Two close trumpets in mourning.

'Then the corpse garnished with scutcheons and epitaphs attended by

'The Earl of Errol, Lord High Constable of Scotland; the Earls of Buchan, Tweedale, Dumfries, Kinghorn: the Viscount of Frendraught: The Lords Rae, Fraser, Forrester: Master Robert Hay of Dronlaw, George Hay of Kininmonth, with a multitude of the name of Hay and other relations.'

Thus were the two comrades laid to rest, near to the hall where they had heard their doom, and the Tolbooth where they had awaited the summons to the great gibbet of thirty feet high' that stood beyond the church between the Cross and the Tron.

After the erection of the Montrose Memorial in 1888, a mural tablet was placed on the wall of the Montrose aisle, in accordance with the precedent of the Montrose Monument, by the descendants of those present at the ceremony of 1661 in connection with Sir William Hay's obsequies, by others of his name, and a few otherwise interested. It is placed directly under the large window, the frame being of red sandstone, and the inscription slab of grey marble with gilt lettering. The arms of Sir William Hay and his wife Dorothy Bruce of Pittarthy surmount the tablet, and on either side is carved the ox yoke which was the crest of his branch of the family. The inscription, rendered in Latin by Professor Ramsay, runs :

IN HONOREM

GULIELMI HAY DE DELGATY EQUITIS

QUI AD CRUCEM EDINENSEM

ULTIMUM PERTULIT SUPPLICIUM

A.D. VII. ID. JAN. A.D. 1650.

REGI DEDITUS DUCIQUE

ID SOLUM MORIENS OBSECRAVIT

UT CUM DUCE ILLO DILECTISSIMO

MORTUUS JACERET.

CUJUS COMPOS VOTI

HIC SEPULTUS EST

A.D. XI. ID. MAI A.D. 1661.

A COGNATIS AMICISQUE

QUORUM POSTERI

HOC MONUMENTUM POSUERUNT

A.D. 1888.

Time Deum. Regem honorificate.

There

Sir William Hay had a son, William, who succeeded him in the estate of Delgaty, and was for a short time (1687) Bishop of Moray. His daughter and heiress married Cuthbert of Castlehill, but during part of the eighteenth century the lands of Delgaty were in possession of the Earls of Erroll. was a ratification to Lord Erroll of the Lands and Barony of Delgaty in 1701 and in 1722. Mary, Countess of Erroll, with consent of her husband, Mr. Alexander Hay of Delgatyby birth a Falconer-granted a precept in favour of Patrick Gordon of Auchleuchries, the son of the famous General of Peter the Great. Delgaty passed from the Erroll family about 1762. The standing of the house during its period of power and prosperity is testified by the old distich:

There be six great barons of the North,

Fyvie, Findlater and Philorth;

And if ye wad ken the other three,

Pitsligo, Drum, and Delgatie.'

JAMES FERGUSON.

S.

Saint Maolrubha '

MAOLRUBHA or Sagart Ruadh (both names mean the Red Priest) stands out in history as one of the most interesting of the missionaries to the Picts of Alba (Scotland). He was himself a Pict on the mother's side. He laboured in Alba during the latter part of the seventh century and the beginning of the eighth century.

Both the name and the history of Maolrubha have been greatly confused by historical writers. Either among a nonPictish branch of the Celts, or owing to popular fancy, the name Sagart Ruadh came to run concurrently with the Pictish name Maolrubha. For example, in the parish of Lairg2 the Saint is popularly known as Sagart Ruadh, while the parish Church has always been known as S. Ma-rui's,3 and the island on Loch Shin where the ancient cell stood is 'Innis Ma-rui'.' The two names misled some of the Roman Catholic writers, and even so great an authority as Dr. Reeves, into supposing that Maolrubha and Sagart Ruadh were different persons. The Roman Catholic writers also confused Maolrubha with S. Rufus of Capua. Dr. Reeves identified Sagart Ruadh with a certain

1 Maol in old Irish. Also mael. Welsh moil = bald. This is the spelling in the account of the mothers of Irish saints. Some Irish and modern Gaelic writers spell the name Maelruadh. Tighernac's spelling is Maelruba. There is evidence that in the Roman Catholic period the bh was not aspirated; but sounded, sometimes as a and sometimes as an f. Those who used the latter sound assimilated the latter half of the name as nearly as possible to Rufus and took rubha, rûfus, and ruadh as equivalents. Whether the bh in rubha is due to Latin influence on the Celtic, or represents a development from Indo-European dh parallel to ƒ in provincial Latin, I leave to specialists.

2 Cf. History of the Parish of Lairg, by Rev. D. Macrae. p. 10.

3 Cf. Dr. Hew Scott, Fasti. Eccl. Scot.

4 Dr. Reeves contributed a paper to the Antiquarian Society on S. Maolrubha in 1862. He had previously dealt with the saint in the Irish Ecclesiastical Journal in 1849. See Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot. vol. iii. pp. 258-296.

5 Cf. Breviary of Aberdeen. S. Rufus' day is August 27.

Gilla-Patrick the Red, a reputed ancestor of certain Ross-shire lairds. These Ross-shire lairds, however, claimed descent not only from Gilla-Patrick the Red, but from Maolrubha or Sagart Ruadh himself. This claim we can quite understand and explain when we remember that those who made it held Maolrubha's lands of Applecross, to which they had to profess some sort of title.2

Dr. Reeves, at the outset of his inquiries, prevented himself from recognising that 'Sagart Ruadh' is the later Gaelic-speaking people's variant of the Saint's name, by interpreting Maolrubha' as either Servant of Patience or 'Servant of the Promontory.' 'Maolrubha means, The Tonsured-one with the Red-hair, or with the Ruddy complexion.

There is more in this name Maolrubha' than is conveyed to an English ear. One of the secondary meanings of Maol refers to the bare forehead. The Picts applied the name with this sense to the bald brow of a mountain, and the name still survives in many districts.

When we recollect that the Celtic tonsure was from ear to ear, we can fully appreciate the appropriateness and historical

1 I understand that two of the families concerned did not thank Dr. Reeves for his laboured attempt to identify the Sagart Ruadh with Gilla-Patrick the Red. If Dr. Reeves had been correct the origin of these families would have been put about 500 years later than is reputed.

A Sutherland family also claimed descent from Maolrubha. While the Rossshire lairds claim through a daughter, the Sutherland laird claimed through a Needless to add, the Sutherland laird also held land belonging to a church of Maolrubha.

son.

2 Both the Rosses and the MacKenzies claim descent from Sagart Ruadh of Applecross. Each family has its own peculiar tradition. The tradition of the MacKenzies, being the later, is the more impossible and fanciful of the two. Evidently when the Vikings made Applecross untenable as a religious centre the O'Beollans, the ancestors of the Rosses, usurped the rights and powers of the Ab.

3 Cf. Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot. vol. iii. 1862, and Irish Ecc. Journal, 1849. Dr. Reeves was unintentionally misled by information supplied by Dr. Skene. He was also further misled by some folk-gossip collected and supplied to him by the minister of Lochcarron.

4 The early Irish shaved the heads of all captives or slaves. The shaving was a token of servility. Hence Maol, apart from the tonsure, would be very appropriate to those who were followers of Him who took upon Himself the form of a servant,' and, who rejoiced in being servants of the servants of God.

Cf. Dr. Reeves' interpretation of Maol, and MacBain's hypothetical Mag(u)lo servile, short-haired, bald.

value of the name 'Maol-rubha.' It is a name which in no way suggests the hollow tonsure of the Latin Church, and could not be accurately suggested by it.

MAOLRUBHA'S FAMILY AND ORIGIN.

Maolrubha's ancestors on both sides can be traced to about the year 398 A.D. He was of the Irish Royal line, being descended on his father's side from Niall, Sovereign Paramount 1 Niall, King Paramount of Ireland.

Eoghan

Eochaidh Binnigh

Crimthann

Cuboirem

Lugaidh

Crimthann

Ernan

Forgo

Brian

Eochaidh

Garbh

Sedna

-Elganach

= Subtan

Maolrubha.

Ollarbach

of Ireland. Consequently he shared the same blood as Aidan, King of the Scots of Dalriada, and S. Columba.

In all likelihood the popularity of Maolrubha in Argyll was due more to his lineage than to his message. He was attracted to Argyll by the descendants of the conquered Picts; but he appears to have won also the affections of the people of Dalriadic origin.

More influential on Maolrubha than the Royal blood of his father's people was the saintly strain of his mother's family. His mother, Subtan,2 was a niece of S. Comgall the Great of Benchar (Bangor).

S. Comgall had been trained with S. Columba under S. Mobhi in the famous religious house of Glasnevin. Ultimately, S. Comgall surpassed S. Mobhi in popular favour and founded

1 See Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot. vol. iii. 1862.

2 Cf. Feilere of Aengus. The genitive Suaibsech in the tract on the Mothers of Irish Saints is a variant, not a scribe's error.

It is interesting to note that colloquially the Gaelic people vary the name Susan into Su'an and Susac to this day.