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68 The same Finleikr who appears in Tighernac as Findlaec mac Ruaidhri, Mormaer Moreb, and in the Ulster Annals as "Ri Alban," indicating that he claimed a position of independence both from the earls of Orkney and the kings of the Scots. Celtic Scotland, P. 389.

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70 He was, however, murdered through the wickedness of a family, the murderers of both his grandfather and great-grandfather, the head of which was Machabeus, son of Finele, by whom he was privily wounded unto death at Bothgofnane; and, being carried to Elgin, he died there, and was buried, a few days after, in the island of Iona. Fordun, book iv., ch. xliv.

71 Innes, Ap. 4. Sim., Hist. Dun., i., 3, c. 5, 6; Ibid., De Obs. Dun., p. 81 ; De Gestis, 1018. On comparing the passages of Simeon it is impossible to doubt that the cession of Lothian by Eadulf Cudel was the result of the battle of Carham, though there is an evident reluctance in the English chronicler to allude to the defeat and its consequences. The men of the Lothians, according to Wallingford, retained their laws and customs unaltered, and though the authority is questionable, the fact is probably true, for Lothian law became eventually the basis of Scottish law. Conquest indeed in these times did not alter the laws and customs of the conquered, unless where they come into contact and into opposition with those of the conquerors, and the men of the Lothians remained under the Scottish kings in much the same position as the men of Kent under the kings of Mercia and Wessex, probably exchanging the condition of a harassed for that of a favored frontier province. Scotland under her Early Kings, vol. i., p. 96.

72 The Firth of Forth.

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13 Scotland had now reached her permanent and lasting frontier towards the south, the dependent principality of Strathclyde, having, apparently, during the course of this reign, been finally incorporated with the greater kingdom. When Donald, son of the Eogan who shared in the bloody fight of Brunanburgh, died on a pilgrimage in 975, he seems to have been succeeded by his son Malcolm, whose death is noticed by the Irish Tighernac under the date of 997. The last king of Strathclyde, who has found a place in history, is Eogan "the Bald," who fought by the side of the Scottish king at Carham, probably a son of the British Malcolm whose family name he bears; and in the person of this Eogan the line of Aodh's son, Donald, appears to have become extinct. The earliest authorities of the twelfth century give the title of "king of the Cumbrians," meaning undoubtedly the northern Cumbria or Strathclyde, to Malcolm's grandson, Duncan, and it is probable that upon the failure of the line of Scoto-British princes, the King of Scotland placed his grandson over the province, which from that time, losing the last semblance of independence, ceased to be ruled by a separate line of princes. Robertson, Scotland under her Early Kings, vol. i., p. 98.

"We have already seen how the political relations of the Scots with their southern neighbors had been affected by the action of the Danes. Pressed between the Norse jarls settled in Caithness and the Danelaw of Central England, the Scot kings were glad to welcome the friendship of Wessex; but with the conquest by the house of Ælfred of the Danelaw, and the extension of the new English realm to their own southern border, their dread of English ambition became in its turn greater than their dread of the Dane. In the battle of Brunanburgh the Scot king, Constantine, fought side by side with the Northmen against Æthelstan. Eadmund's gift of southern Cumbria showed the price which the English kings set upon Scottish friendship. The district was thenceforth held by the heir of the Scottish crown, and for a time at least the policy of conciliation seems to have been successful, for the Scots proved Eadred's allies in his wars with Northumbria. But even as allies they were still pressing southward on the English realm. Across the Forth lay the English Lowlands, that northern Bernicia which had escaped the Danish settlement that changed the neighboring Deira into a part of the Danelaw. It emerged from the Danish storm as English as before, with a line of native ealdormen who seem to have inherited the blood of its older kings. Harassed as the

land had been, and changed as it was from the Northumbria of Baeda or Cuthbert, Bernicia was still a tempting bait to the clansmen of the Scottish realm.

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"One important post was already established on Northumbrian soil. Whether by peaceful cession on Eadred's part or no, the border fortress of Edinburgh passed during his reign into Scottish hands. It is uncertain if the grant of Lothian by Eadgar followed the acquisition of Edinburgh; but at the close of his reign the southward pressure of the Scots was strongly felt. Raids upon Saxony' are marked by the Pictish Cronicle among the deeds of King Kenneth; and amidst the troubles of Æthelred's reign a Scottish host swept the country to the very gates of Durham. But Durham was rescued by the sword of Uhtred, and the heads of the slain marauders were hung by their long, twisted hair round its walls. The raid and the fight were memorable as the opening of a series of descents which were from this time to form much of the history of the north. Cnut was hardly seated on the throne when in 1018 the Scot king, Malcolm, made a fresh inroad on Northumbria, and the flower of its nobles fell fighting round Earl Eadwulf in a battle at Carham, on the Tweed.

"Few gains have told more powerfully on the political character of a kingdom than this. King of western Dalriada, king of the Picts, lord of Cumbria, the Scot king had till now been ruler only of Gaelic and Cymric peoples. 'Saxony,' the land of the English across the Forth, had been simply a hostile frontier—the land of an alien race—whose rule had been felt in the assertion of Northumbrian supremacy and West-Saxon over-lordship. Now for the first time Malcolm saw Englishmen among his subjects. Lothian, with its Northumbrian farmers and seamen, became a part of his dominion. And from the first moment of its submission it was a most important part. The wealth, the civilization, the settled institutions, the order of the English territory won by the Scottish king, placed it at the head of the Scottish realm. The clans of Kintyre or of the Highlands, the Cymry of Strathclyde, fell into the background before the stout farmers of northern Northumbria. The spell drew the Scot king, in course of time, from the very land of the Gael. Edinburgh, an English town in the English territory, became ultimately his accustomed seat. In the midst of an English district the Scot kings gradually ceased to be the Gaelic chieftains of a Gaelic people. The process at once began which was to make them Saxons, Englishmen in tongue, in feeling, in tendency, in all but blood. Nor was this all. The gain of Lothian brought them into closer political relations with the English crown. The loose connection which the king of Scots and Picts had acknowledged in owning Eadward the Elder as father and lord, had no doubt been drawn tighter by the fealty now owed for the fief of Cumbria. But Lothian was English ground, and the grant of Lothian made the Scot king 'man' of the English king for that territory, as Earl Eadwulf was Cnut's 'man' for the land to the south of it. Social influences, political relations, were henceforth to draw the two realms together; but it is in the cession of Lothian that the process really began.” — Green, Conquest of England, ch. ix., secs. 38–40.

It should be borne in mind that Mr. Green writes from the customary English point of view in stating that the conquest of Lothian by Malcolm made the Scottish kings the liege men of the rulers of England. Scottish historians contend that the record of their king having acknowledged Eadward the Elder as 'father and lord" is a fabricated one; and the evidence seems to be with them. See p. 359.

46

OF

CHAPTER XVI

THE BRITONS

F the Romanized Britons after the departure of the imperial legions in the early part of the fifth century, we have no definite record until the time of Gildas,' who wrote about 556. His description of the conquest of the island by the Saxons is more particularly confined to the events which took place in Kent. However, he gives a brief account of the inhabitants "between the Walls," and of their weak and inadequate defence against the Picts and Scots. The legendary accounts of the battles of King Arthur with the Saxons, as given in the compilation of Nennius, while no doubt to a certain degree mythical, at least show us that the portion of Britain with which Arthur's name and achievements were earliest connected was not within the bounds of the present Wales; but in the vicinity of Carlisle, and to a great extent north of Solway Firth. These accounts of Nennius are as follows:

838. Hengist, after this, said to Vortigern, "I will be to you both a father and an adviser; despise not my counsels, and you shall have no reason to fear being conquered by any man or any nation whatever; for the people of my country are strong, warlike, and robust: if you approve, I will send for my son and his brother, both valiant men, who at my invitation will fight against the Scots, and you can give them the countries in the north, near the wall called Gual [Antoninus's wall]." The incautious sovereign having assented to this, Octa and Ebusa arrived with forty ships. In these they sailed round the country of the Picts, laid waste the Orkneys, and took possession of many regions, even to the Pictish confines.

§ 50. St. Germanus, after Vortigern's death, returned into his own country. At that time the Saxons greatly increased in Britain, both in strength and numbers. And Octa, after the death of his father Hengist, came from the sinistral part of the island to the kingdom of Kent, and from him have proceeded all the kings of that province, to the present period.

Then it was that the magnanimous Arthur, with all the kings and military force of Britain, fought against the Saxons. And though there were many more noble than himself, yet he was twelve times chosen their commander, and was as often conqueror. The first battle in which he was engaged was at the mouth of the river Gleni. The second, third, fourth and fifth, were on another river, by the Britons called Dubglas, in the region Linnius. The sixth on the river Bassas. The seventh in the wood Celidon, which the Britons call Cat Coit Celidon. The eighth was near Guinnion Castle, where Arthur bore the image of the Holy Virgin, mother of God, upon his shoulders, and through the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the holy Mary, put the Saxons to flight, and pursued them the whole day with. great slaughter. The ninth was at the city of Legion, which is called Cair Lion. The tenth was on the banks of the river Tribruit. The eleventh was on the mountain Breguoin, which we call Agned. The twelfth was a most severe contest, when Arthur penetrated to the hill of Badon. In this engagement, nine hundred and forty fell by his hand alone, no one but the Lord

affording him assistance. In all these engagements the Britons were successful. For no strength can avail against the will of the Almighty.

The more the Saxons were vanquished, the more they sought for new supplies of Saxons from Germany; so that kings, commanders, and military bands were invited over from almost every province. And this practice they continued till the reign of Ida, who was the son of Eoppa; he, of the Saxon race, was the first king of Bernicia, and in Cair Ebrauc [York].

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The "river Gleni " has been usually identified with the Glen, a river in the northern part of Northumberland; the "Dubglas, in the region of Linnius," with the two streams called Douglas, or Dubhglass, in Lennox, which fall into Loch Lomond, and also with the Dunglas, which formed. the southern boundary of Lothian; the Bassas, with an isolated rock in the Firth of Forth, near the town of North Berwick, called The Bass"; the "wood Celidon," with the Caledonian forest; the fastness of "Guinnion," with the church of Wedale, in the vale of the Gala Water; the mount called "Agned" with Edinburgh. In the chronicle attached to Nennius, Arthur is said to have been slain at the battle of Camlan in 537, in which he fought Medraud. This Medraud was the son of Lleu of Lothian. It is true, Mr. Guest has located the sites of many of these battles in the south; but the preponderance of evidence favors the northern localities as given above.' The Arthurian romances, which appeared at a later date than the Nennius fragments, also pertain largely to Arthur's adventures in the north, and this to a far greater extent than is generally realized, even by those who are familiar with that romantic literature.'

The district in Scotland occupied by the Britons at this time comprised all that part of the country between the Clyde and the Solway lying west of the Esk, excepting that southern portion west of the Nith, occupied in Ptolemy's time by the Novantæ, the supposed progenitors of the Niduarian or Galloway Picts. Later, the British territory was reduced through the partial subjugation of Galloway by the Northumbrians, mention of which is made as early as 750. During the next hundred years, probably about the time of Kenneth MacAlpin's accession to the Pictish throne, 843-44, there seem also to have been settlements made by the Irish or Dalriada Scots or Picts along the western and southern coasts of Galloway.'

Ida, the Angle, who built the strong citadel of Bamborough, on the northeast coast of England in 547, reigned over Bernicia for twelve years. His successors are described by Nennius as follows:

§ 63. Adda, son of Ida, reigned eight years; Ethelric, son of Adda, reigned four years. Theodoric, son of Ida, reigned seven years. Freothwulf reigned six years; in whose time the kingdom of Kent, by the mission of Gregory, received baptism. Hussa reigned seven years. Against him fought four kings, Urien, and Ryderchen, and Guallauc, and Morcant. Theodoric fought bravely, together with his sons, against that Urien. But at that time sometimes the enemy and sometimes our countrymen were defeated, and he shut them up three days and three nights in the island of

Metcaut; and whilst he was on an expedition he was murdered, at the instance of Morcant, out of envy, because he possessed so much superiority over all the kings in military science. Eadfered Flesaurs reigned twelve years in Bernicia, and twelve others in Deira, and gave to his wife, Bebba, the town of Dynguoaroy, which from her is called Bebbanburg [Bamborough].

The British king, Ryderchen (or Rhydderch) mentioned in this passage, fought a great battle against some of the other Welsh " chiefs in 573, at Arddyred (now Arthuret) on the river Esk, about eight miles north of Carlisle." Rhydderch was victorious, and became sovereign ruler of all the northern Britons, with his capital established at Alclyde." Adamnan, who was born in 624, mentions him in his Life of Columba," as Rodericus, son of Tothail, who reigned at the rock of Cluaithe (Petra-Cloithe, Alclyde, or Dumbarton.) Adamnan states also that Rhydderch was a friend and correspondent of St. Columba. His death is said to have occurred in 603."

in 642, the Annals of Tighernac record the killing of Domnall Brecc, king of the Dalriad Scots, at Strathcawin, by Oan (Owen, or Eugein), king of the Britons.16

In 654, Oswiu, King of Bernicia, defeated the Britons and Mercians, under the command of Penda the Mercian king, in a battle fought in Lothian, and thus obtained supremacy over the Strathclyde people. Their subjection to the Angles continued for about thirty years, until the disastrous defeat and death of Ecgfrid at Nechtansmere (Dunnichen) in 685." In the year 658, the Ulster Annals record the death of Guiret, King of Alclyde. There is then an interval of thirty-six years before another death record appears. In 694, Tighernac mentions the death of Domnall mac Avin, King of Alclyde, whom Mr. Skene supposes to have been the son of that Owen who is said to have slain Domnall Brecc in 642. Domnall mac Avin was succeeded by Beli or Bili, son of Alpin, and grandson of the same Owen. In 752, Tighernac refers to the death of “Tuadar mac Bili Ri Alochlandaih" (Tuadubr, son of Bili, King of Alclyde)." Four years later, Eadberht, King of Northumbria, and Angus, King of the Picts, led an army to Alclyde, and there compelled the submission of the British."

It is probable that Strathclyde remained under the rule of Northumbria for some time after this conquest. The Annals of Ulster record the burning of Alclyde in the calends of January, 780; and in 828, King Ecgbryht is said to have overrun and subdued the North Welsh." From that time there is but little record of the kingdom until nearly half a century later, when it again appears as the British kingdom of Strathclyde. In the year 872, the Ulster Annals inform us that Artgha, king of the Britons of Strathclyde, was put to death, at the instigation of Constantine (son of Kenneth mac Alpin), then king of the Picts. The descent of this Artgha from Dunnagual, whose death is recorded in 760, is given in the Welsh genealogies attached to Nennius.

Simeon of Durham records the invasion of the Strathclyde district by the

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