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Scotland - Monarchy

The Scots have no history or records (of the high antiquities) but what they copied or transcribed from those of Ireland. This supposed, it follows in course that the storiesof the Irish and Scotish seanachies concerning the origin, genealogy, and various transmigrations of the Channagaod-hall or Milesian race, were originally the same, as proceeding from the same source, to wit, the Irish bards or seanachies. Now it is certain that the accounts which the Irish and. Scots give of these antiquities are become in progress of time very difl‘erent, both as to the genealogy, the time of their first settlement in Ireland, the founders, and beginning of their monarchy there; and, by consequence, either the Irish or the Scotish antiquaries must have made considerable alterations in them since the times that the Scots at first received them from the Irish.

The Scots in Britain had no private interest or national concern in transactions which are supposed to have passed long before they came to be settled in Britain as a distinct people from the Irish, and therefore would naturally leave the genealogies, names of founders, and epochs of their coming to Ireland in the same case as they had at first received them from the Irish bards, without any alteration by design. Whereas, on the contrary, the Irish writers had private motives, and a national concern, as we shall just now see, for the honour of their country, to alter them; since, in order to render their history and genealogies the more likely, and to raise their settlement in Ireland, and beginning of their monarchy in the Milesian line, to a greater height of antiquity, they were under a necessity of reforming and polishing the first rude drafts of their antiquities.

Both the Scotish and Irish antiquaries bring down the genealogies from Noah’s son Japhet; but the first inventors of the genealogy bring the descent by Gomer, as being J aphet’s eldest son; and so it is set down by Magraith,‘ one of the most famous Irish genealogists, and the Scots have still retained it. It appears that in the first drafts of this genealogy there were one hundred and four descents from Adam — that is, ninety-four from Noah, till Conarcmor, whom the Irish place about the time of the incarnation; and the Scots, in their drafts of it, retain still the same number of generations or descents. It was the custom of their bards in former ages to reform their antiquities, to render them more conformable to other received histories.

Gathelus, son of Niulus, having fled to Egypt, married Scota, Pharaoh’s daughter, and that in Moses' time. That on occasion of the plagues sent on Eg pt, Gathelus left it, with his wife Scots. and followers, and after a long pilgrimage arrived in Spain, and there settled a kingdom of Scots, so called from this Scots; and from him descended Micelius or Milesius, in the thirteenth degree, his successor in the kingdom of Scots in Spain. This Gathelus, before he died, sent the first colony to Ireland, under his son Hyber, and from him the island took its name. The Scots, having become a distinct nation from the Irish, had no interest to rectify the errors of those antiquities, and therefore preserved the accounts of them, without examining whether likely or not, but contented themselves to hand them down to posterity such as they found them.

Simon Breac, who carried with him the famous fatal stone, and placed it as the seat of the kingdom at Themor or Teambra, and thus founded the monarchy of the Scots in Ireland about the time of Manasses, king of Judah, that is, about six hundred years before the birth of Christ. From this Simon Breac, say the Scots, are descended all the monarchs of Ireland, and in after ages those of Scotland. The modern Irish abettors of their high antiquities are obnoxious to the very same reproach that they make to the modern writers of Scotland, of having placed the beginning of the monarchy of the Scots in Britain about seven hundred years before the true era of that monarchy, and of having added to the number of their kings in Britain, from Fergus 1 till Fergus II, forty kings that had been unknown to more ancient writers.

Scotish historians, and all others that mention these kings, do generally agree that the name of the first king of Scots in Britain was Fergus. But they were divided in this, whether it was Fergus son of Ferchard, called Fergus the First, or Fergus son of Erch, called Fergus the Second, who, according to the most ancient genealogy of these kings, lived about thirty-two generations after the first Fergus. All the Scotish historians from Fordun downwards, or since his chronicle was published, about A.D.1447, followed his opinion, and own Fergus son of Ferchard for the first king of the Scots, and that he began his reign three hundred and thirty years before the incarnation; whereas they place the reign of Fergus, son of Erch, or Fergus II, in the beginning of the fifth century of Christianity.

The Picts, the Scots, the Angles, and the Britons were all of one religion, so that it was made easier for one king to become ruler over the whole of North Britain. In the year 844, a king of the Scots of Dalriada, named Kenneth MacAlpin, that is, Kenneth, son of Alpin, became king of the Picts as well as king of the Scots. There was now only one king to the north of the river Forth and the Firth of Clyde. As Kenneth MacAlpin now ruled over two peoples instead of one, he was more powerful than either the king of the Britons or the king of the Angles. The king of Scotia who at last succeeded in conquering Lothian, was Malcolm II, who reigned from the year 1005 to the year 1034. In the very year (1018) in which he won the battle of Carham at which Lothian ended, the king of the Britons of Strathclyde, or Cumbria, as it was now called, died, and left no heir to succeed him. But there had been several marriages between the families of the kings of the Scots and the kings of the Britons, and thus it happened that the nearest heir to the throne of Cumbria was King Malcolm, or, at least, his grandson Duncan. And so, at last, after so many hundred years, one king became master of the whole of North Britain from the Tweed to the Pentland Firth.

Besides enemies within their kingdom, the kings of Scotland had two enemies without, against whom they had often to fight — the Northmen and the English. The kings of Scotland had still another danger to fight against within their own kingdom. There was a part of the country called Moray, much larger than the present county of Moray, in which there lived a family who claimed that the crown of Scotland belonged to them and not to the family that possessed it. For fully two hundred years the descendants of this family kept trying to win the crown for themselves. Almost every time a new king came to the throne, they rose in rebellion, and very often there were more rebellions than one in the course of a single reign. These "mormaers" of Moray, or earls of Moray, as they came to be called, were, therefore, a thorn in the side of the kings of Scotland, as they could never be sure when a new rebellion would break out.

Upon the demise of Margaret (Maid of Norway) in the year 1290, the two principal claimants for the crown were John Balliol and Robert Bruce. It was quite apparent that the question lay between them, the rights of the other competitors being evidently inferior to theirs. The title of these two chiefs arose out of the circumstance, that on the death of all descendants of Alexander the Third, the crown reverted to the descendants of David, earl of Huntingdon, brother of king William the Lion. This David left three daughters, Margaret, the eldest, who married Alan, lord of Galloway; Isabella, the second, who married Robert Bruce, father to the competitor Robert Bruce, lord of Annandale; and Ada, the third daughter, who married John de Hastings. It was evident, therefore, that the question lay between Balliol and Bruce.

But at this sad moment Scotland, which in vain looked for a deliverer among its feudal nobles, found one in a man of far inferior rank. William Wallace was the son of Sir Malcolm Wallace, who held the estate of Ellcrslie, near Paisley. Having been outlawed by the English for an alleged murder, committed on one by whom he had been grievoust injured, he fled into the fastnesses of his country, and assembling round him a small band of followers, who were weary of their servitude, commenced that kind of predatory warfare, which led from one success to another, till he saw himself at the head of a formidable force. With this he boldly descended into the low country, and after having defeated the English in the sanguinary battle of Stirling, was soon after chosen Governor of Scotland. This title he only accepted as acting in the name of John Balliol, whom he had always acknowledged as his hereditary king.

The feudal aristocracy, which had been subverted ia most nations of Europe by the policy of their princes, or had been undermined by the progress of commerce, still subsisted with full force in Scotland. Many causes had contributed gradually to augument the power of the Scottish nobles; and even the reformation, which, in every other country where it prevailed, added to the authority of the monarch, had increased their wealth and influence.

A king possessed of a small revenue, with a prerogative extremely limited, and unsupported by a standing army, could not exercise much authority over such potent subjects. He was obliged to govern by expedients; and the laws derived their force not from his power to execute them, but from the voluntary submission of the nobles. But though this produced a species of government extremely feeble and irregular; though Scotland, under the name, and with all the outward ensigns of a monarchy, was really subject to an aristocracy, the people were not altogether unhappy; and even in this wild form of a constitution, there were principles, which tended to their security and advantage.

The king, checked and overawed by the nobles, dared venture upon no act of arbitrary power. The nobles, jealous of the king, whose claims and pretensions were many, though his power was small, were afraid of irritating their dependants by unreasonable exactions, and tempered the rigour of aristocratical tyranny, with a mildness and equality to which it is naturally a stranger. As long as the military genius of the feudal government remained in vigor, the vassals both of the crown and of the barons were generally not only free from oppression, but were courted by their superiors, whose power and importance were founded on their attachment and love.

But by his accession to the throne of England, James acquired such an immense accession of wealth, of power, and of splendour, that the nobles, astonished and intimidated, thought it vain to struggle for privileges which they were now unable to defend. Nor was it from fear alone that they submitted to the yoke; James, partial to his countrymen, and willing that they should partake in his good fortune, loaded them with riches and honours; and the hope of his favour concurred with the dread of his power, in taming their fierce and independent spirits.