,—for these are obviously one and the same,—commanded the clan Chattan, or “Clann-a-Chait.”[140] Both the principals seem to have been absent, or spectators merely of the battle; and as few of the leading men of the clan, it is believed, were parties[68] in the combat, the savage policy of the government, which, it is said, had taken this method to rid itself of the chief men of the clan, by making them destroy one another, was completely defeated. This affair seems to have produced a good effect, as the Highlanders remained quiet for a considerable time thereafter.

The disorders in the Highlands occasioned by the feuds of the clans were, about the period in question, greatly augmented by Alexander of Badenoch, fourth son of Robert II., whom he had constituted Lieutenant or governor from the limits of Moray to the Pentland Frith. This person, from the ferocity of his disposition, obtained the appropriate appellation of “the Wolf of Badenoch.” Avaricious as well as cruel, the Wolf seized upon the lands of Alexander Barr, bishop of Moray, and as he persisted in keeping violent possession of them, he was excommunicated. The sentence of excommunication not only proved unavailing, but tended to exasperate the Lord of Badenoch to such a degree of fury that, in the month of May, 1390, he descended from his heights and burnt the town of Forres, with the choir of the church and the manse of the archdeacon. And in June following, he burnt the town of Elgin, the church of Saint Giles, the hospital of Maison-Dieu, and the cathedral, with eighteen houses of the canons and chaplains in the college of Elgin. He also plundered these churches of their sacred utensils and vestments, which he carried off. For this horrible sacrilege the Lord of Badenoch was prosecuted, and obliged to make due reparation. Upon making his submission he was absolved by Walter Trail, bishop of St. Andrews, in the church of the Black Friars, in Perth. He was first received at the door, and afterwards before the high altar, in presence of the king (Robert III. his brother,) and many of the nobility, on condition that he should make full satisfaction to the bishop of Moray, and obtain absolution from the pope.[141]

The Lord of Badenoch had a natural son, named Alexander Stewart, afterwards Earl of Mar, who inherited the vices of his father. Bent upon spoliation and bloodshed, and resolved to imitate his father’s barbarous exploits, he collected, in 1392, a vast number of caterans, armed only with the sword and target, and with these he descended from the range of hills which divides the county of Aberdeen and Forfar, devastated the country, and murdered the inhabitants indiscriminately. A force was instantly collected by Sir Walter Ogilvy, sheriff of Angus, Sir Patrick Gray, and Sir David Lindsay of Glenesk, to oppose him, and although inferior in numbers, they attacked Stewart and his party of freebooters at Gasklune, near the water of Ila. A desperate conflict took place, which was of short duration. The caterans fought with determined bravery, and soon overpowered their assailants. The sheriff, his brother, Wat of Lichtoune, Young of Ouchterlony, the lairds of Cairncross, Forfar, and Guthry, and 60 of their followers, were slain. Sir Patrick Gray and Sir David Lindsay were severely wounded, and escaped with difficulty. Winton has preserved an anecdote illustrative of the fierceness of the Highlanders. Lindsay had run one of them, a strong and brawny man, through the body with a spear, and brought him to the earth; but although in the agonies of death, he writhed himself up, and with the spear sticking in his body, struck Lindsay a desperate blow with his sword, which cut him through the stirrup and boot into the bone, on which he instantly fell and expired.[142]

Nicolas, Earl of Sutherland, had a feud with Y-Mackay of Far, in Strathnaver, chief of the Clan-wig-worgm, and his son Donald Mackay, in which many lives were lost, and great depredations committed on both sides. In order[69] to put an end to this difference, the Earl proposed a meeting of the parties at Dingwall, to be held in presence of the Lord of the Isles, his father-in-law, and some of the neighbouring gentry, the friends of the two families. The meeting having been agreed to, the parties met at the appointed time, in the year 1395, and took up their residence in the castle of Dingwall in apartments allotted for them. A discussion then took place between the Earl and Mackay, regarding the points in controversy, in which high and reproachful words were exchanged, which so incensed the Earl, that he killed Mackay and his son with his own hands. Having with some difficulty effected his escape from the followers and servants of the Mackays, he immediately returned home and prepared for defence, but the Mackays were too weak to take revenge. The matter was in some degree reconciled between Robert, the successor of Nicolas, and Angus Mackay, the eldest son of Donald.[143]

Some years after this event a serious conflict took place between the inhabitants of Sutherland and Strathnaver, and Malcolm Macleod of the Lewis, which arose out of the following circumstances. Angus Mackay above mentioned, had married a sister of Malcolm Macleod, by whom he had two sons, Angus Dow, and Roriegald. On the death of Angus, Houcheon Dow Mackay, a younger brother, became tutor to his nephews, and entered upon the management of their lands. Malcolm Macleod, understanding that his sister, the widow of Angus, was ill treated by Houcheon Dow, went on a visit to her, accompanied by a number of the choicest men of his country, with the determination of vindicating her cause either by entreaty or by force. He appears not to have succeeded in his object, for he returned homeward greatly discontented, and in revenge laid waste Strathnaver and a great part of the Breachat in Sutherland, and carried off booty along with him. As soon as Houcheon Dow and his brother Neill Mackay learnt this intelligence, they acquainted Robert, Earl of Sutherland, between whom and Angus Mackay a reconciliation had been effected, who immediately despatched Alexander Ne-Shrem-Gorme (Alexander Murray of Cubin,) with a number of stout and resolute men, to assist the Mackays. They followed Macleod with great haste, and overtook him at Tittim-Turwigh, upon the marches between Ross and Sutherland. The pursuing party at first attempted to recover the goods and cattle which had been carried off, but this being opposed by Macleod and his men, a desperate conflict ensued, in which great valour was displayed on both sides. It “was long, furious, cruel, and doubtful,” says Sir Robert Gordon, and was “rather desperate than resolute.” At last the Lewismen, with their commander, Malcolm Macleod, nick-named Gilealm Beg M’Bowen, were slain, and the goods and cattle were recovered. One man alone of Macleod’s party, who was sorely wounded, escaped to bring home the sorrowful news to the Lewis, which he had scarcely delivered when he expired.[144]

These feuds were followed by a formidable insurrection, or more correctly, invasion, in 1411, by Donald, Lord of the Isles, of such a serious nature as to threaten a dismemberment of the kingdom of Scotland. The male succession to the earldom of Ross having become extinct, the honours of the peerage devolved upon a female, Euphemia Ross, wife of Sir Walter Lesley. Of this marriage there were two children, Alexander, afterwards Earl of Ross, and Margaret, afterwards married to the Lord of the Isles. Earl Alexander married a daughter of the Duke of Albany. Euphemia, Countess of Ross, was the only issue of this marriage, but becoming a nun she resigned the earldom of Ross in favour of her uncle John Stewart, Earl of Buchan. The Lord of the Isles conceiving that the countess, by renouncing the world, had forfeited her title and estate, and, moreover, that she had no right to dispose thereof, claimed both in right of Margaret his wife. The Duke of Albany, governor of Scotland, at whose instigation the countess had made the renunciation, of course refused to sustain the claim of the prince of the islands. The Lord of the Isles having formed an alliance with England, whence he was to be supplied with a fleet far superior to the Scottish, at the head of an army of 10,000 men, fully[70] equipped and armed after the fashion of the islands with bows and arrows, pole-axes, knives, and swords, in 1411 burst like a torrent upon the earldom, and carried everything before him. He, however, received a temporary check at Dingwall, where he was attacked with great impetuosity by Angus Dubh Mackay of Farr, or Black Angus, as he was called; but Angus was taken prisoner, and his brother Roderic Gald and many of his men were killed.

Flushed with the progress he had made, Donald now resolved to carry into execution a threat he had often made to burn the town of Aberdeen. For this purpose he ordered his army to assemble at Inverness, and summoned all the men capable of bearing arms in the Boyne and the Enzie, to join his standard on his way south. This order being complied with, the Lord of the Isles marched through Moray without opposition. He committed great excesses in Strathbogie and in the district of Garioch, which belonged to the Earl of Mar. The inhabitants of Aberdeen were in dreadful alarm at the near approach of this marauder and his fierce hordes; but their fears were allayed by the speedy appearance of a well-equipped army, commanded by the Earl of Mar, who bore a high military character, assisted by many brave knights and gentlemen in Angus and the Mearns. Among these were Sir Alexander Ogilvy, sheriff of Angus, Sir James Scrymgeour, constable of Dundee and hereditary standard-bearer of Scotland, Sir William de Abernethy of Salton, nephew to the Duke of Albany, Sir Robert Maule of Panmure, Sir Alexander Irving of Drum, and Sir Robert Melville. The Earl was also joined by Sir Robert Davidson, the Provost of Aberdeen, and a party of the burgesses.

Advancing from Aberdeen, Mar marched by Inverury, and descried the Highlanders stationed at the village of Harlaw, on the water of Ury, near its junction with the Don. Mar soon saw that he had to contend with tremendous odds; but although his forces were, it is said, only a tenth of those opposed to him, he resolved, from the confidence he had in his steel-clad knights, to risk a battle. Having placed a small but select body of knights and men-at-arms in front, under the command of the constable of Dundee and the sheriff of Angus, the Earl drew up the main strength of his army in the rear, including the Murrays, the Straitons, the Maules, the Irvings, the Lesleys, the Lovels, the Stirlings, headed by their respective chiefs. The Earl then placed himself at the head of this body. At the head of the Islesmen and Highlanders was the Lord of the Isles, subordinate to whom were Macintosh and Maclean and other Highland chiefs, all bearing the most deadly hatred to their Saxon foes, and panting for revenge.

On a signal being given, the Highlanders and Islesmen, setting up those terrific shouts and yells which they were accustomed to raise on entering into battle, rushed forward upon their opponents; but they were received with great firmness and bravery by the knights, who, with their spears levelled, and battle-axes raised, cut down many of their impetuous but badly armed adversaries. After the Lowlanders had recovered themselves from the shock which the furious onset of the Highlanders had produced, Sir James Scrymgeour, at the head of the knights and bannerets who fought under him, cut his way through the thick columns of the Islesmen, carrying death everywhere around him; but the slaughter of hundreds by this brave party did not intimidate the Highlanders, who kept pouring in by thousands to supply the place of those who had fallen. Surrounded on all sides, no alternative remained for Sir James and his valorous companions but victory or death, and the latter was their lot. The constable of Dundee was amongst the first who suffered, and his fall so encouraged the Highlanders, that seizing and stabbing the horses, they thus unhorsed their riders, whom they despatched with their daggers. In the meantime the Earl of Mar, who had penetrated with his main army into the very heart of the enemy, kept up the unequal contest with great bravery, and, although he lost during the action almost the whole of his army, he continued the fatal struggle with a handful of men till nightfall. The disastrous result of this battle was one of the greatest misfortunes which had ever happened to the numerous respectable families in Angus and the Mearns. Many of these families lost not only their head, but every male in the house. Lesley of Balquhain is said to have[71] fallen with six of his sons. Besides Sir James Scrymgeour, Sir Alexander Ogilvy the sheriff of Angus, with his eldest son George Ogilvy, Sir Thomas Murray, Sir Robert Maule of Panmure, Sir Alexander Irving of Drum, Sir William Abernethy of Salton, Sir Alexander Straiton of Lauriston, James Lovel, and Alexander Stirling, and Sir Robert Davidson, Provost of Aberdeen, with 500 men-at-arms, including the principal gentry of Buchan, and the greater part of the burgesses of Aberdeen who followed their Provost, were among the slain. The Highlanders left 900 men dead on the field of battle, including the chiefs Maclean and Mackintosh. This memorable battle was fought on the eve of the feast of St. James the Apostle, July 25th, 1411. It was the final contest for supremacy between the Celt and the Teuton, and appears to have made at the time an inconceivably deep impression on the national mind. For more than a hundred years, it is said, the battle of Harlaw continued to be fought over again by schoolboys in their play. “It fixed itself in the music and the poetry of Scotland; a march, called the ‘Battle of Harlaw,’ continued to be a popular air down to the time of Drummond of Hawthornden, and a spirited ballad, on the same event, is still repeated in our age, describing the meeting of the armies, and the deaths of the chiefs, in no ignoble strain.”[145]

Mar and the few brave companions in arms who survived the battle, passed the night on the field; when morning dawned, they found that the Lord of the Isles had retreated during the night, by Inverury and the hill of Benochy. To pursue him was impossible, and he was therefore allowed to retire without molestation, and to recruit his exhausted strength.[146]

As soon as the news of the disaster at Harlaw reached the ears of the Duke of Albany, then regent of Scotland, he set about collecting an army, with which he marched in person to the north in autumn, with a determination to bring the Lord of the Isles to obedience. Having taken possession of the castle of Dingwall, he appointed a governor, and from thence proceeded to recover the whole of Ross. Donald retreated before him, and took up his winter-quarters in the islands. Hostilities were renewed next summer, but the contest was not long or doubtful—notwithstanding some little advantages obtained by the King of the Isles—for he was compelled to give up his claim to the earldom of Ross, to become a vassal to the Scottish crown, and to deliver hostages to secure his future good behaviour. A treaty to this effect was entered into at Pilgilbe or Polgillip, the modern Loch-Gilp, in Argyle.