59. 1040 Donnchad rex Scotiæ in autumno occiditur a duce suo Macbethad mac Finnlaech, cui succesit in regnum.—(Marianus Scotus.) Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 65.
60. Collect. de reb. Alb., pp. 345, 346.
61. Col. de Reb. Alb., p. 346.
62. Bower says of Alexander I.—‘Quod patruus suus comes de Gowry dedit sibi ad donum, ut moris est in baptismo, terras de Lyff et Invergowry’ (Scotichron. B. v. chap. xxxvi.), which shows that during the life of Malcolm III. one of his brothers possessed Gowry. Then we find that Madach, who ruled over Atholl as earl in the reign of Alexander I. and David I., was the son of Melmare, brother of Malcolm III., and his son Edelradus is designated in a charter of Admore in Kinross-shire ‘Abbas de Dunkelden et insuper comes de Fife’ (Chart. St. Andrews, p. 115), thus uniting the possession of the abbacy of Dunkeld, the patrimony of this royal family, with the earldom of Fife.
63. Chron. Picts and Scots, pp. 370, 372.
64. Dobharcu, of which Dobharcon is the genitive form, signifies literally water-dog, and is the name usually given to an otter.
65. The words agus ise Mormaer agus ise Toisech. This has been translated as if it meant that Mondac was both Mormaer and Toisech, while Comgall is left without a designation, but the above is the obvious meaning.
66. In the above notice from the Book of Deer the reader is referred to the edition of it printed for the Spalding Club under the able care of the late Dr. John Stuart. The facts they disclose are given here merely, and the explanation must be reserved to a subsequent chapter.
67. Chart. Scon, p. 2.
68. Ailred De bello apud Standardum, printed in appendix to Fordun, Chron., vol. i. p. 443.
69. Orkneyinga Saga, p. 86.
70. Compare the subscriptions to the Scone charter, ‘Ego Alexander Dei Gratia Rex Scotorum propria manu mea hec confirmo ... ego Sibilla Dei Gratia Regina Scottorum propria manu hec confirmo, ego Gregorius episcopus, etc., confirmo, ego Cormacus episcopus, etc., confirmo, ego Beth comes similiter, ego Gospatricius Dolfini assensum prebeo, ego Mallus comes assensum prebeo, ego Madach comes assensum prebeo, ego Rothri comes assensum prebeo, ego Gartnach comes assensum prebeo, ego Dufagan comes assensum prebeo (Chart. Scon, p. 2), with the following Saxon charters:—‘Ego Æthelbalth (Mercensium Rex) hanc donationem meam subscripsi. Ego Uuor Episcopus consensi et subscripsi. Piot abbas. Uuilfirth comes. Sigibed comes. Oba comes. Beorcol comes. Heardberht frater Regis Eadberht comes, etc. Or another in 823—‘Ego Eagbertus Rex Anglorum hanc donationem meam, etc., confirmavi et subscripsi. Ego Ætheluulf Rex consensi et subscripsi. Ego Uulfred Archiepiscopus consensi et subscripsi. Ego Wigthegn Episcopus consensi et subscripsi. Ego Ealhstan Episcopus consensi et subscripsi. Ego Bearnmod Episcopus consensi et subscripsi. Ego Wulfhard Dux consensi et subscripsi. Ego Monuede Dux consensi et subscripsi. Ego Osmod Dux consensi et subscripsi. Ego Dudda Dux consensi et subscripsi, etc.—Palgrave, Rise and Progress of the English Commonwealth, vol. ii. pp. ccxix. ccxx.
71. Chart. of Dunfermlin, p. 4.
72. Ib. p. 16.
73. Chart. of St. Andrews, pp. 116, 117.
74. Mr. Robertson, in his valuable work of Scotland under her Early Kings, considers that Beth in the Scone charter is written by a clerical error for Heth, that he is the same person with the Ed and Head of David’s charters, and was Earl of Moray, and father of that Angus, Earl of Moray, defeated and slain in 1130 (vol. i. pp. 104, 190). This opinion is mainly grounded on the fact that Wimund, when he claimed to be the son of Angus, called himself Malcolm MacHeth, but Beth appears in the same form in a subsequent charter in the Scone chartulary (p. 4), and an identification, which requires us to suppose that the name has been miswritten in two charters, is not admissible. Moreover, it is not likely that an Earl of Moray should witness the foundation-charter of a monastery erected as a thank-offering for the defeat of the men of Moray in that year. As the great province of Fif consisted of the two old districts of Fyfe and Fothrithi, it is not impossible that there may at first have been an Earl connected with each, and that Beth, occupying here the leading place in which the subsequent Earls of Fife are invariably found, may have been earl along with Edelrad, and that the latter is the Ed who, along with Constantin, witnesses the earliest charter of King David, as there is a circumflex through the d of Ed, which implies that some letters after it have been omitted. This would account for Constantin appearing in the charter of Edelrad as if he were his contemporary. It may be observed that the Admore which Edelrad grants was in Fothrif, while Constantin appears in connection with Kirkcaldy in Fife, and that the name of the Thane of Falkland being Macbeath, shows that the name Beath was also connected with Fife. Head may certainly have been the Earl of Moray who preceded Angus, and gave his name to the family of MacHeth.
75. See charter by Alexander the Second to Earl Malcolm of Fife, son of Duncan, Earl of Fife, of the comitatus de Fyfe. ‘Sicut Comes Duncanus frater suus comitatem illum tenuit ... Sicut carta regis David de predicto comitatu facta comiti Duncano patri ejus.’—National MSS. vol. i. p. 28.
76. Fordun, Chron. (Annals, III.) vol. ii. p. 251; and see note, p. 430.
77. ‘Ingibiorg, the mother of the earls,’ married Melkolf, king of Scotland, who was called Langhals. Their son was Dungad, king of Scotland, the father of William, who was a good man. His son was William the Noble, whom all the Scots wished to take for their king.—Collect. de Reb. Alb. 40, p. 346.
78. Wyntoun, Chron. B. vii. c. vii.
79. Memorandum quod Comes de Holand processit de sorore domini Regis Willelmi ut cognitum est per anticos regni Scotie quod totus comitatus de Ros, collatus fuit in maritagio cum predicta sorore domini Regis Willelmi et predictus comitatus elongatus fuit a predicto comite de Holand sine aliqua ratione et sine merito suo vel antecessorum suorum ut injuste sicut recognitum est.—Palgrave, Documents and Records, p. 20.
80. The principal act of Gilchrist’s life was the foundation of the Priory of Monimusk, and Thomas, the Doorward, confirms the grant by his grandfather and his mother. His son Alan declares, in 1257, that Morgund and his son Duncan were illegitimate, and in 1291 the Earl of Mar complains that when William the Lion restored the Earldom to Morgund, ‘deficiebant tres centum librate terre.’—Ant. Ab. and Banff, vol. iv. p. 151.
81. This deed has hitherto been known only by its being printed by Selden in his Titles of Honour; but the document from which he printed was found among his papers, and is now in the library at Lincoln’s Inn. See Appendix No. IV. for an account of this charter.
82. Fordun, Chron. (Annals, XXX.) vol. ii. p. 276.
83. Chart. of Paisley, p. 167. The expressions used here imply that David held the earldom only for a time. The first mention of another earl of Lennox is in 1193, when Eth, son of the earl of Lennox, witnesses a charter in the Liber de Melrose, vol. i. p. 22, and that his name was Aluin appears from the Chartulary of Glasgow, vol. i. p. 86, where we find, between 1208 and 1214, a charter by Alewinus comes de Levenax filius et heres Alewini comitis de Levenax.
84. Fordun, Chron. (Annals, XXIX.), p. 276.
85. Willelmi Rishanger Chronica et Annales, Master of the Rolls Series, p. 344. The words ‘de chef mes’ are erroneously translated by the editor ‘of chief of the house,’ instead of ‘chief messuage.’
86. Rishanger, Chronica, pp. 355, 356, 357.
87. The decision is thus given in the arguments adduced by Baliol in support of the position that the kingdom was not partible. Printed by Palgrave (Doc., p. 40), unfortunately the document is very imperfect, but it appears to place the old Celtic earldom in the same category with the offices of seneschals, marischals, constables, and foresters:—
‘Ausi la Countee de Asheles demora a Isabele la einzne ... puisne n y aveit vivaunt Isabel l einzne soir e le isseue de li. E fet ... lavandit Isabel en pleyn Parlament devaunt le Rey Alexaundre fiz ... son counseil q ele ne deveit ceo par ... er por ceo qe Countee nest pas partable ... qe plus ... es ce ... vynt.... Escoce Seneschaucie Mareschaucie Conestablerie Foresterie. e ... einzne ... al isseue ... einznesce autres offices e baillies semblable qe sount de la coroune.’
88. Pro dolor! Patricius de Athedle filius Thomæ de Galwedia et comitis de Adthedle, juvenis egregius et quantum ad humanam oppinionem omni curiali sapientia et facescia imbutus, apud Hadingtone in hospitio suo de nocte postquam se sopori dedisset, per consilium quorundam malignancium nequiter perimitur, cum duobus sociis suis.... Post cujus tamen obitum, David de Hastinges accepit ejus comitatum provenientem sibi ex parte uxoris sue, que erat matertera juvenis occisi.—Chron. Mel.
89. The history of these ancient earldoms is very inaccurately given by the Peerage-writers, and none more so than that of the earldom of Caithness. These errors will be found corrected in Appendix No. V.
90. Palgrave, Documents, pp. 14, 15.
91. Vol. i. p. 483.
92. Vol. i. p. 486.
93. See charter by David II., confirming in 1368 to Archibald Campbell, son of Colin, the lands of Craignish, Melfort, and others, with all the liberties thereof, as freely as Duncan Mac Duine, progenitor of the said Archibald Campbell, enjoyed the same in the barony of Lochaw, or other lands belonging to him.—His. Com., 4 Report, p. 40. The first Campbell on record is Gillespie Campbell in 1266, and this Duncan was his grandfather.
94. Rymer’s Fœdera, vol. i. p. 257.
95. Fordun, Chron., ed. 1874, vol. ii. p. 289, and note p. 436.
96. Quo tempore septem Comites Scotiae, viz. de Bowan, de Meneteth, de Stradeherne, de Lewenes, de Ros, de Athel, de Mar, ac Johannes filius Johannis Comyn de Badenau, collecto exercitu valido in valle Annandie, feria secunda Paschæ Angliam ingressi, vastabant omnia cæde et incendio, et non parcentes ætati vel sexui venientes Carleolum urbem, ipsam obsidione cinxerunt.—Willelmi Rishanger Chronica, p. 156.
97. Willelmi Rishanger Chronica, pp. 159, 160.
98. Rymer’s Fœdera, ii. p. 471.
99. Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 291.
100. Fordun, Chronicle, vol. ii. p. 177.
101. Regiam Majestatem, p. i.
102. This word feodofirma, called feu-farm in Scotland and fee-farm in England, is usually understood as meaning what is inconsistently called a hereditary lease, but it was not so at least in Scotland. It was a grant of the feodum or fee of the estate, and not merely of the usufruct, burdened with an annual payment of a firma or census, instead of military service.—See Fordun, vol. ii. p. 414 note.
103. This subject will be more fully discussed in a subsequent chapter.
104. Chart. Aberdeen, vol. i. p. 55.
105. Dominus Rex pro pace et stabilitate regni sui observandus statuit et ordinavit quod de terris subscriptis fient [vicecomitatus] videlicet. De terra comitis de Ros in Nort Argail, Terra de Glenc[elg] Terra Regis de Skey et Lodoux, octo davaux de terra [Garmoran] Egge et Rumme Guiste et Barrich cum minutis insulis et vocetur vicecomitatus de Skey.
De terris Kinnebathyn Ardemuirich Bothelve, Terra Alexandri de Argadia, Terra Johannis de Glenurwy, Terra Gilberti Mc[Nauchton] Terra Malcolmi M‘Ivyr Terra Dugalli de Cragins Terra Johannis McGilcrist Terra Magistri Radulphi de Dunde, Terra Gileskel M‘Lachl[an] Terra Comitis de Meneteth de Knapedal, Terra Anegus filii Dovenaldi Insularum et Terra Colini Cambel et vocetur vicecomitatus de [Lorn].
De terris de Kentyr cum omnibus tenentibus terras in eadem. Terra Lochmani McKilcolim McErewer Terra Enegus McErewer, Terra de ... Insula de Boot, Terra Domini Thomæ Cambel, et Terra Dunkani Duf et vocetur vicecomitatus de Kentyr.—Acta Parl. vol. i. p. 447.
The occupation of the lands which formed the territory of the kingdom of Scotland in the reign of Alexander the Third, the mutual relation of the different races by which it was held, the connection of the Celtic portion of the population with the soil, the tenure by which they possessed it, and the different classes in their social organisation which it discloses, present to us the problem which we have to solve, and we have now to trace the history of the early institutions from which its phenomena were derived, and the extent to which they have been affected by internal change or by external influence.
But before entering upon this inquiry it may be well to see what legend or tradition tells us with regard to the Celtic portion of the population, with which we have now mainly to do. Such legends or traditions are either intended as a means of conveying some early facts in the history of the race in a popular form, or of clothing some truths in a symbolic dress, or they are merely the picturesque imaginations of their early sennachies or native historians. Those which relate to the Celtic population of Scotland are derived from two different sources. They are either Welsh or Irish, that is, they are the legends of either the Cymric or the Gaelic race, and in estimating their relative value it is necessary to take their probable origin and character into account. Some of them are what may be termed ethnic legends. They are designed to perpetuate the popular conception of the origin and early settlements of the race, but they are the creation of a period when there had been some progress in the culture of the people, and when they possessed a rude literature derived in the main from the spread of Christianity and the establishment of Christian institutions among them. Their authors felt the necessity of connecting the early history of the country with the events of Biblical or Classical history, and it assumed the shape of a fictitious narrative which belongs to the mythic period of their annals. Others again may be called linguistic legends, and were rude attempts to account for peoples nominally distinct, and from pride of race regarding each other as independent races, possessing the same language and using a cognate form of speech. Others were what may be truly called historical legends, and handed down in a more or less modified shape events which we have reason to think actually took place; while others again were purely artificial, and were simply the rude and fantasticfantastic creations of the popular mind, which felt the necessity of filling up the dark period of the annals of their race with imaginary events calculated to gratify their national feeling and their natural love of the marvellous.
The ethnic legends invariably connect the origin of the people with Biblical or Classical history, and assumes that some of the races which formed the oldest population of the country, and were really indigenous, had immigrated from some foreign land. We find it assuming two different shapes. In the one the different nations constituting the early population were separate colonies which proceeded from foreign countries and entered the land at different periods. Thus Bede tells us of the early population of Britain that it was first peopled by a colony of ‘Brittones’ who came from Armorica; that then the Picts came from Scythia, and the nation of the Scots came from Ireland; and he places these successive colonies prior to the Roman invasion of Britain. The legendary history of Ireland presents the early history of its population in the same aspect. The account of the successive colonies which occupied Ireland is supposed to have been narrated to Saint Patrick by her earliest historian Fintan, who lived before the Flood, and remained alive during the whole of the centuries which elapsed till the introduction of Christianity. The Book of Ballimote contains a poem supposed to have been written by him. If he was a real personage, he may have been Fintan Munnu, a celebrated Irish saint who died on 25th October 634, but the poem is no doubt a later composition, and a translation is here inserted as giving in short compass these successive peoplings of the island, and as a good specimen of their early legends.
As the learned historian has related, namely Fintan:—
The history of these successive colonies is elaborated with many details in the fictitious history of Ireland during the mythic period, but it is unnecessary for our purpose to enter into these details except in so far as they bear upon the legendary history of the people of Scotland.[106]
Another form of the ethnic legend is one common to the early history of all countries during the mythic period. In it the race is personified in an eponymus who is the supposed ancestor and founder of it, and their supposed settlement in the country in which they are first found is prefigured in a marriage with a female whose name has an obvious relation to it, and thus an ethnic family is produced, the sons of which usually represent the territorial divisions of the country. This family has therefore a territorial as well as an ethnic meaning, and the filiation does not always imply affinity of race, but may indicate no more than the joint occupation of the country by the different tribes personified in the members of the ethnic family. We have an instance of this form of the legend in the well-known fable contained in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s fabulous history, where Brutus, the eponymus of the Britons, appears as the first colonist in the island, and has three sons, Locrinus, Camber, and Albanactus, representing the Lloegry of England, the Cymry of Wales, and the people of Alban or Scotland, as well as in the older form of the legend, where Brutus and Albanus are brothers. In the Irish form Gathelus or Gaidelglas, the eponymus of the Gael, marries Scota the daughter of Pharaoh, by which the settlement of the Gael in Scotia or Ireland is prefigured, and his period is brought back so as to connect his history and that of his race with the Biblical narrative. His descendant Milesius, son of Bile, son of Breogan, is also said to have married Scota, daughter of Pharaoh, and actually settles the race in Ireland. We find, however, this feature of the legend, which represents the territorial divisions of the country by the sons of the supposed colonist, running through the whole of the first form of the legend. Thus Partholan, the first colonist after the flood, arrives with three sons, Rughruidhe, Slainge, and Laighlinne, and after their death he divides Ireland between four sons, Er, Orba, Fearann, and Feargna. The second colonist, Nemead, has a wife, Macha, from whom Ardmacha or Armagh takes its name, thus signifying the principal seat of the race; and he has three sons, Iarbheineoil, Fergus Leithdearg, and Starn, and Ireland is divided into three parts between Beothach son of Iarbheineoil, Briotan son of Fergus Leithdearg, and Simon son of Beoain son of Starn. The people of Nemead are then driven out of Ireland by the Fomoraigh or sea pirates, and depart in three bodies. One under Beothach goes to the north of Europe, another under Briotan to the north of Britain, and the third under Simon to Greece. The third colonists, the Firbolg, come from Greece under Dela, a descendant of Simon, and by him Ireland is divided into five districts between his five sons, Slainge, Gann, Seangan, Geannan, and Rughruidhe; and these were the five provinces of Ireland—Leinster, possessed by Slainge; Thomond and Desmond, the two divisions of Munster, by Gann and Seangan; Connaught by Geannan, and Ulster by Rughruidhe. Here we have a reproduction of two of the sons of Partholan in Slainge and Rughruidhe. We have again a threefold division of Ireland under the fourth colonists, the Tuatha De, supposed to be the descendants of Beothach, son of Iarbheineoil; and the three sons of Cearmadha Milbeoil their king—MacCuil, MacCeacht, and MacGreine—have three queens, Eire, Fodla, and Banba, which are simply the three oldest names in Ireland. Milesius too has three sons, Eber, Heremon, and Ir, of whom the former possessed the two Munsters, Heremon Leinster and Connaught, and Ir Ulster; and here again we find the same reproduction of previous names, for Eber has the same four sons, Er, Orba, Fearann, and Feargna,[107] who are attributed to Partholan, and the descendants of Ir who occupied Ulster were termed the race of Rughruidhe from a descendant of that name. We also find that this filiation from the same parents does not imply identity of race, for the descendants of Ir, to whom the name of Rughruidhe especially belongs, and who peopled the north of Ireland, appear throughout the Irish Annals under the name of Cruithnigh, and were no other than the Picts who were settled in Ireland.
The form which the linguistic legend usually assumes is that of a colony of soldiers obtaining wives from another people whose language they adopt, and perhaps the most curious specimen is that told of the Britons of Armorica by Nennius. He tells us that when Maximus, who was declared emperor in Britain, went over to Gaul to maintain his pretensions, he withdrew from Britain its military force, and, unwilling to send his soldiers back to their wives, children, and possessions in Britain, settled them in Armorica, where they became the Armorican Britons, and some MSS. have the following addition:—These Armorican Britons, having laid waste and depopulated the country, took the wives and daughters of the previous inhabitants in marriage, but cut out their tongues that their children might not learn their mother tongue. Hence they were called Letewiccion or half speech.[108] The meaning of this tale is, that identity of language is implied by the marriage of the leaders of one people with the wives and daughters of another, and a dialectic difference could only be accounted for by depriving the females of the power of speech. The story told by Bede that the Picts had no wives, and first asked them of the Britons and were refused, and then obtained them from the Scots, is likewise a legend, intended to account for that people, or at least the greater portion of them, speaking a Gaelic dialect; and in the same manner the oldest poem which narrates the settlement of the Milesian Scots in Ireland tells us that ‘Cruithne, the son of Cinge, took their women from them;’ and then after—
Here we have the same story of the Picts, as personified in their eponymus Cruithne taking their wives from the Milesians, and the latter replacing them by wives taken from the previous inhabitants of the Tuath De. The meaning is obviously linguistic, and such legends are intended simply to express a community of language between the supposed military colonies and the people from whom they obtained their wives.
Some of these legends have, however, a historical basis, such as those which relate to supposed settlements of the race of the Scots in Britain. These contain an element of truth, in so far as temporary settlements of the Scots took place in Britain in the fourth century, when they first appear in history, and joined the Picts, Saxons, and Attacotti in assailing the Roman province in Britain; and still more when a permanent settlement of the Scots on the west coast north of the Firth of Clyde undoubtedly took place in the beginning of the sixth century, and the small Scottish kingdom of Dalriada was formed.
Others of these legends, however, are undoubtedly purely artificial, and the entire legendary history of Ireland prior to the establishment of Christianity in the fifth century partakes largely of this character. It presents us with a minute detail of the colonies supposed to have preceded the settlement of the Scots, with the names and families of their leaders, the exact period, even to the day of the week, of their settlement, the duration of their occupation of the country, the succession of their kings, and the history of the extinction of the colony either by pestilence or expatriation. Then we have the reigns of 116 pagan kings of the Scots, who reigned during twenty-one centuries, given with an extraordinary minuteness and elaboration of detail, and the accompaniment of marvellous incidents, which betrays its legendary character. Ethnic and linguistic legends are of course interwoven in it, and it may contain fragments of history, such as the revolt of the Attachtuatha or servile classes against their lords, and the territorial changes in the divisions of the land and the location of the tribes which took place from time to time; but the marvellous character of the events continues to the establishment of Christianity, as we see in the narrative of the reigns of three last pagan kings, the first of whom, Niall, who reigned from 379 to 405, subjected all Britain and a great part of the Continent to his sway, and received hostages from nine kingdoms, whence he was called Niall of the nine Hostages; Dathy, who was killed by a flash of lightning at the foot of the Alps in the year 428; and Laogaire, who was slain by the elements between two mountains called Erin and Alban for refusing obedience to the mission of St. Patrick. The chronology of this legendary history, too, is entirely artificial, and though some parts of the narrative may have a historic basis, the dates assigned to them are as little to be trusted as the rest of the history itself. One of the tales contained in the Book of Ballimote, by which the knowledge of this wonderful history was supposed to have been preserved to historic times, will furnish a good example of what the imagination of its framers was capable of producing, and it has an interest for us from the connection it had with the great apostle of Scotland, as that of Fintan had with the apostle of Ireland. We are there told that the entire colony of Partholon’s people were destroyed by the plague, excepting one man, Tuan the son of Starn, the son of Seara, Partholon’s brother’s son, and God metamorphosed him into various forms, so that he lived from the time of Partholon to that of Columcille, to whom he related all the information, history, and conquests of Ireland that took place from Ceasair’s time to that period, and then we have the following poem:—
These legends, however, though it has been thought to indicate their real character and to inquire how far they may be supposed to embody ethnologic and linguistic facts or to contain an element of historic truth, in reality concern us only in so far as they tend to throw light upon the constituent elements of the Celtic population of Scotland and the corresponding territorial divisions of the land. So far as regards the early Celtic peoples south of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, we must turn in the first instance to the Cymric legends.[110] They tell us that this population may be referred to three races, the Brython, the Romani, and the Gwyddyl. Thus in a poem contained in the Book of Taliessin we find them thus alluded to:—
Although the word Gwyddyl is in modern Welsh usually translated Irish, yet there can be no doubt that it was originally used in a much wider sense as the equivalent of the Irish word Gaidheal, and was applied to the whole Gaelic race wherever located. Of this there is ample evidence in the old Welsh poems. The Brython are, of course, the Brettones of Bede, or rather here that part of them which occupied the districts extending from the Derwent to the Clyde, and formed the ancient Cumbria. In the same poem they appear under their national name of Cymry, when it is said,
By the Romani, those leaders of the Britons are meant who were supposed to have derived their descent from the Roman military or civil commanders, as when Gildas tells us that the Britons ‘took arms under Ambrosius Aurelianus as their leader, who was of the Roman nation, and whose parents had been adorned with the purple;’purple;’[112] and Nennius, who calls him Embres Guletic, says that his father was a consul of the Roman nation.[113] We find also many of the great leaders of the Britons termed Guledig, the equivalent of the Latin Imperator, and usually expressed by the epithet Aurelius or Aurelianus; and to them no doubt the great national hero Arthur also belonged, who, according to Nennius, led the kings of the Britons against the Saxons as their Dux Bellorum,[114] and whose actions, so far as they are historical, belong to this part of Britain. Of the last two races, the Brython and the Romani, we have an account in an old document, ‘The Descent of the Men of the North.’[115] Here the Cymry, who occupied the northern districts, are said to be the descendants of Coel Hen, or the aged, whose name is preserved in the central district of Ayrshire, now termed Kyle, and of his son, Ceneu. Their descendants appear to have consisted principally of three tribes. They are thus noticed: ‘Three hundred swords of the tribe of Kynvarch, and three hundred shields of Kynwydyon, and three hundred spears of the tribe of Coel. Whatever object they entered into deeply, that never failed.’ The leader of the tribe of Cynvarch, whose grandfather, Gorust Ledlwm, was either son of Coel or of his son Ceneu, was the celebrated Urien Reged, whom Nennius mentions under the name of Urbgen as fighting against Roderic, son of Ida, the founder of the Anglic kingdom of Bernicia, and known in the Welsh poems by the name of Flamddwyn or the Flamebearer. This tribe appears to have occupied the districts lying between the Northern Wall and the Forth, to which the names of Reged and of Mureif were applied. The second tribe was that of Kynwydyon, whose grandfather Garthwys was grandson of Ceneu. The four sons of Kynwyt Kynwdyon are given as the leaders, two of whom are termed Clydrud Eiddyn and Cadrod Calchvynyd, from which we may infer that this tribe was located partly in the district extending from the Esk to the Avon, in which Duneyddyn or Edinburgh, and Caereiddyn or Caredin, are situated, and partly in the district of which Calchvynyd or Kelso was the chief seat. The latter were probably the people afterwards termed the Tevidalenses. The rest of the descendants of Coel were grouped under the name of Coeling, and extended from the Clyde to Loch Ryan, their principal territories being the districts of Carrawg, Coel, and Canawon, which, under the modern form of Garrick, Kyle, and Cuningham, form the county of Ayr.
After thus noticing the three tribes under which the supposed descendants of Coel were ranged, the descent of the Men of the North proceeds to give the pedigrees of those said to be of Roman descent. They are all deduced from Dyfnwal Hen, or the aged, who, in this document, is made the grandson of Macsen Guledig, or Maximus the Roman Emperor, but in the genealogies annexed to Nennius is said to be the grandson of Ceredig Guledig, whose ancestor Confer or Cynvor was the mythic father of Constantius, the father of the Emperor Constantine. These were obviously the Romani of the poem, and can be mainly traced in connection with the central districts of Annandale, Clydesdale, and Tweeddale. The principal race included among them was that of the provincial kings of Strathclyde, descended from Rydderch Hael, who is mentioned in Adamnan’s Life of Saint Columba as reigning in Alclyde or Dumbarton, and whose history is so intimately connected with that of Kentigern, the great apostle of Strathclyde.[116]
To the race of the Gwyddyl or Gaidheal the old Welsh traditions undoubtedly attach the Ffichti or Picts, to whom they invariably give the name of Gwyddyl Ffichti.[117] They occupied the small district extending from the Pentland or Pictland Hills to the river Carron, which was known to the Welsh as Manau Guotodin or Gododin, and to the Irish as the Plain of Manann, from whence they are said by Nennius to have driven out the sons of Cunedda, from whom the kings of North Wales were descended. They also possessed the larger district of Galloway, from the mouth of the Nith to the Irish Sea. This district takes its name from the term applied by the Welsh to its inhabitants, of Galwydel, from which the Latin form of Galwethia was formed;[118] and we find the name of Scoti Picti, which is obviously a Latin rendering of the Welsh term Gwyddyl Ffichti, applied by the author of the Descriptio Albaniæ, who was certainly a Welshman, to the Picts, who, Bede tells us, formed the population of the western districts north of the Clyde, afterwards known by the name of Arregaithel, before the Scots formed their settlement of Dalriada there.