[1285-1286 A.D.] to settle the succession of the crown, and the nobles bound themselves to acknowledge the Maiden of Norway as their sovereign, if he left no male issue on his demise. But still wishing to leave a son as his successor, he married, in 1285, Joleta, the daughter of the Count de Dreux. Superstitious people observed omens attendant on the marriage festivities which they believed to bode fatal misfortune to the king and to the kingdom, and popular prophesies were supposed to be fulfilled when, on the 16th of March, 1286, as he was hurrying homewards in the dusk of the evening by a precipitous road along the sea-coast, between Burnt Island and Kinghorn, in the county ARBROATH ABBEY, Founded 1178. of Fife, his horse missed his footing and fell with his rider down the cliff, and both were killed. Scotland was filled with mourning at this unhappy event, and, in the midst of melancholy anticipations, the Maiden of Norway was called to the throne. Scotland was thus left to the rule not only of an infant (for Margaret was only three years of age) but a female." By the time of Alexander III the process of dividing Scotland into sheriffdoms was nearly completed, the functions of the sheriffs corresponding to those previously exercised by the earls. 66 Alexander II had absorbed Argyll into the Scottish kingdom, and though he perished trying to subdue the Sudrey Islands, Scotland was so solidified by the peaceful reign of Alexander III as to assume the dignity of a nation occupying almost its present limits, as was also the case with England, though, as Hume Brown observes, no other country in Christendom had in the same degree filled out its limits and welded its people." Spain had not yet conquered Granada or combined its five independent kingdoms, France was hardly half its present size, Germany was chaos, and Italy a tangle of jealous cities. Save for a few insurrections of limited extent, peace was almost uninterrupted. But Alexander III was the last of the Celtic kings of Scotland, and storms were to succeed the calm in the inveterate rhythm of history, and an old poet, seeing Scotland become the prey of English ambition, gave voice to a quaint lament, the oldest known fragment of Scottish literature: Quhen Alysandyr, oure Kyng, wes dede REVIEW OF THE PERIOD At this remarkable point in history we pause to contrast the condition of Scotland as it stood in 843, when Kenneth Macalpine first formed the Picts and Scots into one people, and in the year 1286, when death deprived that people of their sovereign Alexander III. At the earlier term we know that the manners of those descended of the [843-1286 A.D.] Dalriads, Scoto-Irish, or pure Scots, properly so called, must have been, as they remained till a much later period, the same with those of the cognate tribes in Ireland, the land of their descent. Their constitution was purely patriarchal, the simplest and most primitive form of government. The blood of the original founder of the family was held to flow in the veins of his successive representatives, and to perpetuate in each chief the right of supreme authority over the descendants of his own line, who formed his children and subjects, as he became by right of birth their sovereign ruler and lawgiver. A nation consisted of a union of several such tribes, having a single chief chosen over them for their general direction in war, and umpire of their disputes in peace. With the family and blood of this chief of chiefs most of the inferior chieftains claimed a connection more or less remote. This supreme chiefdom, or right of sovereignty, was hereditary, in so far as the person possessing it was chosen from the blood royal of the king deceased; but it was so far elective that any of his kinsmen might be chosen by the nation to succeed him; and, as the office of sovereign could not be exercised by a child, the choice generally fell upon a full-grown man, the brother or nephew of the deceased, instead of his son or grandson. The Tanists and the Clans This uncertainty of succession, which prevailed in respect to the crown itself while Celtic manners were predominant, proved a constant source of rebellion and bloodshed. The postponed heir, when he arose in years, was frequently desirous to attain his father's power; and many a murder was committed for the sake of rendering straight an oblique line of succession, which such preference of an adult had thrown out of the direct course. A singular expedient was resorted to, to prevent or diminish such evils. A sort of king of the Romans, or Cæsar, was chosen as the destined successor while the sovereign chief was yet alive. He was called the Tanist, and was inaugurated during the life of the reigning king, but with maimed rites, for he was permitted to place only one foot on the fated stone of election. The monarch had little authority in the different tribes of which the kingdom was composed unless during the time of war. In war, however, the king possessed arbitrary power; and war, foreign and domestic, was the ordinary condition of the people. The clan, or patriarchal, system of government was particularly calculated for regulating a warlike and lawless country, as it provided for decision of disputes, and for the leading of the inhabitants to war, in the easiest and most simple manner possible. The clansmen submitted to the award of the chief in peace; they followed his banner to battle; they aided him with their advice in council, and the constitution of the tribe was complete. The nature of a frontier country exposed it in a peculiar degree to sudden danger, and therefore this compendious mode of government, established there by the Britons, was probably handed down to later times, from its being specially adapted to the exigencies of the situation. But though the usage of clanship probably prevailed there, we are not prepared to show that any of the clans inhabiting the border country carry back their antiquity into the Celtic or British period. Their names declare them of more modern date. As other barbarians, the Celtic tribes were fickle and cruel at times, at other times capable of great kindness and generosity. Those who inhabited the mountains lived by their herds and flocks, and by the chase. The tribes [843-1286 A.D.] who had any portion of arable ground cultivated it, under the direction of the chief, for the benefit of the community. As every clan formed the epitome of a nation within itself, plundering from each other was a species of warfare to which no disgrace was attached; and when the mountaineers sought their booty in the low country, their prey was richer, perhaps, and less stoutly defended than when they attacked a kindred tribe of Highlanders. The Lowlands were therefore chiefly harassed by their incursions. The Picts seem to have made some progress in agriculture, and to have known something of architecture and domestic arts, which are earliest improved in the more fertile countries. But neither the Scots nor the Picts, the men of Galloway nor the Britons of Strathclyde seem to have possessed the knowledge of writing or use of the alphabet. Three or four different nations, each subdivided into an endless variety of independent clans, tribes, and families, were ill calculated to form an independent state so powerful as to maintain its ground among other nations, or defend its liberties against an ambitious neighbour. But the fortunate acquisition of the fertile province of Lothian, including all the country between the Tweed and Forth, and the judicious measures of Malcolm Canmore and his successors, formed the means of giving consistency to that which was loose, and unity to that which was discordant, in the Scottish government. Influence of Foreigners We have noticed what willing reception Malcolm, influenced by his queen, gave to the immigrant Saxons and Normans, and the envy excited in the ancient genuine Scots by the favour extended to these strangers. All the successors of Malcolm (excepting the Hebridean savage Donald Bain) were addicted to the same policy, and purchased knowledge in the way in which it is most honourably obtained, by benefiting and rewarding those who are capable to impart it. Of the Norman barons, generally accounted the flower of Europe, Scotland received from time to time such numerous accessions, that they may be said, with few exceptions, to form the ancestors of the Scottish nobility, and of many of the most distinguished families among the gentry; a fact so well known that it is useless to bring proof of it. These foreigners, and especially the Normans and Anglo-Normans, were superior to the native subjects of the Scottish kings, both in the arts of peace and war. They therefore naturally filled their court, and introduced into the country where they were strangers their own manners and their own laws, which in process of time extended themselves to the other races by which Scotland was inhabited. This intermixture gave a miscellaneous, and, in so far, an incoherent appearance to the inhabitants of Scotland at this period. They seemed not so much to constitute one state as a confederacy of tribes of different origin. Thus the charters of King David and his successors are addressed to all his subjects, French and English, Scottish and Galwegian. The manners, the prejudices of so many mixed races, corrected or neutralised each other; and the moral blending together of nations led in time, like some chemical mixture, to fermentation and subsequent purity. This was forwarded with the best intentions, though perhaps over hastily, and in so far injudiciously, by the efforts of the Scottish kings, who, from Malcolm Canmore's time to that of Alexander III, appear to have been a race of as excellent monarchs as ever swayed sceptre over a rude people. They were prudent in their schemes, and fortunate in the execution; and the exceptions occasioned by the death [1153-1286 A.D.] of Malcolm III and the captivity of William can only be imputed to chivalrous rashness, the fault of the age. They were unwearied in their exercise of justice, which in the more remote corners of Scotland could only be done at the head of an army; and even where the task was devolved upon the sheriffs and vice-sheriffs of counties, the execution of it required frequent inspection. by the king and his high justiciaries, who made circuits for that purpose. The rights of landed property began to be arranged in most of the Lowland counties upon the feudal system then universal in Europe, and so far united Scotland with the general system of civilisation. Spread of English Early Poetry The language which was generally used in Scotland came at length to be English, as the speech of Lothian, the most civilised province of the kingdom and the readiest in which they could hold communication with their neighbours. It must have been introduced gradually, as is evident from the numerous Celtic words retained in old statutes and charters, and rendered general by its being the only language used in writing. We know there was at least one poem composed in English by a Scottish author, which excited the attention of contemporaries. It is a metrical romance on the subject of Sir Tristrem, by Thomas of Erceldoune, who composed it in such "quaint Inglish" as common minstrels could hardly understand or recite by heart. If we may judge of this work from the comparatively modern copy which remains, the style of the composition, brief, nervous, figurative, and concise almost to obscurity, resembles the Norse or Anglo-Saxon poetry more than that of the English minstrels, whose loose, prolix, and trivial mode of composition is called by Chaucer's Host of the Tabard, "drafty rhiming." The structure of the stanza in Sir Tristrem is also very peculiar, elliptical, and complicated, seeming to verify the high eulogy of a poet nearly contemporary," that it is the best geste ever was or ever would be made, if minstrels could recite as the author had composed it." On the contrary, the elegiac ballad on Alexander III, already mentioned, differs only from modern English in the mode of spelling. Besides the general introduction of the English language, which spread itself gradually, doubtless, through the more civilised part of the Lowlands, the Norman-French was also used at court, which, as we learn from the names of witnesses to royal charters, foundations, etc., was the resort of these foreign nobles. It was also adopted as the language of the coronation oath, which shows it was the speech of the nobles, while the version in Latin seems to have been made for the use of the clergy. The Norman-French also, as specially adapted to express feudal stipulations, was frequently applied to law proceedings. The political constitution of Scotland had not as yet arranged itself under any peculiar representative form. The king acted by the advice, and sometimes under the control, of a great feudal council or cour plénière, to which vassals-in-chief of the crown and a part of the clergy were summoned. But there was no representation of the third estate. There was notwithstanding the spirit of freedom in the government; and though the institutions for its preservation were not yet finished in that early age, the great council failed not to let their voice be heard when the sovereign fell into political errors. We have already noticed that the liberties of the church were defended with a spirit of independence hardly equalled in any other state of Europe at the time. Trade and the State of Society [1153-1286 A.D.] The useful arts began to be cultivated. The nobles and gentry sheltered themselves in towers built in strong natural positions. Their skill in architecture, however, could not be extensive, since the construction of a handsome arch, even in Alexander the third's time, could only be accounted for by magic; and the few stately castellated edifices of an early date which remain in Scotland are to be ascribed to the English, during their brief occupation of that country. Scotland enjoyed, during this period, a more extensive trade than historians have been hitherto aware of. Money was current in the country, and the payment of considerable sums, as ten thousand marks to Richard I, and on other occasions, was accomplished without national distress. The Scottish military force was respectable, since, according to Matthew Paris, Alexander II was enabled, in 1244, to face the power of England with a thousand horse, well armed and tolerably mounted, though not on Spanish or Italian horses, and nigh to one hundred thousand infantry, all determined to live or die with their sovereign. The household of the Scottish king was filled with the usual number of feudal officers, and there was an affectation of splendour in the royal establishment, which even the humility of the sainted Queen Margaret did not discourage. She and her husband used at meals vessels of gold and silver plate, or, at least, says the candid Turgot, such as were lacquered over so as to have that appearance. Even in the early days of Alexander I, that monarch (with a generosity similar to that of the lover who presented his bride with a case of razors, as what he himself most prized) munificently bestowed on the church of Saint Andrews an Arabian steed covered with rich caparisons, and a suit of armour ornamented with silver and precious stones, all which he brought to the high altar, and solemnly devoted to the church. Berwick enjoyed the privileges of a free port; and under Alexander III the customs of that single Scottish port amounted to £2,197, 8s., while those of all England only made up the sum of £8,411, 19s., 111d. An ancient historian terms that town a second Alexandria. Lastly, we may notice that the soil was chiefly cultivated by bondsmen ; but the institution of royal boroughs had begun considerably to ameloriate the condition of the inferior orders.d Cosmo Innes has said: "When we consider the long and united efforts required, in the early state of the arts, for throwing a bridge over any considerable river, the early occurrence of bridges may be well admitted as one of the best tests of civilisation and national prosperity. If we reflect how few of these survived the middle of the fourteenth century, and how long it was, and by what painful efforts, before they could be replaced in later times, we may form some idea of the great progress in civilisation which Scotland had made during the reign of William, and the peaceful times of the two Alexanders. We do not know much of the intellectual state of the population during that age; but, regarding it only in a material point of view, it may safely be affirmed that Scotland, at the death of King Alexander III, was more civilised and more prosperous than at any period of her existence, down to the time when she ceased to be a separate kingdom in 1707." k Such was the condition of Scotland at the end of the thirteenth century; but we only recognise laws and institutions in those parts of the kingdom |