The old descriptions then give us another legendary version of these seven provinces, which the author says were described to him by Andrew, bishop of Caithness, a Scotsman by birth, and a monk of Dunfermlyn, who flourished at the time it was compiled, viz., in the first year of the reign of William the Lion; and if the first account applies to the Pictish kingdom prior to the ninth century, it is equally clear that this latter account must be referred to the kingdom of Alban or Scotia which succeeded it, for it omits altogether the province of Cathanesia, which had now passed into the possession of the Norwegians, and substitutes for it a province termed Argathelia, which must have included within its bounds the territory which had formed the ancient Scottish kingdom of Dalriada.

The bishop describes the provinces more by their natural boundaries than by the two large districts included in each. According to his account, the first kingdom or province extended from that great water, termed in Scotch Froch, that is, Forth, in British or Welsh Werid, in Roman (by which he evidently means Anglic) Scottewatre, or the Scottish Water, which divides the kingdoms of Scotland and England, and flows past the town of Strivelin or Stirling, as far as that other great river which is called Tae, or the Tay. This province corresponds in extent with the third province of the first list, which includes Stratherne and Menteath. His second province extends to Hilef, as the sea encircles it till it reaches a mountain on the north plain of Strivelin or Stirling, which is called Athrin, by which Athrie in the gorge of the Ochils can alone be meant. The district of Gowry is situated between the river Tay and the Isla, if that river be meant by the Hilef, but its eastern boundary is the small stream called the Liff, which is believed to have been formerly the channel through which the Isla reached the sea instead of flowing into the Tay, and that part of this province which is encircled by the sea points plainly to the great peninsula between the Firths of Tay and Forth. This province, therefore, does not entirely correspond with any of the provinces in the first list, but is formed of its fourth province of Fife and Fothreve, with the addition of Gowry. The bishop’s third province extends from Hilef to the Dee, and corresponds with the first province in the first list, containing the district of Angus and Mearns. His fourth province extends from the Dee to that great and wonderful river termed the Spe or Spey, the greatest and best of all Scotia. This province, therefore, corresponds with the fifth province in the first list containing Mar and Buchan. The fifth province extended from the Spey to the mountain Bruinalban or Breadalbane, and corresponds with that part of the second province of the first list termed Adtheodle or Atholl. The sixth province is Muref and Ros, which is the same with the sixth province in the first list; and the seventh is Arregaithel. The changes thus produced upon the provincial distribution of the population by the formation of the kingdom of Alban or Scotia in the ninth century were, first, that in place of the province of Fife and Fothreve, we now find a larger province, including Gowry, with Scone, the royal seat of the Ardri, or supreme king; and here, probably, the chief settlements of the Scots had been made, and the chief power and influence of the kings of Scottish race were formed. It lay between the provinces of Stratherne and Menteath or Fortren on the south-west, and of Angus and Mearns or Maghgherghinn on the north-east, where, during the period of this dynasty, the men of Fortren on the one hand and the men of Mearns on the other appear as a separate people, and probably represented those remains of the older population which still preserved a separate existence.

The separation of Atholl from Gowry, and the fact that the first five provinces are described by their natural boundaries, while the sixth retains its older designation of Muref and Ros, rather points to the great mountain barrier which separates the Highlands from the Lowlands now assuming greater significance in the tribal distribution, the population within it being less affected by the change of dynasty and retaining more of their older constitution. Thus we find at this period the older title of Ri or king still appearing in the province of Moray only.^[46]

The great change, however, in this list is the disappearance of Cathanesia or Caithness and Sutherland from the provinces, and the substitution of Arregaithel for it. The former had become in the tenth century a possession of the Norwegian Jarls of Orkney, and the separate petty kingdom of Dalriada had ceased to exist. The name of Arregaithel, however, must not be held as synonymous with that of Dalriada, but appears to have been applied to a much larger district than that which formed that small kingdom. In a former part of the description, the author terms it the principal or largest part of the country on its west side, over against the Irish Sea, and talks of the mountains which separate it from Scotia; and we can see from the references to it in one of the statutes of William the Lion, in the first year of whose reign this description was written, that it comprised, in fact, the entire western seaboard of Scotland, and included not only the territory which had formed the kingdom of Dalriada, but also the western districts of the province of Moray and Ross. In this statute a distinction is drawn between the country situated between the Forth, the river Spey, and Drumalban, and the districts beyond these limits, which consist of Moravia or Moray, Ros, Katanes or Caithness, Ergadia, and Kintyre. Ergadia here is merely the Latin form of Arregaithel, and Kintyre had been separated from it when the Western Isles were ceded in the end of the eleventh century to Magnus, king of Norway, who, by a stratagem, included it in the Norwegian kingdom of the Isles. We find, however, in the same statute ‘Ergadia which belongs to Scotia’ or the southern part of it, distinguished from ‘Ergadia which belongs to Moravia,’ or that part which formed the western districts of Moray; and in a charter by King Robert the Bruce reviving the old earldom of Moravia, it is said to extend to the boundary of ‘northern Ergadia, which belongs to the Earl of Ross.’^[47]

The author of the description, who is usually supposed to have been Giraldus Cambrensis, but whose etymologies show him to have been evidently a Welshman and acquainted with the Welsh language, gives us four interpretations of the name Arregaithel. He says it is so called as ‘the margin of the Scots or Irish,’ for all the Irish and Scots are generally called Gattheli, from their original leader Gaithelglas; or because the Scotti Picti first peopled it after their return from Ireland;^[48] or because the Irish occupied these parts after the Picts; or, what is more certain, because that part of the country of Scotia is more closely connected with the country of Ireland.

In the Irish Annals the form of the name is Airergaidhel, Airer signifying a district.^[49] The Scotch form is Earrgaoidheal from Earr, a limit or boundary, and this approaches most nearly to the form of the name in the old description, with its etymology of margin or limit of the Gael. The oldest name is that probably in the Albanic Duan, where it is termed Oirir Alban, or the coast lands of Alban, from Oirthir, a coast or border; and we find the name Oirir applied to it in the Book of Clanranald, which distinguishes the Oirir a tuath, or northern Oirir, and the Oirir a deas, or the southern Oirir, from each other. The name given to this district by the Norwegians was Dali or Dalir, the Dales, and Somerled, the Regulus of Arregaithel, and his family, are termed in the Orkneyinga Saga the Dalveria Aett, or family of the Dales.^[50]

Such being the territorial divisions of Scotland at this period, we find, in place of each province being under the rule of a Ri or king, with a subordinate division under a sub-king that, with the exception of Arregaithel or Argyll, the rulers of the whole of these districts now bear the name of Mormaer or great Maer or Steward, while the Mormaer of Moreb or Moray appears occasionally under the title of Ri or king. These Mormaers held a position in the scale of power and dignity inferior only to the Ardri or supreme king. Thus, in narrating the great battle fought in 918 between the Danes and the people of Alban, in the reign of Constantin, son of Aedh, king of Alban, the Irish Annals tell us that neither their king nor any of their Mormaers fell by him;^[51] and the Pictish Chronicle mentions in the same reign the death of Dubucan, son of Indrechtaig, Mormaer Ængusa, or of Angus.^[52] In 965 Dubdon Satrapas Athochlach, that is, Governor of Athole, by which title the Mormaer is probably meant, fell in battle, according to the Pictish Chronicle. The same chronicle records in the reign of Cullen, who died in 970, the death of Maelbrigdi, son of Dubucan the Mormaer of Angus; and in 976 Tighernac tells us that three Mormaers of Alban, whose names he gives us as Cellach son of Findgaine, Cellach son of Baredha, and Duncan son of Morgaind, took part in a foray by one of the petty kings of Ireland against another.^[53]

The reign of Malcolm the Second, who ascended the throne in 1004, and whose thirty years’ rule over Alban was distinguished by the acquisition of the cismarine territories south of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, throws still further light upon the position of these provincial rulers. In the early part of his reign the great conflict took place between the Danes of Dublin and the native Irish under their great king Brian Boroimhe, which was to determine whether the Galls or foreign hordes of Scandinavia or the native Gaedheal were to retain possession of Ireland; a conflict terminated in favour of the Gaedheal when the battle of Clontarf was won in the year 1014 by Brian, the Ardri, or supreme king of Ireland, though, like some other victorious generals, he lost his own life in the struggle. In this great conflict we find the people of the provinces taking part on both sides; those in the possession of the Norwegians siding with the Danes, and those under native rule taking part with King Brian. To the assistance of the Danes came Sigurd, Norwegian Earl of Orkney, with the host of the Orkneys and of the Norwegian Islands, the Galls or Norwegians of Caithness and Mann. Skye, Lewis, Kintyre, and Oirergaidhel or Argyll, are especially mentioned as being on the Danish side. On the other hand, ten Mormaers followed Brian with foreign auxiliaries, who probably represented the districts in Alban under native rule, and the leading man among them appears to have been Donald, son of Eimin, son of Cainnech, Mormaer of Mar, who fell in the battle of Clontarf.^[54]

In this reign the Mormaers of Moreb or Moray come very prominently forward, and show us the title hereditarily borne by a very powerful family, which eventually placed two of its members on the throne. The first who appears is Findlaec the son of Ruadri, Mormaer Moreb, whose death is recorded at 1020, when he was slain by the sons of his brother Maelbrigdi. This Findlaec is obviously the Finnleikr Jarl who is mentioned in one of the Norse Sagas as defending his district in Scotland against Sigurd the Norwegian Jarl of Orkney, who eventually conquered Myrhaevi of Moray and Ross.^[55] In 1029 the death of Malcolm, son of Maelbrigdi, son of Ruadri, is recorded, when he bears the title of Ri or king. He is obviously the son of that Maelbrigdi, the brother of Findlaec; and in 1032 Gillacomgan, son of Maelbrigdi, Mormaer of Moreb, was burnt with fifty of his men. The son of Findlaec was Macbeth, who afterwards usurped the throne of Scotland, and the son of Gillacomgan was Lulach, who succeeded him for the short space of three months.^[56]

In the same reign we find also the petty kings of Arregaithel or Argyll and Gallgaithel or Galloway making their first appearance. In the year 1031, when Cnut, the Danish king of England, invaded Scotland, he is said to have received the submission of Malcolm, king of the Scots, and of two other kings, Maelbaethe and Iehmarc. These kings appear to have represented the districts beyond the rivers Spey and Drumalban, which at this time formed the boundary of Scotland proper on the north-west and west; for Maelbaethe can be no other than the celebrated Macbeth, who was then Mormaer of Moreb or Moray, and Iehmarc may be identified with Imergi, who appears in the old Irish Genealogies as ancestor of Somerled the petty king of Argyll.^[57] The Irish Annals record in the same year in which king Malcolm died, the death also of Suibne, son of Kenneth, Ri or king of Gallgaidel. This name, which appears to have been applied in the Irish Annals as a general name of the Gaedhel or Gael of the Western Isles and of the districts lying along the coast, who became subject to and adopted the manners of the Norwegian pirates or Galls, was, as a territorial name, used in a more restricted sense, and appropriated to the district of Galloway, a name which in its Latin form of Galwethia is derived from the Welsh equivalent of Galwyddel. The Norwegians knew it by the name of Gaddgeddla, a district said in the Orkneyinga Saga to be ‘at the place where Scotland and England meet.’^[58]

On the death of Malcolm the Second in the year 1034 the dynasty of Scottish kings, which had been established on the Pictish throne nearly three centuries previously, came to an end. There appears to have been no male descendant left who could claim the crown, and the succession opened to his grandson by his eldest daughter. So far as the districts south of the Firths of Forth and Clyde were concerned, his claim was not opposed to the law of succession which previously prevailed there, and though inconsistent with the law of tanistry which regulated the succession to the crown among the Scots, it had been so far modified that the right of the heir-female to succeed in default of heirs-male appears to have been recognised in such an emergency, but the change was too recent to have acquired a firm and permanent place in the law of the country; and here the right of Duncan, the son of the eldest daughter, was contested by Thorfinn, the most powerful of the Norwegian Jarls of Orkney, whose mother was likewise a daughter of Malcolm II.; and a war of succession followed, which was terminated by the death of King Duncan in 1040. According to a contemporary writer, he was slain by the commander of his own army, Macbethad, son of Findlaech, who succeeded him.^[59] This was Macbeth, the Ri or Mormaer of Moray, who appears to have treacherously joined the Norwegian Jarl and slain his king, in hopes of obtaining, with the assistance of the former, the Scottish crown.

We are told by the Orkneyinga Saga that Thorfinn then followed the routed army, and subjected the land to himself as far south as Fifi or Fife; that he drove those who resisted him to the deserts and the woods, and subdued the country wherever he went; and that till the day of his death he possessed nine jarldoms in Scotland and the whole of the Sudreys or Western Isles.^[60] These jarldoms were no doubt the districts ruled by the native Mormaers, and, if his conquest embraced merely the low country as far south as Fife, the districts which he had not subjected consisted merely of the province composed of Gowry, Fife, and Fothreve, the province of Athol, and that consisting of Stratherne and Menteath. Over these, within which Scone, the capital of the kingdom, was situated, Macbeth appears to have ruled as king, while the districts of Lothian and Cumbria recognised the son of Duncan as their legitimate monarch, with the exception of the Gaelic territory of Galloway, which was under Norwegian rule.

In 1054, Malcolm, the eldest son of Duncan, who is termed by the historians son of the king of the Cumbrians, with the assistance of Siward, earl of Northumbria, drove Macbeth from his kingdom and regained possession of its capital, Scone; and on the death of Thornfinn in 1057 Macbeth was driven north and slain within no great distance from the frontier of his native province of Moray, and Malcolm’s rule was extended over the whole kingdom as its legitimate monarch. We are told in the Orkneyinga Saga that Thorfinn ‘was much lamented in his own land, but in those lands which he had subjected to himself by conquest the natives were no longer content under his government; consequently many rikis which the earl had subjected fell off, and their inhabitants sought the protection of those native chiefs who were territorially born to rule over them.’^[61] These rikis were no doubt the districts subdued by Thorfinn, which now passed again under the rule of their native Mormaers, and it is rather remarkable that, with the exception of the districts of Stratherne and Menteath, when we can trace the position of the remaining districts, consisting of Athol, Gowry, Fife, and Fothreve, we find them in the possession of the Crown, and ruled over by members of the royal family.^[62]

By the Norwegians these Mormaers seem to have been viewed as holding the same position as the Norwegian Jarls, and this name is invariably given to them in the Sagas. Like them, they were viewed as the hereditary rulers of the territory with which they were connected, and as protecting the rights of the Crown within its bounds. That the office, whatever it was, was held hereditarily by the same family we see in the notices of two of these families preserved in the Pictish Chronicle and in the Irish Annals. In the one we find Dubucan, son of Indrechtaig, Mormaer of Angus, succeeded by his son Maelbrigdi; and in the other we see the family of Ruadri filling the office of Mormaer of Moray, and the succession apparently following the Irish law of tanistry, and alternating between the descendants of his two sons Maelbrigdi and Findlaec; and when this family was finally driven from the throne in the person of Lulach, the grandson of the former, we find his son Maelsnectai appearing as Ri Muireb or king of Moray, from whom it passed through his sister to Ængus, termed in the Annals ‘son of the daughter of Lulaig.’^[63]

A more complete revelation, however, is made to us with regard to the Mormaers of another district, that of Buchan, in the Book of Deer, which contains the usual memoranda of the old grants made to that monastery while still retaining its character as an old Celtic foundation. Here the names of seven of the old Mormaers during the five centuries and a half which elapsed between the foundation of the Celtic monastery in the time of Columcille and the reign of David the First are given. We are told that Bede Cruthnech, or the Pict, Mormaer of Buchan, gave the cathair or city Abbordoboir, now Aberdour, on the south shore of the Moray Firth, to Columcille and Drostan, and afterwards certain lands called also a cathair or city, to which Columcille gave the name of Dear. He seems to have been followed by Comgall, son of Aeda, who made a grant to Columcille and Drostan. After him we have Matan son of Cearill, Domhnall son of Giric, and Domnall son of Ruadri, but there is nothing to show what the connection of these Mormaers with each other was or when they lived, but the dignity then passes to a family called Mac Dobharcon.^[64] Two brothers, Domhnall son of Mac Dobharcon, and Cainneach son of Mac Dobharcon, follow each other as Mormaers, and the latter is succeeded by his son Gartnait, who, with his wife Ete, daughter of Gillemichel, makes a grant in the eighth year of King David, that is, in 1132.

The succession among these latter Mormaers seems to follow the same rule of tanistic succession which we have seen among the Mormaers of Moray.

The same valuable record, however, makes a further revelation regarding the organisation of those districts ruled over by the Mormaers. It shows us that the next rank under the Mormaers of Buchan was held by persons termed Toisechs, who possessed a similar relation in a subordinate capacity to the land and the people. Thus we find that Bede the Pict grants Abbordoboir free from the claim of Mormaer and of Toisech, and in the grants of land by the subsequent Mormaers there is usually associated with them the Toisech as having an interest in the subject of the grant. Among these Toisechs a family descended from Morcunn or Morgan appears very prominent. Thus Comgall, son of Aeda, grants the land from Orti to Furerie, and Mondac, son of Morcunn, gave Pette mic Garnait and Achad Toche Temni, and it is added that ‘one was Mormaer and the other was Toisec.’^[65] Then Cathal, son of Morcunt, gives Achadnagleree; and Domhnall mac Giric, the fourth Mormaer named, and Maelbrigdi, son of Cathal the Toisech, gives Pett in Mulenn; and finally Colban, Mormaer of Buchan, and Eva, daughter of Garnait (the previous Mormaer), his wife, and Donnachac, Toisech of the clan Morgainn, mortmained all the foregoing offerings to God, Drostan, Colcumcille, and Peter, free of all burdens except four davachs of such burdens as come upon chief residences of Alban and chief churches. Among the witnesses to this grant are Morgunn and Gillepetair, sons of Donnachach, and others who are called Maithi, that is, good men or nobles of Buchan. Another family of Toisechs which appears is that descended from Batni. Thus Matan, son of Cairill, who is the third-named Mormaer, gives the Mormaer’s share in Altere, now Altrie; and Culi, son of Batni, gives the Toisech’s share. Then Domhnall, son of Ruadri, the fifth-named Mormaer, and Malcolm, son of Culi, give Bidhen, now Biffie; and here the king comes in as also possessing rights in these lands, for Malcolm, son of Cinaetha, or Malcolm II., gives the king’s share in Bidhen, Pett mic Gobroig, and the two davachs of Upper Rosabard. Then Domhnall, son of Mac Dubhacinn, mortmains all these offerings to Drostan upon giving the whole of them to him, and Cathal mortmains in the same way his Toisech’s share. They also give Eddarun, and Cainnech, son of Mac Dobharcon, and the same Cathal give Alterin of Ailvethenamone; and then it is added Cainnech, Domhnall, and Cathal mortmained all these offerings free from Mormaer and Toisech. It is unnecessary to notice the other grants further than that Comgall, son of Cainnaig, Toisech of Clan Canan, gives certain lands free from Toisech. Thus in the organisation of these districts we find a gradation of persons possessing territorial rights within them, consisting of the Ardri or supreme king, the Mormaer, and the Toisech, and the latter of these appears as not only possessing rights in connection thawith the land, but also standing in a relation to the tribe or clan which occupied them as their leader.^[66] The same record discloses a similar connection between the Mormaer and the land in the person of two of the Mormaers of Moray. Thus Malcolm, the son of Ruadri, who died in 1029, gives the Delerc, and Malsnectai, the son of Lulach, the successor of Macbeth as usurper of the throne, gives Pettmalduib to Drostan. These lands were probably within the province of Moray ruled by them, and we are told by the Saxon Chronicle that ‘in 1078 King Malcolm won the mother of Maelslaht or Maelsnectai and all his best men,’ an expression similar to that of the Maithi or good men of Buchan, which, as we have seen, included the Toisech ‘and all his treasure and his cattle,’ and he himself escaped with difficulty. His death as Ri Moreb, or king of Moray, is recorded, as we have seen, in 1080.

On the death of Eadgar, the successor of Malcolm III., his brother Alexander the First ruled as king over Scotland proper, while Lothian and Cumbria or Strathclyde fell to his brother David. From the time when the Celtic king Malcolm had married the Saxon princess Margaret there had been an increasing Saxon influence in the government of the Celtic provinces; and when his sons by that princess had been firmly established on the throne by foreign aid, in opposition to the attempt of their father’s brother to maintain his right under the older law of succession, with the assistance of the Gaelic population, and found their chief support in the Anglic population of Lothian and the Merse, the reigns of Eadgar and Alexander the First must be viewed as essentially those of Saxon monarchs modelling their kingdom in accordance with Saxon institutions; while the object of David from the first, both while he governed the southern districts as earl and the whole of Scotland as king, was to introduce the feudal system of Norman England into Scotland, and adapt her institutions to feudal forms.

The charters of Eadgar relate mainly to land south of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, and we find that the immediate dependants of the Court, who formed the witnesses to these charters, were certainly Saxons; and when Alexander the First founded the monastery of Scone after the attempt made upon his life by the Gaelic population of the northern provinces, we find that the foundation charter is framed upon the model of the Saxon charters. Like the latter, which were granted with the assent of the members of the Witenagemot, who subscribe the charter as consenting parties with the designation of Episcopus and Abbas if churchmen, and of Comes or Dux if earls, without the addition of the diocese, monastery, or earldom with which they were connected; so we find this charter granted with the consent of nine persons, two of whom have the simple designation of Episcopus, who are followed by seven others, six of whom have the word Comes or Earl after their names; and the only one who is not so designated is Gospatrick, whom we know to have been at the time Earl of Dunbar, and who probably represented that part of Lothian attached to Alexander’s kingdom. The other six must of course have represented the districts of transmarine Scotland, which properly formed Alexander’s dominions. We thus find in his reign a body constituted somewhat similarly to that portion of the Witenagemot of the Saxon monarchs, and exercising similar functions.^[67] The six persons, however, who bear the title of Comes are Beth, Mallus, Madach, Rothri, Gartnach, and Dufagan, and of these we can identify four. Mallus is undoubtedly the Mallus Comes Stradarniæ or Earl of Stratherne, who took such a prominent part in the Battle of the Standard.^[68] Madach is that Maddach, Jarl of Atjoklum, or Earl of Atholl, said in the Orkneyinga Saga to be the son of Melkolfr or Melmare, brother of Malcolm the Third.^[69] Rothri appears in a charter in the Book of Deer, granted in the eighth year of King David, as Ruadri, Mormaer of Mar; and Gartnach is the Gartnait, son of Cainnech, Mormaer of Buchan, who grants the charter. The remaining two, Beth and Dufagan, cannot be identified with certainty, but the resemblance of the name of the latter to Dubican, who appears at an earlier date as Mormaer of Angus, leads to the supposition that he may have filled that position. At all events there is enough to show that the six persons who appear with the title of Comes as representing the districts north of the Firths, were the same persons whom we have hitherto found in connection with these districts bearing the title of Mormaer; and thus the great Celtic chiefs of the country, to whom the Norwegians applied the Norwegian title of Jarl, which was a personal dignity though given in connection with a territory, now appear bearing the Saxon title of Comes or Earl, and the Celtic title of Mormaer, probably official in its origin, was now merged in a personal dignity.^[70]

In one of the earliest charters in King David’s reign, we find a slight change in the position of these comites. It is the first of David’s charters to the monastery of Dunfermline, and in this charter five bishops appear who alone prefix to their names the word ‘Ego,’ and add the title of Episcopus simply with the word confirmed; and then follows a list of names of persons who are said to be ‘hujus privilegii testes et assertores,’ and these are headed by five earls—viz., Ed Comes, Constantinus Comes, Malise Comes, Rotheri Comes, and Madeth Comes.^[71] The last three are obviously the same with three of the earls who subscribe the Scone charter, and who, we have seen, had been Mormaers of Stratherne, Mar, and Atholl. Constantin appears in a subsequent charter, where King David grants to Dunfermlin ‘the whole shyre of Kirkcaldy, which Earl Constantine held from them by force, in perpetual charity,’ and this charter is simply witnessed by three bishops and three earls—viz., Madeth Comes, Malis Comes, Head Comes.^[72] Constantin, however, appears in two documents in the Chartulary of St. Andrews, in which he is described as Earl of Fife. In the first, which is the memorandum of the grant by Edelrad, son of Malcolm, king of Scotland, abbot of Dunkeld, and also Earl of Fife, of the lands of Admore, it is said to have been confirmed by his brothers David and Alexander ‘in presentia multorum virorum fide dignorum scilicet Constantini Comitis de Fyf viri discretissimi.’ The second is a perambulation of the boundaries of Kirkness and Lochore, when the king sends his messengers through the province of Fyf and Fothrithi, and summons many of their people in one place—viz., Constantinem Comitem de Fyf virum discretum et facundum cum satrapys et satellitibus et exercitu de Fyf et Macbeath Thaynetum de Falleland (Falkland), etc. The dispute is then referred to ‘tres viros legales et idoneos,’ the first of whom is ‘Constantinus Comes de Fyf magnus judex in Scotia.’^[73] We thus see that one of the principal functions of these old Mormaers, who now appear as comites or earls, was judicial, and it is probable that the title of Magnus judex, or great judge, given to Constantin, is simply the Latin equivalent of the Celtic title of Mormaer, or great maer, and by the ‘satrapes,’ probably the same persons are meant who appear in the Book of Deer with the Celtic title of Toiseach. The ‘Ed comes’ who precedes Constantin in the first of King David’s charters may possibly be the same person as the ‘Head comes’ who witnesses the second, but neither can be identified.^[74]

During the entire reign of David the First these earls appear simply with the designation of Comes without any territorial addition, with two exceptions, which occur towards the end of his reign. In the earliest charter the earls who witness it, among whom is Constantin, are followed by other witnesses, partly officers of state, as the chancellors, partly Norman barons, and a few Celtic names which have no designation, and the first witness who follows the earls and precedes the chancellor is Gillemichel Makduf. In the foundation charter of Holyrood, granted not long after, he follows the chancellor and the chamberlain as Gillemichel Comes, and in a subsequent charter to Dunfermline he again precedes them as Gillemichel Comes de Fif. In a charter in the Book of Deer, which must have been granted in the last year of David’s reign, the earl who succeeded Gillemichel appears as Dunchad, Comes de Fif, and along with him, for the first time, appears Gillebride, Comes de Angus. Gillemichel has usually been supposed to be the son of Constantin, but this has arisen solely from the preconceived notion that all the ancient Earls of Fife bore the name of Macduff. There is, however, no evidence of any connection between them, and it is obviously quite inconsistent with the character of their appearance as witnesses in the same charter.

There is no doubt that David’s object, on his accession to the throne, was to feudalise the whole kingdom, by importing feudal forms and feudal holdings into it, and to place the leading dignitaries of the kingdom in the position of Crown vassals, as well as to introduce a Norman baronage. The relation of those old Celtic earls or Mormaers towards the Crown on the one hand, had hitherto been purely official, and that towards the districts with which their names were connected was not a purely territorial one. It was more a relation towards the tribes who peopled it than towards the land. David’s desire, certainly, would be to place them, whenever opportunity offered in the position of holding the land they were officially connected with as an earldom of the Crown in chief, in the same manner as the barons held their baronies, and in these cases he may have inaugurated the policy undoubtedly followed, as we shall see, by his successors.

Gillemichel Macduff, from his position in the earliest charter, must have held a high position as a follower of the king, and may have rendered him great services, which legend drew back to the usurpation of the throne of his ancestor Duncan by Macbeth, and led to the creation of the fictitious Macduff, who makes his first appearance in Fordun’s Chronicle, and after Constantin’s death Gillemichel may first have had the personal title of Comes or Earl bestowed upon him, and then been feudally invested with the Earldom of Fife, which thus may have become a territorial title in his person. It certainly did so in that of his successor Duncan, who received from David a charter of the earldom, which was confirmed to his successors by the subsequent kings;^[75] and a similar feudal investiture of the earldom of Angus in the person of Gillibride may have added that old Celtic earldom likewise to the number, as from this time, when we find the older earldoms still conferring no territorial designation on their earls, Gillibride invariably appears along with them as Earl of Angus. During the earlier part of the reign of Malcolm IV. no change appears to have been made in the position of the existing earldoms. His first charter after his accession appears to have been his confirmationconfirmation of the grants to the monastery of DunfermlineDunfermline, and this charter is witnessed first by six bishops, then by twelve barons, most of whom were Normans, and other foreigners, and then by six of the earls (De Comitibus), who are thus named: Gospatricius Comes, Ferteth Comes, Duncanus Comes, Morgund Comes, Melcolmus Comes, et Comes de Engus. The five preceding earls were those of Dunbar, Stratherne, Fife, Mar, and Athol, the earl of Buchan, who would make up the number of the seven earls, not appearing among them. To this number a temporary addition was made by Malcolm, when, on making peace with Malcolm macHeth, the pretended son of Earl Angus of Moray, in 1157, he gave him the district of Ros with the title of earl; but the inhabitants soon rose against him and drove him out.

An event, however, took place soon after, which led to the policy inaugurated by David the First, of feudalising these earldoms, being resumed by Malcolm and still further carried out by his successor. This was the attack made upon the king by six of the old Celtic earls, when, under the leadership of Ferteth, earl of Stratherne, they besieged him in Perth in the year 1160. Fordun, quoting from the Chronicle of Melrose, says, ‘Six earls—Ferchard, Earl of Stratherne, to wit, and five other earls—being stirred up against the king, not to compass any selfish end, or through treason, but rather to guard the common weal, sought to take him, and laid siege to the keep of that town (Perth). God so ordering it, however, their undertaking was brought to nought for the nonce, and after not many days had rolled by, he was, by the advice of the clergy, brought back to a good understanding with his nobles.’^[76] An expression in the Orkneyinga Saga would lead us to infer that the object of the six Celtic earls was to put up the young son of William Fitz Duncan, who was usually called the Boy of Egremont, and as grandson of King Duncan, the eldest son of Malcolm III. by Ingibiorg, widow of Earl Thorfinn of Orkney, had a direct claim to the throne, which would commend itself both to the Gaelic and to the Norwegian population in preference to the descendants of the Saxon princess Margaret.^[77] Wyntoun gives us the following account of this occurrence:—

Wyntoun here associates with the five earls who followed Ferteth, the Earl of Stratherne, Gillandrys Ergemawche. If two persons are meant, Ergemawche may be a corruption of Egremont, and Gillandres may have represented the old Celtic earls of Ross, as the clan bearing the name of Ross are called in Gaelic Clan Ghilleanrias, or descendants of Gillandres, and may have led the revolt which drove Malcolm macHeth out of the earldom.

Each of the seven provinces of Scotland consisted, as we have seen, of two districts, and we find a Mormaer ruling over each: but when they appear in the reign of Alexander the First, under the name of Comes or Earl, we find the number reduced to six; and with the exception of the province consisting of the two districts of Mar and Buchan, each of which is represented by an earl, the other provinces appear with one of its two districts possessing an earl, and the other remaining unrepresented. It was these six earls, no doubt, who formed the party who attacked the king in Perth, and one feature of the new policy appears to have been to increase their number by appointing new earls to the vacant districts, who were feudally invested with their earldoms, and thus introducing a large feudal element into the old Celtic earldoms, while those which retained their original character would be gradually feudalised as opportunity offered. Malcolm had thus restored one of these vacant districts when he made Malcolm macHeth Earl of Ross; and when that earl was driven out by the inhabitants, he endeavoured to connect it still more closely with the Crown, by giving the earldom to Florence, Count of Holland, in marriage with his sister Ada in 1162, but this grant, too, did not practically take effect.^[79] Two years after he added another in the district of Menteath, which, along with Stratherne, formed one of the old provinces of Scotland. ‘Gillechrist, Comes de Menteth,’ makes his first appearance as witness in a charter granted by King Malcolm to the canons of Scone in 1164; and in the same charter we have Gillebride Comes de Angus and Malcolm Comes appearing for the first time with the territorial designation of ‘De Ethoel.’

The policy thus inaugurated by David the First as entering into his plan for transforming the old Celtic kingdom of the Scots into a feudal monarchy, and to some extent carried out by Malcolm the Fourth, was still more vigorously prosecuted by his successor William the Lion; and we find that during his reign he converted two of the old earldoms into feudal holdings, that a third had passed by gift and a fourth by succession into the hands of Norman barons, and that he added four new earldoms to the number.

We have seen that during the reign of Alexander the First and the early part of the reign of David, Ruadri or Rotheri, who had been Mormaer of Mar, appears witnessing the royal charters, with the personal title of Comes or Earl. He was followed, during the latter part of the reign of David and during that of his successor Malcolm IV., by Morgundus or Morgund, who also bears the personal title of Comes or Earl; but in the early part of the reign of William the Lion, when the territorial designations became more common, he is superseded by a certain Gilchrist, Earl of Mar, and Gilchrist, in his turn, makes way in 1171 for Morgund again. The explanation of this apparent contest for the position of earl is furnished us by the controversy which afterwards took place between the family of De Lundin, who were the kings hereditary Hostiarii or doorkeepers, and from that office took the name of Doorward or Durward. It appears from this controversy that Morgund was alleged to be illegitimate, and King William had probably taken advantage of this flaw in his title to break the succession of the old Celtic earls by recognising Gilchrist, the next lawful heir, as earl. This Gilchrist had married Orabilis, the daughter of Ness, son of William, one of the foreign settlers in Fife, and his daughter was the mother of Thomas de Lundin, the king’s Hostiary or Doorward, and carried the claims of the lawful heirs into this family.^[80] It is probable, however, that this illegitimacy, though possibly well founded according to the canon law, was not recognised as such by the Celtic customs, and an arrangement seems to have been come to by which Morgund agreed to receive from the king the investiture of the earldom as a feudal holding, while the claims of the rival party were satisfied by a large tract of land between the rivers Dee and Don, which was withdrawn from the earldom and became the property of the Durwards. There is preserved a deed by King William, in which he narrates that Morgund, son of Gillocher, formerly Earl of Mar, appeared before him in June 1171 and was invested with the earldom of Mar, in which his father had died vest and seized, and which was now granted to him and his heirs whatsoever.^[81] It may perhaps be doubted whether this is an original deed; but there can be little doubt that it contains the record of a real transaction by which the earldom was converted into a purely feudal holding, which, like all such holdings created at this time, was descendible to heirs-female.