Those influences which led to the Tuath with its Toisech passing over into the Thanage and the Thane in the eastern districts were less felt in the more mountainous regions of the north and west, where the power of the Crown was comparatively weak, and more nominal than real, and here the tribe went through a different process. While the large districts continued to be ruled by their Mormaers and the Mortuath, and the Province existed intact, there was little of external influence to affect the social organisation of their Celtic population; but the same internal modification which led to the development of the sept or clan from the tribe was no doubt silently at work, and when the break-up of the great provinces and the alienation of the lands of the tribe to feudal lords removed the veil, the clan appears exhibiting in the main the characteristics of the Irish sept. The clan organisation was in the main limited to that part of modern Scotland known as the Highlands and Islands, where the mountainous and rugged character of the former and the comparative inaccessibility of the latter led to the preservation of a population of pure Gaelic lineage, speaking a Gaelic dialect. Here the introduction, by marriage or royal grant, of feudal overlords with apparently feudal holdings was purely nominal. It led to nothing like the Teutonic colonisation which characterised the Lowlands, and neither affected the Gaelic population nor the institution of clanship among them.

The boundary line which separated the Highlands from the Lowlands, and known as the Highland Line, was in the main an imaginary line separating the Gaelic-speaking people from those using the Teutonic dialect, but it likewise coincides in part with the natural boundaries formed by those physical features of the country which have influenced the relative position of the Gaelic and Teutonic-speaking portion of the population respectively. The southern part of this boundary coincides with the great barrier formed by the mountain range of the Grampians, and where this range is intersected by rivers which take their rise in the interior of the highland region, and flow through this range to the eastern sea, in deep ravines or narrow glens, with high mountains on each side, were narrow passes which formed the entrances into the Highlands, and were easily defended, rendering the country almost inaccessible, while similar passes characterise the northern portion of the line where it crosses the great rivers.

The Highland Line may be said at its southern end to commence at Loch Lomond, in the earldom of Lennox, where the Pass of Balmaha between the lake and the commencement of the mountain region leads into the district of which this lake is the centre. The line then enters the earldom of Menteith, and crosses the Forth, here called the Avon dubh, at Aberfoil, and proceeds from thence to Callander, where the pass on the north side of Loch Vennachar leads into the district formerly called Strathgartney, and the Pass of Leny forms the entrance to Strathire and to the district of Balquhidder. From Callander the line follows the range of the Grampians, through the earldom of Stratherne, and crosses the river Earn at Crieff, and the Almond at Findoch, where passes lead to the upper part of the Vale of the Earn and to Glenalmond respectively. From thence it follows the line of the Grampians to Dunkeld, where the King’s Pass forms the entrance to Strathtay, and through the district of Stormont in Gowry to Blairgowrie, where the passes lead into the district of Strathardell. From thence it follows the line of the Grampians till it crosses the Isla north-west of Alyth, and enters the earldom of Angus, where the minor range of hills forming the east side of Glenisla coincides with the line till it reaches the great chain of the Mounth, or backbone of the Grampians, at Cairn Bannoch. There it enters the earldom of Mar, and proceeds along the west side of Glenmuich to the Dee at Ballater, where the Pass of Ballater leads into the districts of Strathdee and the Forest of Braemar. North of these districts it includes likewise the district of Strathdon, crossing the river Don at Boat of Forbes, whence it proceeds to the river Spey at Craigellachie, including the district of Strathavon, and here a pass leads into the district of Strathspey, and separating the mountain region of the earldom of Moray from the level plains forming the southern seaboard of the Moray Firth, it terminates at the mouth of the river Nairn, which flows through the town of Nairn, and formerly separated the Gaelic-speaking people on its left bank from the lowland population on the right. The Highland Line thus intersects the old earldoms of Lennox, Menteith, Stratherne, Gowry, Angus, Mar, Buchan, and Moray, which represented the older great Celtic tribes or Mortuath, governed by their Ri Mortuath or Mormaers, and the portion of each earldom included in the Highland Line consisted of that part which retained its Gaelic population intact, while the rest of it became more or less colonised by foreign settlers.

The earldoms of Atholl, Ross, and Sutherland were entirely comprehended within the Highland Line, as well as the great district of Arregaithel, or Argyll, in its most extended sense, reaching from the Clyde to Lochbroom, and a similar line drawn from the Ord of Caithness to Brinsness on the west side of Thurso Bay separated the Gaelic population in the more mountainous part of the ancient province of Cathanesia, which from an early period had passed into the possession of the Norwegian earls of Orkney, from the Teutonic settlers in the eastern and more level plains. As long as the native race of the Mormaers remained, though assuming the new character of earls, the connection between them and the Gaelic population of the earldom remained unimpaired; but when, by marriage or otherwise, the earldom passed into foreign hands, the Gaelic population became the subjects of a foreign overlord, the greater tribe became broken up, and they emerged from it in the form of clans or broken tribes.

The first of these great Celtic tribes to break up was that which formed the great earldom, or rather petty kingdom, of Moray. Here we find a family making their appearance in the eleventh century in the Irish Annals as Mormaers of Moray, and occasionally bearing the title of Ri or king. This line of Celtic kings or Mormaers terminated with Maelsnechtan, son of that Lulach mac Gillcomgan who succeeded Macbeth as king of Scotland for three months. He appears as Ri or king of Moray in 1086, and after him Angus, the grandson of Lulach by his daughter, bears the title of earl of Moray, and by his defeat and death in the beginning of the reign of David the First the line of the ancient kings or Mormaers of Moray comes to an end, but the tribe appears to have been still held so far together by their support of the claims of the family of MacHeth to the earldom of Moray, whose founder Wymund asserted himself to be the son of Angus, and of that of MacWilliam who claimed to be the nearer line of the royal family to the throne of Scotland; and it was not till the year 1222 that the pretensions of these two families were finally extinguished by Alexander the Second.

About the same period the line of the Celtic Mormaers or earls of Buchan had come to an end. The Book of Deer furnishes us with a tolerably complete list of these Mormaers, from Bede the Pict in the sixth century to Colban, earl of Buchan, in the reign of David the First; and we can see from the history of the last four that they followed in the main the Pictish law of succession, which preferred daughters to sons after brothers. Donald, son of Ruadri, appears as Mormaer of Buchan in the reign of Malcolm the Second. He is followed by Donald, son of MacDubhacain, who is succeeded by his brother Cainneach. The next Mormaer mentioned was his son Gartnait, but he appears to have derived his right through his wife Ete, daughter of Gillamithil. He appears with the title of earl in the reign of Alexander the First, and his daughter Eva carries the earldom to her husband Colban. He is followed by his son Roger, and he by his son Fergus, whose only daughter Margaret carried the earldom to William Cumyn, who became in his right earl of Buchan, and by Alexander the Second was made guardian of the earldom of Moray in 1222. Six years after, the districts of Badenoch and Lochaber were conferred upon his son Walter Cumyn, on the rebellion, defeat, and death of a certain Gillespic, by whom they had apparently been forfeited.

The same reign of Alexander the Second witnessed the termination of the line of the Celtic earls of Atholl and Angus. The former earldom appears to have been an appanage of the family from whom sprang the kings of the race of Duncan, the son of Crinan, and its earls were descended from his younger son, a younger brother of Malcolm Ceannmor.^[406] The last of this line was Henry, earl of Atholl, who died before 1215, and the earldom passed to the eldest of two sisters, Isabella and Forflissa, who married Thomas, earl of Galloway. On the death of his son Patrick in 1242 he was succeeded by his aunt Forflissa, the other sister, who married David de Hastings, and by his daughter it was carried to the Strathbolgie family, a branch of the earls of Fife.^[407] But while the earldom passed into the hands of a succession of foreign earls, a family bearing the title of De Atholia continued to possess a great part of the earldom, and were probably the descendants of the older Celtic earls. The Gaelic population of the whole of the north-western portion of Atholl, bounded on the east by the river Garry, and on the south by the Tummel, remained intact under them, but the possession of the great western territory of the abthanrie of Dull by the Crown led to the introduction of a foreign element among the landholders of the rest of the earldom, and much of the land passed permanently into the possession of the families of Menzies and Stewart, while the Celtic character of the whole earldom was notwithstanding preserved.

The same reign saw also the extinction of the old Celtic earls of Angus. The Pictish Chronicle furnishes us with the names of three of its Mormaers—Dubucan, son of Indrechtaig, who died about 935, and Maelbrigdi, son of Dubucan, and this name again occurs in the ‘Dufugan Comes’ who appears among the seven earls in the reign of Alexander the First, and was no doubt earl of Angus. After him we have a succession of four earls from father to son, viz., Gillebride, Gilchrist, Duncan, and Malcolm; and Matilda, the daughter and heiress of the last earl, carried the earldom by marriage first to John Comyn, who died in 1242, and then to the Norman family of De Umphraville. The family of Ogilvie, who retained possession of a considerable portion of the earldom, appear to have been the male descendants of these old Celtic earls, and they likewise gave a line of earls to Caithness, who possessed, with the title of earl, one half of the land of the earldom. Of the land of the earldom of Angus the district of Glenisla was alone included within the Highland Line and preserved its Gaelic population.

The beginning of the reign of Alexander the Third saw the termination too of the line of the old Celtic earls of Menteith. No mention of the Mormaers of this Mortuath has been preserved, and the first earl, Gilchrist, appears in the reign of Malcolm the Fourth. He was succeeded by Murethac, who was followed by two brothers, both bearing the name of Maurice, between whom there was a contention for the earldom in 1213, which ended in the elder Maurice resigning the earldom to his brother and retaining some of the lands for his life;^[408] but Earl Maurice left two daughters only, the eldest of whom married Walter Cumyn, and the younger Walter Stewart, and carried the earldom to these families. The western and more mountainous part of this earldom, consisting mainly of the districts of Strathgartney and Strathire, retained its Gaelic population. Of the early Mormaers of the Mortuath of Stratherne we have no mention, but the line of its Celtic earls continued unbroken till the reign of David the Second, when the forfeiture of one interposed for a time a Norman baron, and the succession terminated in co-heiresses, when the earldom came into the Crown, and was re-granted to one of the Royal Stewarts; the western districts within the Highland Line retained their Gaelic inhabitants.

The only other of the frontier earldoms intersected by the Highland Line was that of Mar, and here, like Buchan, we are on historic ground, for a Mormaer of Mar—Donald mac Emin mac Cainech—is recorded in a nearly contemporary document as having been present at the battle of Clontarff in Ireland, fought in the year 1014;^[409] and Ruadri, Mormaer of Mar, who is mentioned in the Book of Deer, appears among the seven earls in the reign of Alexander the First as ‘Rothri Comes.’ The line of the Celtic earls of Mar continued till the reign of Robert the Second, when it was carried by an heiress into the Douglas family, and afterwards to one of the Stewarts, by whom it was resigned to the Crown. A great part of the territory of the Celtic earls was at an early period carried off from them by the family of De Lundin or Durward, who claimed the earldom as representing the earls through a female, and were thus compensated, but this part consisted of Lowland districts, and the Highland districts of Strathdee, Braemar, and Strathdon constituted the ‘comitatus’ or demesne of the Celtic earls, and preserved their Gaelic population.

The history of the Mortuath or earldom of Ross is peculiar, and became eventually connected with that of the Lords of the Isles. Of the early Celtic Mormaers we have no record, and the supposed connection of Macbeth with Ross as its Mormaer, which originated with George Chalmers, has no historic foundation. He was, as we have seen, Mormaer of Moray. The name of Gillandres appears in Wyntoun as one of the earls who besieged Malcolm the Fourth in Perth in the year 1160; and the Gaelic name of the old Rosses as Clanghillandres seems to connect him with this earldom, but it must have been immediately after in the Crown, for the same Malcolm undoubtedly gave it to Malcolm MacHeth, who appears as its earl, but was soon after expelled. It was afterwards bestowed by William the Lion upon a foreigner, the Count of Holland; but his successor, Alexander the Second, created Ferchard Macintaggart, the heir of a line of lay abbots of Applecross, earl of Ross, who thus united the extensive possessions of that monastery in North Argyll to the earldom, and from him the later earls are descended. It became for a time broken up, when an heiress carried the earldom to Walter de Lesly, and afterwards to Alexander Stewart, earl of Buchan, but it reverted through her daughter and heiress to the line of the Celtic Lords of the Isles.

But while the eastern and central tribes became broken up by the termination of the line of the Celtic earls of the respective great districts or Mortuaths, and thus either reverting to the Crown or passing by marriage to Norman barons, those of the western seaboard and of the Isles were held together for a longer period, and remained intact till towards the end of the fifteenth century. These Gaelic inhabitants of the Western Isles had been, as early as the ninth century, brought under the rule of the Danes and Norwegians, and the latter had in the eleventh century extended their sway over the western districts of the highlands and over Galloway. These Gael were termed Gallgaidheal, the word Gall or foreigner being applied to both Danes and Norwegians, both from being under their rule and from their having been in some degree assimilated to their manners and become connected with them by intermarriage; but the word Gallgaidheal as a geographical term became limited to the district of Galloway, which derived its name from them. The Islands became known as Innsigall, or the islands of the strangers, and western districts of the Highlands as Airer or Oirir Gaidheal, the coast land of the Gael, from whence the name of Argyll is derived. Two Celtic chiefs, as we have seen, succeeded at the same time in driving the Norwegians out from the mainland of Scotland, and Somerled, establishing himself as king over the whole of the extensive district known by the name of Ergadia or Oirirgaidheal, extending from the Clyde to Lochbroom, and had likewise wrested from the Norwegian kings of the Isles the southern half of them lying to the south of the promontory of Ardnamurchan, over which his descendants ruled with almost regal sway, while Fergus founded a line of Celtic lords of Galloway. Somerled left three sons—Dubhgal or Dugald, Reginald, and Angus, among whom his dominions were divided. Dubhgal received the district of Lorn, extending from Lochleven to the Point of Ashnish, and also that of Morvern; Reginald obtained the districts of Kintyre and Cowall, and the islands which Somerled had possessed were divided between them, Dubhgal having Mull and the small islands adjacent to it, and Reginald the important island of Isla, with those in the Firth of Clyde. Angus’s possessions appear to have lain north of the others, but a struggle seems to have taken place between him and Reginald, which resulted in Angus being slain with his three sons in 1210 by the sons of Reginald. Soon after, the conquest of the great district of Argyll by Alexander the Second took place, and the descendants of Somerled appear to have been among the lords who were confirmed in their possessions by that monarch, but their possessions in the Isles were still held of the Norwegians till the cession of the Isles in the reign of Alexander the Third. Reginald had left two sons, Donald and Ruaidri or Roderick, the former succeeding his father in Kintyre and Isla, and the latter obtaining Bute and Arran, and likewise the possessions which had been wrested from Angus, and consisted mainly of the district extending from Ardnamurchan to Glenelg, and known by the name of Garmoran; while the district of Lochaber, which had been forfeited, passed into the possession of the Cumyns. The descendants of Dugald and Reginald thus shared the possessions of Somerled between them, and we find the heads of the respective families—Alexander, son of Eogan, son of Duncan, son of Dubhgal, Angus Mor son of Donald, and Allan son of Roderic—appearing at the Scottish parliament in 1284, when the crown was settled on the Maiden of Norway; but the families having taken opposite sides in the war of succession—the head of the line of Dubhgal, John of Lorn, supporting the cause of Baliol, and the head of the line of Reginald that of Bruce—the latter became the predominant family. Angus Og, son of Angus Mor, the head of the family who had supported Bruce, received from him when established on the throne the lands of Morvern, Ardnamurchan, and Lochaber, with the islands which had belonged to the Lords of Lorn. These lands and islands, with Kintyre and Isla, were confirmed to his son John by David the Second, who likewise confirmed to Reginald son of Roderic, the lands of Garmoran, with the small islands north of Ardnamurchan and the southern half of the Long Island; but Reginald having been slain in a quarrel with the earl of Ross at Perth in 1346, his possessions passed with his sister Amie by marriage to John the son of Angus,^[410] and thus this latter family became known as the powerful Lords of the Isles, ruling over the territories of the Macdonalds of Isla and Kintyre, the MacRuaries of Garmoran and the North Isles, and a great part of those which had belonged to the Lords of Lorn. Their position was still further strengthened by the marriage of John, Lord of the Isles, with the daughter of Robert, High Steward of Scotland, for which connection he had apparently repudiated his first wife Amie; and when the line of the Lords of Lorn of the race of Dubhgal came to an end, and the lordship of Lorn passed to the Stewarts of Innermeath by marriage with the daughter and heiress of John, Lord of Lorn, before 1388, the Lords of the Isles were left without a rival in their rule of the Gaelic population of Argyll and the Isles. John, Lord of the Isles, had by his first marriage with Amie MacRuarie, three sons, John, Godfrey, and Ranald; and by his second marriage with the Lady Margaret Stewart likewise three sons, Donald, John, and Alexander; and when Robert the High Steward succeeded to the throne in 1370, his influence led to an arrangement by which the children of the Lord of the Isles by his second marriage, who were the king’s grandsons, were to be preferred to the children of the first marriage in the succession to the Isles, while the possessions of the MacRuarie family, which he had inherited through his first wife, were to be secured to the first family as the price of their acquiescence. Accordingly, in the first year of his reign, King Robert confirms to John, Lord of the Isles, the territory on the mainland and the Isles which had belonged to Alan, son of Roderic, and in the following year confirms a grant by the Lord of the Isles of these possessions to his son Reginald, the youngest of the three brothers, who appears to have agreed to the arrangement, the eldest son, John, having predeceased his father, and the second, Godfrey, having apparently refused to surrender his rights; and a few years later charters are granted to the Lord of the Isles and to the heirs of his marriage with Margaret, the king’s daughter, of the island of Colonsay with its pertinents, and the lands of Lochaber, Kintyre, and one half of Knapdale. On the death of the Lord of the Isles in 1380, Reginald fulfilled his engagement by causing Donald to be recognised as Lord of the Isles, and having him inaugurated by the usual Celtic solemnities as such; while Godfrey appears to have for a time maintained his right to his mother’s inheritance, which, however, was soon extinguished by the failure of heirs-male.

Donald thus appears to have entered peaceably into possession of the lordship of the Isles, and his marriage with Margaret, daughter of Walter Lesly, earl of Ross, added a claim to that earldom on the death of her brother Alexander, earl of Ross, who left an only daughter who became a nun. This claim being contested by the Regent Duke of Albany, who had obtained a renunciation from the nun, led to the great battle of Harlaw, where the whole force of the Western Highlands and Isles, as well as those of the earldom, was pitted against the Government; and though the issue of the battle was doubtful, the Lord of the Isles maintained his possession of the earldom, and his title as Earl of Ross was eventually admitted, and he was succeeded in 1420 by his son Alexander, as Earl of Ross and Lord of the Isles. The position of the Lords of the Isles, as virtually independent rulers of nearly the whole of the Highlands with the Isles, was now so powerful, that their authority and that of the Crown came into constant collision, and it is necessary, for our purpose, that the leading incidents should be shortly stated. On the accession of James the First in 1424, he appears to have strengthened his party against the family of the Regent Albany by confirming the widow of the Lord of the Isles, and her son Alexander, in the earldom of Ross; and the latter, as Lord of the Isles and Master of the earldom of Ross, sat upon the jury which condemned Murdoch, Duke of Albany, and his father-in-law, the Earl of Lennox, to death; but after his object was attained, this vigorous monarch seemed to feel the necessity of bringing the Highlands more under his control. The mode by which he endeavoured to accomplish this was characteristic. He summoned, in 1427, a Parliament to meet at Inverness, at which the Highland chiefs were invited to attend, and as soon as they obeyed his summons, arrested them to the number of fifty and committed them to prison. The chroniclers enumerate among them—Alexander, Lord of the Isles, and his mother the Countess of Ross; Angus Duff with his four sons, leader of four thousand men of Strathnaver; Kenneth More with his son-in-law, leader of two thousand men; John Ross, William Lesly, Angus of Moray, and Mackmahon, leaders of two thousand men each; and he put to death Alexander Makreury of Garmoran, leader of a thousand men, and John Makarthur, a great chief among them, and likewise leader of a thousand men, who were beheaded. The rest were sent to various prisons, where, after a time, some were put to death and others liberated.^[411] Among those who were liberated were the Lord of the Isles and his mother, and he seems to have lost no time in endeavouring to revenge himself, for in 1429 he summoned all his vassals in Ross and the Isles, and advanced against the town of Inverness, which he burnt to the ground after he had wasted the crown lands; but on the appearance of the royal army, with King James at its head, he retreated to Lochaber, where the king followed him, and the Lord of the Isles having been deserted by part of his troops, he was attacked and defeated, and eventually surrendered himself unconditionally to the king, when he was imprisoned in Tantallon Castle, and his mother was also arrested and confined at Inchcolm, in the Firth of Forth. Along with the earl of Ross, we find in prison Lachlane M‘Gillane, Torkill M‘Nell, Tarlan MacArchir, and Duncan Persoun.^[412]

The imprisonment of the earl of Ross and his mother led to an insurrection in the west, when the Highlanders under Donald Balloch, a cousin of the earl, defeated the royal troops, under the earls of Mar and Caithness, at Inverlochy in Lochaber in 1431, when the former was killed; but on the appearance of the king himself with additional forces, Donald Balloch fled to Ireland, and the other chiefs made their submission. In consequence of this insurrection, the king appears to have seen the policy of setting the earl of Ross at liberty and attaching him to his service by conferring upon him the important office of Justiciar of Scotland north of the Forth, an office which he held during the minority of James the Second. He appears, however, to have entered into a league with the earls of Douglas and Crawford, in 14551455, for the dethronement of that monarch, but died in 1449 before any overt attempt had been made to carry it into effect. Alexander, earl of Ross, like his grandfather, seems to have formed one potent alliance with the Lowland nobility by his marriage with Elizabeth Seton, daughter of Alexander, Lord of Gordon and Huntly, while he had—either before or after—added to his possessions by marriage with daughters of Highland chiefs. By his countess Elizabeth he had John, who succeeded him as Earl of Ross and Lord of the Isles. By the daughter of Giollapadraig, the last of the lay abbots of Applecross, and known to tradition as the Red Priest, with whom he obtained the lands of Lochalsh, Lochcarron, and others, he had a son Hugh, to whom he gave the lands of Sleat in Skye; and by a daughter of Mac Dubhshithe or Macphee, of Lochaber, he had Celestine or Gilleaspic, to whom he gave the lands of Lochalsh. During the reign of James the Second, John, earl of Ross, was occasionally at variance with the Crown, and at other times on good terms with the king, and under his influence was married to the daughter of Sir James Livingston; but soon after that king’s death, he entered into a league with the earl of Douglas and King Edward the Fourth of England for the conquest and partition of Scotland, in 1462, and immediately raised the standard of revolt. Having assembled a large force, he made himself master of the castle of Inverness, and proclaimed himself supreme over the sheriffdoms of Inverness and Nairn, which then embraced the whole of the north of Scotland over which he placed his natural son Angus as lieutenant. In consequence of this act, and of the treaty with England coming to light, he was summoned at his castle of Dingwall to appear before a Parliament in Edinburgh to answer to various charges of treason, and failing to attend, sentence of forfeiture was pronounced against him in 1475. In order to carry this sentence into effect, an expedition consisting both of a fleet and land force was sent against him under the command of the earls of Crawford and Atholl, and this led to his suing for pardon through the medium of the earl of Huntly, and he eventually surrendered himself to the royal mercy. He was restored to his forfeited estates, which he immediately resigned to the Crown. The earldom of Ross was annexed to the Crown, and the rest of his estates, with the exception of Kintyre and Knapdale, were regranted to him by royal charter, and he was created a baron banrent and peer of Parliament by the title of Lord of the Isles, with remainder to his two natural sons, Angus and John. The old Celtic lordship of the Isles was thus converted into a feudal barony in 1476.

Angus was soon after married to a daughter of the earl of Argyll, by whom he had a son Donald Dubh, but was treacherously slain in 1490 at Inverness by an Irish harper. The repeated attempts which had been made to recover the earldom of Ross, and other acts committed in name of the aged Lord of the Isles, led to his being again forfeited and deprived of his titles and estates in a Parliament held at Edinburgh in May 1493, on which he retired to the monastery of Paisley, and died there in 1498, and was interred in the tomb of his royal ancestor King Robert the Second. Although several attempts were made after his death by the western chiefs to raise up his grandson Donald Dubh and his nephew Donald Gallda, the son of Celestine, as Lords of the Isles, this was the final termination of the dynasty of the Celtic Lords of the Isles, which practically ceased to exist in 1476 at his first forfeiture, and the Gaelic population, which had been kept together by the power and authority of their great chiefs, became now broken up.^[413]

The line of the Celtic earls of Lennox had come to an end during the life of Alexander, earl of Ross, when Duncan, earl of Lennox, was executed in 1425, and the earldom passed into the hands of the Stewarts.

The fifteenth century thus saw the last of the great Celtic tribes broken up; but while this process of disintegration from external influence had thus overtaken the greater tribes or Mortuath one after another, their extinction as leading features in the Celtic tribal organisation did not disclose the lesser tribes or Tuaths in their entirety. They, too, had been undergoing a process of internal change similar to that which had affected the Irish tribes and led to the development of the septs or clans, gradually severed more and more from the parent tribe, till the bond of union between them became impaired, and all tradition of their earlier existence as members of a larger organisation became lost. But while the original tribe had ceased thus to exist in that part of the country which retained its Gaelic population, as an actual element in its social organisation, it left an evidence of its previous existence in the lesser districts into which the larger territories were divided, and which still remained as a geographical feature; where an officer bearing the name and some of the functions of the ancient Toisech of the Tuath is still found in connection with some of them. This was the Toshachdoracht or office of Toschachdoir, which was considered equivalent to Coroner. It was rendered in Latin by capitalis legis, and signified in English, principal of law. Thus, in that part of the great district of Argyll which formed the original kingdom of Dalriada, we find the districts of Cowall, Kintyre in its largest sense, and Lorn, obviously representing the ancient Tuaths into which the population of the kingdom had been divided, and we likewise find Archibald, Master of Argyll, granting in 1550 to Campbell of Ardkinlas the office of Coroner, alias Thoshisdoir, viz., Tosheochdorachtie of the lands of Cowall, from Claychin Toskycht to the Points of Toward and Ardlawmonth.^[414] In 1539 Alane M‘Lane was appointed by King James V. Toschachdoir of all Kintyre, from the Mull to Altasynach;^[415] and the same king appointed, in 1542, Neill mac Neill to the same office.^[416] In 1455, John, Earl of Ross and Lord of the Isles, confirms to Neill mac Neillmac Neill a grant made by his father, Alexander, Earl of Ross and Lord of the Isles, to Torquel M‘Neill, constable of the castle of Swyffin, the father of Neill, of the office called Toshachdeora of the lands of Knapdale.^[417] In 1447 we find Sir Duncan Campbell as king’s lieutenant within the parts of Argyll, granting to Reginald Malcolmson, of Craignish, the offices of Steward, Tosachdoir, and Mair of the whole land of Craignish, and the office of Tosachdoir, ex parte regis, within the same bounds; when the heir was under age, to be held by his tutor, with consent of his clan, viz., the Clandowil Cragniche.^[418] In 1572, Archibald, Earl of Argyll, grants to Colin Campbell of Barbrek certain lands with the coronership of the lands and baronies of Glenurquhay, the two Lochaws, Glenaray, Glenshyro, Ardskeodnich, Melfort, and Barbrek, that is, of the district forming the central part of Argyll between Lorn and Lochfyne.^[419] In another grant, it is termed the office of Tosheadorach of the lands lying west of Lochfyne.^[420] That part of the great district of Argyll which pertained to the earldom of Moray contained the lesser districts of Lochaber, Morvaren, Ardnamurchan, and Garmoran, and here too we find the Lord of the Isles granting, in 1456, to his esquire Somerled, son of John, son of Somerled, for life, and to his eldest son for five years after his death, a davach of his lands of Gleneves, with the office commonly called Tocheachdeora of all his lands of Lochaber, and he seems to have derived from it the name of Toche or Toshach, as in 1553 or 1554 the same lands of Gleneves are granted to his grandson, here called Donald Macallaster Mic Toche.^[421]

There is no trace of the office of Toschachdor, under this name, in connection with the more eastern districts of Moray, but there is no reason to doubt that such districts as Badenoch, Strathspey, Strathdearn, Strathnairn, Stratherrich, and the Aird, represented what had formerly been tribe territories or Tuaths, and the same may be predicated of similar districts in the northern earldoms. In Atholl, as we have seen, the thanages appear even though within the Highland Line, but here we find the office of Toschachdor in connection with one district in Breadalbane which was adjacent to one of these thanages, for among the lands of the earldom of Breadalbane we find the thanage of Cranach, with the office of Toshachdoiraship of Ardtholony,^[422] and the office likewise appears in Lennox, where Malcolm, earl of Lennox, grants to Patrick de Lindsay the office of Tosheagor of Lennox.^[423] We find a trace of it, too, in Galloway, where the office of coroner between the rivers Dee and Nith and the Toshachdoracht of Nithsdale appear to be the same.^[424]