ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS 
 
ESSAYS 
 
 ON 
 
 HOME SUBJECTS 
 
 JOHN 
 
 THIKD MARQUESS OF BUTE, K.T., LL.D. 
 
 PAISLEY: ALEXANDER GARDNER 
 
 publisher bg JVppointmcnt to ihe laU (Sixteen IBittoria 
 
 1904 
 
LONDON : 
 
 SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & CO., LMD. 
 
 Omi LIBRARY 
 
 BOSTON COLLEGE riilNTliU BY AI.EXANDEK GARDfJER, I'AlSI.IiV 
 
The following Essays are reprinted from the 
 Scottish Revietv, where they originally appeared at 
 the dates mentioned in the Table of Contents. 
 
 To the Essays has been added the Address 
 which its author delivered on his installation, on 
 20th November, 1893, as Kector of the University 
 of St. Andrews — an office to which His Lordship 
 was elected for the usual period of three years in 
 November 1892, and again in November 1895. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2014 
 
 https://archive.org/details/essaysonhomesubjOObute 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Ancient Celtic Latin Hymns, - - 9 
 
 {February 188S.) 
 
 The New Light upon St. Patrick, - 41 
 
 {July 1884..) 
 
 The Scottish Peerage, - - - - 79 
 
 {January 1886). 
 
 Parliament in Scotland, - - - 119 
 
 {October 1889.) 
 
 David Duke of Rothesay, - - - 145 
 
 {April 1892.) 
 
 Brendan's Fabulous Voyage, - - 187 
 
 {April 1893.) 
 
 St. Andrews, ------ 227 
 
 {November 20, 1898.) 
 
 Index, 
 
 265 
 
ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 ANCIENT CELTIC LATIN HYMNS. 
 
 Anecdota quce ex Amhrosiance BihliotheccB codicibus 
 nunc primum emit Ludovicus Antonius Mura- 
 torius. ToMUS Tertius. Patavii : Typis 
 Seminarii, mdccxiii. 
 
 Ledbliar imuiun. The Book of Hymns of the 
 Ancient Church of Ireland. Dublin : Printed 
 at the University Press, for the Irish Archaeo- 
 logical and Celtic Society, 1855, and (Second 
 Part) 1869. 
 
 TT is proposed in the following paper to give a 
 -■- short account of the group of Latin hymns 
 which formed part of the literature, and some of 
 which entered into the worship, of that antient 
 Celtic Church of Ireland and Scotland, whose 
 clergy, through an inaccuracy now happily almost 
 extinct, were at one time frequently, and are even 
 now occasionally, designated by the generic name 
 of Culdees. It is not intended to deal with Celtic 
 writers such as Sedulius, whose works have been 
 mainly, if not entirely, confined to the Continent, 
 nor with mediaeval or modern hymnographers such 
 as those whose compositions are found in the 
 
 2 
 
10 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 Aberdeen Breviary, but only with those of the 
 golden age of the Scoto-Irish Church, before its 
 institutions became ruined or modified from Teu- 
 tonic causes, such as the incursions of the Danes 
 or the influence of the Cantuarian school of ecclesi- 
 asticism. Some few of these curious poems were 
 certainly not themselves of Celtic origin, but their 
 interest is well nigh the same, as throwing light 
 upon the feelings, practices, and beliefs of the 
 school by which they w^ere assimilated. 
 
 The whole number of these Latin hymns of 
 which the present writer knows of the existence, 
 is twenty-seven, and with two exceptions they are 
 all to be found either in the Antiphonarium 
 Benchorense or in the Leabhar imuiun. 
 
 The Antiphonarium Benchorense is a MS. in 
 the Ambrosian Library at Milan, and was printed 
 at full length by Muratori in the volume named at 
 the head of this article. The text is extremely 
 unsatisfactory, and may indeed in some places be 
 fairly called unintelligible, but whether this be 
 owing to the original MS., or to Muratori, or to his 
 copyist, or to his printer, can only be ascertained 
 by a fresh examination and publication of the text, 
 which has yet to be made. Muratori supposed 
 that the Codex itself was about a thousand years 
 old. It certainly concludes with a poem in which 
 Cronan, Abbat of Benchor from a.d. 680 to 691, is 
 mentioned as still alive. The Antiphonarium is 
 entirely in Latin. It is a sort of manual of hymns, 
 canticles, prayers, blessings, etc., — such a book, in 
 fact, as, with the addition of the Psalter and 
 Lessons, would roughly represent what is now 
 
ANCIENT CELTIC LATIN HYMNS. 
 
 11 
 
 called a Breviary ; and it is unnecessary to say 
 that its consequent value to liturgiologists, as 
 throwing light on the Rite of those who used it, 
 is very great. 
 
 The Leabhar imuiun is represented by two MSS. 
 One is in Trinity College Library, Dublin, and the 
 late Dr. Todd undertook to edit it for the Irish 
 Archaeological and Celtic Society. It was to appear 
 in three parts ; and of these, two were published, 
 the second after Dr. Todd's death, with a promise 
 on the part of the Society to publish the third ' at 
 no distant period ' — a promise which they have not 
 yet fulfilled. Dr. Todd considered that the Trinity 
 College MS. could not be assigned to a later date 
 than the ninth or tenth century. It consists 
 mainly of canticles and hymns, with a few Latin 
 prose pieces. It is filled with notes, and eight of 
 the hymns are in Gaelic. The other MS. has 
 never been printed at all. It was never seen by 
 Dr. Todd, and has only lately been brought from 
 the Irish house of St. Isidore at Rome to Dublin, 
 where it is in the possession of the Franciscan 
 Friars of the Convent at Merchants' Quay. It is 
 rather shorter than the Trinity College MS. 
 (though it contains two Latin hvmns not in the 
 latter), and has only five Gaelic poems. For these 
 reasons it may be surmised that it is the older 
 Codex of the two ; a surmise rendered all the more 
 probable by the fact that it does not contain the 
 two hymns for the Festivals of Patrick and Brigid, 
 of which we shall have hereafter to speak as the 
 last, and seemingly most modern, of all the hymns 
 to be noticed. 
 
12 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 The first place among these compositions in 
 point of antiquity is claimed, if not secured, by 
 the Hymn of Hilary in upraise of Christ — com- 
 mencing with the words ' Hymnum dicat turba 
 fratrum ' — 'Let the band of brethren say the 
 hymn.' It is certainly ascribed to the great Hilary 
 of Poitiers, who died a.d. 369, and the arguments 
 on which the authorship has been claimed for Hilary 
 of Aries, who died in 449, cannot be described as 
 convincing. The hymn itself bears the marks of 
 a very remote antiquity, but the text is in a 
 lamentably corrupt and uncertain state ; so much 
 so indeed, as to make any attempt at a quotation 
 of reasonable length difficult. It was certainly 
 written for some religious gathering before dawn, 
 and very strongly recalls the statement of Pliny 
 that ' the Christians were accustomed to meet 
 together on a certain day before the light, and 
 to repeat a hymn to Christ as God.' It consists 
 of 148 short lines, and after a brief invitation to 
 the brethren, opens with a striking though some- 
 what singular invocation to Christ himself^ — 
 
 Tu Dei de corde Verbum, Nostro natus saeculo. 
 
 Tu Via, Tu Veritas, Ante ssecla Tu fuisti ; 
 
 Jesse Virga Tu vocaris, Factor primi saeculi ; 
 
 Te Leonem legimus ; Factor coeli, terrse Factor, 
 
 Dextra Patris, Mons et Agnus, Congregator Tu maris ; 
 
 Angularis Tu Lapis, Omniumque Tu Creator 
 
 Sponsus Idem, El, Columba, Quae Pater nasci jubet. 
 
 Flamma, Pastor, Janua. Virginis receptus membris 
 
 In Propbetis inveniris Gabriele nuntio ^ 
 
 ^ Thou art the Word from the Heart of God ; Thou art the Way ; 
 Thou art the Truth ; Thou art called the Hod of Jesse ; we read 
 that Thou art the Li()n ; Thou art the Right Hand of the Father ; 
 
ANCIENT CELTIC LATIN HYMNS. 
 
 13 
 
 and so it proceeds through an epitome of His 
 whole Hfe, and ends with a renewed call on the 
 brethren to praise him, now that the cock by 
 crowing and flapping his wings is showing his 
 consciousness of the near approach of day. 
 
 The hymn which may contest the palm of 
 antiquity with the Hymiium dicat is one of four- 
 teen verses of four lines each, but seemingly 
 abbreviated from one of twenty-one verses, pre- 
 served at length in a Mozarabic Breviary. It is 
 intended for use at midnight, commencing in the 
 Benchor Antiphonary with the words, ' Mediae 
 noctis tempus est,' — ' It is the time of midnight ' 
 — and is ascribed to the famous Ambrose of Milan, 
 who died in 397. The contents seem to be clearly 
 a paraphrase of a passage from his works (on 
 Ps. cxviii.), in which he speaks first of the Israel- 
 ites being protected by the blood upon their door- 
 posts from the destroying angel who went through 
 Egypt at midnight ; then of Paul and Silas singing 
 in prison at midnight ; and lastly of the Parable 
 of the Ten Virgins and the Bridegroom coming 
 at midnight. In the hymn these two last subjects 
 are clumsily transposed, and it may be speculated 
 
 Thou art the Mountain and the Lamb ; Thou art the Corner-Stone ; 
 the Bridegroom also, EL, the Dove, the Flame, the Shepherd, the 
 Door. In the Prophets art Thou found born into our world. Thou 
 hast been before the worlds ; Thou art the Maker of the first world ; 
 Thou art the Maker of heaven ; Thou art the Maker of earth ; 
 Thou art the Gatherer-together of the sea ; and Thou art the 
 Creator of all things which the Father commandeth to come into 
 being. Thou, at the message of Gabriel, wast received into the body 
 of a Virgin, etc., etc., etc. 
 
 EL is the Hebrew for ' God,' and is the reading of the Leabhar 
 imuiun, the gloss of which comments upon it. Muratori reads vel. 
 
14 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 whether such a paraphrase is not more Ukely to 
 have been made by some disciple or student of 
 Ambrose than by Ambrose himself ; and the poem 
 itself ascribed to him later, from being one of the 
 Ambrosian School. Whoever be the actual author, 
 the work itself possesses very great merit. It is 
 not in the Book of Hymns. 
 
 If the date of these two hymns may be safely 
 taken to be earlier than that of the conversion of 
 Ireland, it may be considered uncertain whether 
 that of the next is so or not. This is the hymn 
 Sancti Venite, found only in the Benchor Anti- 
 phonary, and belonging to the very antient and 
 small class of hymns intended to be sung during 
 the administration of the Holy Communion ; of 
 which class, however, at least one other specimen 
 (and that a very beautiful one), by Radpert, may 
 be seen in Daniel's Thesaurus, iii. 293. The MS. 
 called the Leabhar breac, embodies a legend that 
 Patrick and his nephew Sechnall heard angels 
 singing it on one occasion, and adds, ' So that from 
 that time to the present that hymn is chanted in 
 Erinn when the Bodv of Christ is received.' The 
 account appears to imply that the hymn itself was 
 known before the time spoken of, when the writer 
 believed a circumstance to have occurred which 
 was the origin of a custom in his day universal 
 and immemorial in Ireland. The guileless sim- 
 plicity of the Sancti Venite, which is indeed rather 
 a disconnected series of pious thoughts plainly 
 expressed than a formal composition, makes it 
 almost too delicate for translation ; but at the 
 same time invests it with a certain charm which 
 
ANCIENT CELTIC LATIN HYMNS. 15 
 
 took the fancy of the late Dr. Neale, by whom it 
 was gracefully paraphrased in the lines beginning, 
 ' Draw nigh, and take the Body of the Lord,' and 
 in that form it is, we believe, occasionally sung 
 in Anglican churches at the present time. The 
 text is as follows : — 
 
 Sancti Venite, 
 
 Qua adumbrantur 
 
 Christi Corpus sumite, 
 
 Divina mysteria. 
 
 Sanctum bibentes 
 
 Lucis Indultor 
 
 Quo redempti Sancruinem : 
 
 Et Salvator omnium 
 
 Salvati Christi 
 
 Praeclaram Sanctis 
 
 Corpore et Sanguine, 
 
 Largitus est gratiam. 
 
 A Quo refecti 
 
 Accedant omnes 
 
 Laudes dicamus Deo ; 
 
 Pura mente creduli 
 
 Hoc Sacramento 
 
 Sumant seternam 
 
 Corporis et Sanguinis 
 
 Salutis custodiam. 
 
 Omnes exuti 
 
 Sanctorum Custos 
 
 Ab inferni faucibus. 
 
 Eector quoque Dominus 
 
 Dator salutis 
 
 Vitae perennis 
 
 Christus Filius Dei 
 
 Largitor credentibus, 
 
 Mundum salvavit 
 
 Coelestem panem 
 
 Per Crucem et Sanguinem. 
 
 Dat esurientibus, 
 
 Pro universis 
 
 De Fonte Vivo 
 
 Immolatus Dominus 
 
 Praebet sitientibus. 
 
 Ipse Sacerdos 
 
 Alpha et Omega 
 
 Existit et Hostia. 
 
 Ipse Christus Dominus 
 
 Lege prseceptum 
 
 Venit venturus 
 
 Immolari hostias 
 
 Judicare omnes. ^ 
 
 iConie, O ye hdly ! take the Body of Christ and drink the Holy 
 Blood whereby ye are redeemed ; saved by the Body and the Blood 
 of Christ, renewed by Him, let us give praise to God ; all delivered 
 from the jaws of hell by this Sacrament of the Body and the Blood. 
 Tlie Giver of salvation, Christ the Son of God, hath saved the world 
 through His Cross and Blood. The Lord offered up for all, is Him- 
 self the Priest and the Victim. That victims should be offered was 
 commanded in the Law wherein are shadowed the mysteries of God. 
 The Giver of light and Saviour of all hath granted an excellent 
 
16 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 The Sechnall above mentioned is the undisputed 
 author of the hymn Audite Omnes in praise of 
 Patrick, whose labours are always spoken of in it 
 as present, and his heavenly reward as future, but 
 which was apparently written towards the end of 
 his career — say about a.d. 490. The singing of it 
 throughout the three days and three nights of 
 Patrick's sleep-festival in spring was one of the 
 four honours paid to his memory. To the grief of 
 modern historians it is merely eulogistic, and can 
 hardly be said to contain a single biographical 
 statement. It is written in what the ancient 
 Irish called the Hebrew manner, that is, it is 
 ABCDarian, in imitation of several of the Psalms 
 and portions of the Book of Lamentations. As 
 I and J are in Latin the same, and also u and v, 
 and as there is no w, it consists of twenty-three 
 verses, each beginning with one of the letters of 
 the alphabet respectively, in their regular order. 
 As in the other compositions of this school of the 
 same sort, x is represented by ' Christus,' in the 
 Greek contraction of XPC for xpictoc, and Y by 
 Ymnus for Hymnus, in connection with which it is 
 curious that ymnon is the only word in Irish that 
 begins with or even contains a y. Each of the 
 stanzas of the Audite omnes contains eight short 
 
 grace to His saints. Let all believers with pure minds draw near ; 
 let them take the eternal safeguard of salvation. The Lord, the 
 Guardian and Shepherd of the Saints, the Granter of everlasting life 
 to them that believe, doth give unto the hungry Bread from heaven, 
 doth offer to the thirsty drink from the Living Spring. The Alpha 
 and Omega, the Lord Christ Himself is surely coming to judge 
 mankind. 
 
 The imitation of an Hebrew idiom in venit venturus is remarkable. 
 
ANCIENT CELTIC LATIN HYMNS. 
 
 17 
 
 lines, of which the last four are always a sort of 
 appendix to the first four. The merit of the whole 
 as a literary task, is certainly very considerable. 
 The verse c is interesting as showing the way in 
 which the celebrated text Matth. xvi. 18 was 
 understood at the time and place of the writer — 
 
 Oonstans in Dei timore 
 Et fide immobilis, 
 Super quern sedificatur 
 Ut Petrum Ecclesia ; 
 Cujusque Apostolatum 
 A Deo sortitus est ; 
 In cujus portse ad versus 
 Inferni non praevalent.^ 
 
 The curious belief so widely spread, that at the 
 Last when the Apostles shall sit upon thrones, 
 judging the tribes of Israel, Patrick will have a 
 throne also, and will judge the Irish, may possibly 
 have originally sprung from verse Z — 
 
 Zona Domini praecinctus 
 Diebus ac noctibus 
 Sine intermission e 
 Deum orat Dominum, 
 Cujus ingentis laboris 
 Percepturus praemium 
 Cum Apostolis regnabit 
 Sanctus super Israel. ^ 
 
 ^ He is constant in the fear of God, and immovable in faith ; upon 
 him is built a church, as upon a Peter ; and his apostolate he hath 
 received from God ; the gates of hell do not prevail against him. 
 
 ^ He is girt with the belt of the Lord by day and by night ; he 
 prays to the Lord God without ceasing ; and from Him is he to 
 receive a reward for his vast toil ; he will reign with the Apostles, 
 as a Saint, over Israel. 
 
18 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 Before leaving the subject of the immediate sur- 
 rounders of Patrick, it is as well to mention that 
 the Benchor book contains a short hymn in honour 
 of his disciple Caemhlach. It is ABCDarian, with 
 one short line to each letter except Y and Z ; these 
 two letters it either never had, or they have dis- 
 appeared in the corruption of the text, which has 
 evidently lost at least one line, and ends from X 
 (supplying what is clearly the sense) ' Christ hath 
 gently placed him [in the bosom] of the Patriarch 
 Abraham ; he will reign in Paradise with holy 
 Lazarus.' 
 
 Considering that Brigid, called the ' Mary of 
 the Gael,' is now held second only to Patrick 
 in Irish hagiology, it is somewhat surprising that 
 no mention of her is to be found in the Benchor 
 Antiphonary. A possible explanation may be, 
 that the Benchor book is strictly a manual for 
 public worship, whereas the Leabhar imuiun is 
 rather a poetical miscellany ; and the public cele- 
 bration of Festivals in churches, in memory of 
 Saints not Martyrs, is, with a few exceptions — such 
 as was that of Patrick in Ireland, or of Comgall 
 at Benchor — of comparatively later introduction. 
 The earliest Latin poem concerning her seems to 
 be a scrap consisting of three stanzas, beginning 
 respectively with the letters X, Y, Z. The author- 
 ship is variously ascribed to Ninnidh, who was a 
 lad during Brigid's lifetime, to Fiach of Sletty, 
 who was strictly her contemporary, or to Ultan of 
 Ardbreccan, who flourished about a century later. 
 Whichever be the case, and whether a somewhat 
 different stanza, beginning with A, which is now 
 
ANCIENT CELTIC LATIN HYMNS. 19 
 
 appended to the end, was or was not originally the 
 first verse, the stanza Y seems to confirm the 
 antient tradition that the hymn originally had 
 stanzas for all the letters of the alphabet, and that 
 the matter contained in it was of a more or less 
 biographical character : — 
 
 Ymnus iste angelicae 
 Summeque sanctse Brigidse 
 Fari non valet omnia 
 Virtutum mirabilia 
 Quae nostris nunquam auribus 
 Si sint facta audivimus 
 Nisi per istam virginem 
 Mariae sanctge similem.^ 
 
 Gildas, called the Wise, who is believed to have 
 been the first to introduce the Roman Liturgy into 
 Ireland, is the reputed author of a poem of the 
 class called Loricae or ' breast-plates,' being designed 
 as protectives against evil, a class of composition of 
 which the earliest specimen is the fine hymn in 
 Gaelic claiming to be the work of Patrick himself 
 That the Suffragare is indeed by the ' querulous ' 
 author of the De Excidio Britannice is borne out 
 by the Cymric words which it contains, and ' the 
 deadly pestilence of this year' is conjectured to 
 point to the Yellow Plague of a.d. 547. It is 
 remarkable for the singular anatomical catalogue 
 of the parts of the human body upon which pro- 
 tection is invoked, but almost the only bit which 
 can really be styled poetical is the beginning, called 
 in the text itself the first prologue : — 
 
 ^ This hymn of the Angelic and most holy Brigid is not able to tell 
 all the wondrous works of power, the like whereof we have never 
 heard of as wrought, save through this virgin, like unto the holy Mary. 
 
20 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 Suffragare, Trinitatis Unitas — 
 Unitatis miserere Trinitas — 
 Suffragare, quseso, mihi posito 
 Magni maris velut in periculo ; 
 Ut non secum trahat me mortalitas 
 Hujus anni neque mundi vanitas ; 
 Et hoc idem peto a sublimibus 
 Coelestis militise virtutibus, 
 Ne me linquant lacerandum hostibus 
 Sed defendant me jam armis fortibus ; 
 Ut me illi praecedent in acie 
 Coelestis exercitus militise, 
 Cerubin et ceruphin (sic) cum millibus, 
 Gabrihel et Michael cum similibus : 
 Opto tronos, virtutes, archangelos, 
 Principatus, potestates, angelos 
 Ut me denso defendentes agmine 
 Inimicos valeant prosternere ; 
 Dum deinde caeteros agonetetas, 
 Patriarchas, quatuor quater Prophetas, 
 Apostolos navis Christi proretas 
 Et martyres omnes peto athletas, 
 Atque adjuro et virgines omnes 
 Viduas fideles et professores 
 Uti me per illos salus sepiat 
 Atque omne malum a me pereat. 
 Christus mecum pactum firmum feriat 
 Cujus tremor tetra sturbas terreat.i 
 
 ^ Help, 0 Unity in Trinity ! Have mercy, O Trinity in Unity ! 
 Help me, I pray Thee, who am set as it were in the peril of the 
 great sea ; that the deadly pestilence of this year and the vanity of 
 the world may not carry me away. This same do I seek also from 
 the noble powers of the heavenly host, that they leave me not for 
 mine enemies to tear ; but defend me now with strong weapons ; 
 that the army of the heavenly host may go before me in battle array 
 — cherubin and seraphin, with thousands, Gabriel and Michael with 
 the like. I desire the thrones, the virtues, the archangels, the 
 principalities, the powers, and the angels, that they protect me with 
 a numerous company and be strong to lay low my foes. While 
 
ANCIENT CELTIC LATIN HYMNS. 21 
 
 One noticeable feature here is the pecuhar Hebrew 
 plural in -in, instead of -im, a feature which seems 
 to be one of the characteristics of the early Irish 
 writers. 
 
 The Latin works of Columba would always be 
 of interest for his sake, whatever their intrinsic 
 worth, but the largest of them, the Alius, is in 
 itself one of the most remarkable productions of 
 its school. It is singular, considering the friend- 
 ship between Columba and Comgall, that neither 
 it nor either of the other poems ascribed to the 
 same author are in the book of Benchor; a pheno- 
 menon, however, which may be explained on the 
 same grounds as the silence of that Antiphonary 
 regarding Brigid. It attained great popularity. 
 Legends describe its composition in such a way as 
 practically to mean that it was inspired, or associate 
 it with the most memorable epochs in the life of 
 its author ; later times believed that Pope Gregory 
 the Great rose from his throne to listen to it 
 standing. It was considered to be a most powerful 
 lorica ; a writer in the Leabhar says of it — 
 
 ' There is no disease in the world, 
 No difficulty, that it will not banish.' 
 
 The place where it was often said was believed to 
 be preserved from want, the house where it had 
 
 lastly, I seek the other leaders, the Patriarchs, the Prophets four- 
 tinies-foiir, the Apostles, the prow-men of Christ's ship, and all the 
 wrestler Martyrs. And I call also upon all the virgins, the faithful 
 widows, and professors, that through them health may hedge me 
 round about, and every evil may perish from me. May Christ make 
 a firm covenant with me, and may the fear of Him scare the foul 
 bands ! 
 
22 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 been said to be that day free from strife, he who 
 had said it to be that day safe from violent death. 
 Maelsuthain O'Cearbhaill is represented as aston- 
 ished that the seven-times singing of it did not 
 save the hfe of his sick son, and his own recitation 
 of it is told as one of the acts by which he worked 
 out his salvation. The importance of the Alius is 
 not so much on account of its length, though it 
 is among the most considerable of these poems, nor 
 even from its authorship considered by itself, but 
 from its contents. It is in the so-called Hebrew or 
 ABCDarian style, but it adheres far more closely 
 to the model of the antient Jewish writers than do 
 other hymns of the same kind, for in place of 
 monotonous eulogy of a Saint, it praises the Most 
 High directly for the power and goodness shown 
 in different classes of his works, past, present, or 
 future. Thus we learn the ideas of the writer 
 upon divers subjects, not only of a religious kind, 
 but cosmological ; and some idea of his reading 
 may be gained from his use of Greek and of one 
 Hebrew word (iduma = yad, yadaim = hand, hands), 
 and his quotations not only from Holy Scripture, 
 with which his mind was evidently saturated, but 
 also from other writers ; the chapter B contains a 
 passage from a work of Gennadius, a Priest of 
 Marseilles in the fifth century ; the chapter Y is 
 almost unintelligible, but seems probably founded 
 on a Commentary on Job by one Philippus, a 
 Priest, and disciple of Jerome ; and it is a very 
 strange coincidence if A was written without a 
 knowledge of Athanasian Creed. Moreover, the 
 poetic genius of Columba, though less free than in 
 
ANCIENT CELTIC LATIN HYMNS. 
 
 23 
 
 the use of his mother tongue, rises to grandeur in 
 spite of the hampering of a dead language. It is 
 impossible to form any just estimate of the Altus 
 without reading the whole, and it seems hardly 
 fair to represent it to the reader by an analytical 
 synopsis, and a quotation of two or three stanzas. 
 However, a few words may be given, for the sake 
 of comparison rather than for the sake of the poem. 
 The initial verse, upon God Himself, and the first 
 word of which is the eponymus of the poem, is 
 as follows : — 
 
 Altus Prosator, Vetustus 
 Dierum, et Ingenitus, 
 Erat absque origin e 
 Primordio et crepidine, 
 Est et erit in ssecula 
 Saeculorum infinita ; 
 Cui est Unigenitus 
 Christus et Sanctus Spiritus 
 Co-seternus in gloria 
 Deitatis perpetua ; 
 Non tres deos depromimus 
 Sed Unum Deum dicimus, 
 Salva fide in Person! s 
 Tribus gloriosissimis.^ 
 
 After this are seven chapters relating to angels 
 and the creation of the world and fall of man, 
 mainly as affecting them, and Columba's natural 
 
 iThe Most High, the Father of all, the Antient of days, and 
 Unbegotten, without origin, without beginning, and without limit, 
 was, is, and will be for ever and ever ; with Whom is co-eternal in 
 everlasting glory of Godhead the Only begotten Son, who also is the 
 Christ ; and the Holy Spirit. We set not forth three gods, but say 
 that God is One, still holding ever the faith in Three Most Glorious 
 Persons. 
 
24 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 propensity to the terrible here excites him to dwell 
 upon the fall of the lost spirits. On this follow 
 seven chapters upon cosmogony, including the 
 nether world and Paradise, which he treats as part 
 of it ; this passage possesses a very curious element 
 in the scientific theories expressed. Chapter Q 
 recalls the manifestation of God upon Mount Sinai, 
 as the most awful display of His power which has 
 yet taken place ; and then come seven more chap- 
 ters upon the end of the world ; these are perhaps 
 the finest in the poem. They are extremely grand ; 
 and V, which, as already remarked, seems to be a 
 mystic application to the Second Advent of a 
 passage in Job, is skilfully used to heighten the 
 dramatic efiect by contrast. R, S, T, and X are 
 on the sounding of the trumpet, the descent of 
 Christ, the resurrection and the judgment, and the 
 work ends as it began, with the praise of the 
 Almighty by His creatures : — 
 
 Ymnorum cantionibus Zelus ignis furibundus 
 
 Sedulo tinnientibus — Consumet adversaries 
 
 Tripudis Sanctis millibus Nolentes Christum credere 
 
 Angelorum vernantibus — Deo a Patre venisse : 
 
 Quatuorque plenissimis Nos vero evolabimus 
 
 Animalibus oculis, Obviam Ei protinus, 
 
 Cum viginti felicibus Et sic cum Ipso erimus 
 
 Quatuor senioribus In diversis ordinibus 
 
 Coronas amittentibus Dignitatum pro meritis 
 
 Agni Dei sub pedibus — Prsemiorum perpetuis, 
 
 Laudatur tribus vicibus Permansuri in gloria 
 
 Trinitas eeternalibus. A sseculis in gloria.^ 
 
 ^ By songs of praise ringing unceasingly, by thousands of Angels 
 shining in holy dances, and by the four living creatures all full of 
 eyes, with the four-and- twenty happy elders who cast down their 
 
ANCIENT CELTIC LATIN HYMNS. 25 
 
 The authorship of the second hymn attributed 
 to Columba, In Te Christe credentium miserearis 
 omnium, ' O Christ, have mercy upon all them who 
 believe in Thee,' was the subject of an antient 
 doubt. Some held that all and some that none of 
 it was by Columba ; others ascribed to him only 
 the second half It is short, but naturally divides 
 itself into two, and it must be confessed that the 
 first part is that which shows the greatest identity 
 of language with the Alius; the second part is the 
 more uncouth. 
 
 Columba's third hymn, the Noli Pater, is a full- 
 blown specimen of the lorica, and the subject is 
 very curious. The custom so widely spread among 
 nations, of lighting fires on St. John's Eve (the 
 summer solstice) is generally admitted to be a 
 remnant of sun worship, and the jumping over 
 them or driving animals through them ' for luck ' 
 to be simply and plainly ' passing through the fire 
 to Baal ' — indeed, the name of bale-fires, by which 
 they are known in Scotland, is commonly supposed 
 to be merely a corruption of the title of the god. 
 Among Christians, however, the coincidence of 
 dates has caused them to be popularly regarded as 
 lighted in honour of the Baptist. This seems to 
 have been the opinion of Columba, who looked 
 upon them as prophylactics against accidents by 
 
 crowns under the feet of tlie Lamb of God, — the Trinity is praised 
 in eternal repetitions of the hymn Thrice-Holy. 
 
 The raging fury of fire shall devour the adversaries, who will not 
 to believe that Christ is come from God the Father : but we shall 
 forthwith be caught up to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall 
 we ever be with the Lord, placed in everlasting ranks of exaltation 
 and reward differing according to our deserts, and so to abide in 
 glory, for ever and ever in glory. 
 
 3 
 
26 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 fire, especially fire caused by lightning, and sought 
 to intensify their usefulness as such by the hymn 
 in question. His great name was in itself sufficient 
 to gain it wide acceptance. ' It is sung,' says its 
 preface, ' against every fire and every thunder- 
 storm, and whosoever sings it at bed-time and at 
 rising, it protects him against lightning, and it 
 protects the nine persons whom he desires to 
 protect.' This curious composition is as follows : — 
 
 Noli Pater indulgere tonitrua cum fulgure 
 Ne frangamur formidine hnjus atque uridine — 
 Te timemus terribilem, nullum credentes similem ; 
 Te cuncta canunt carmina Angelorum per agmina — 
 Teque exaltant culmina coeli vagi per fulmina, 
 0 JESU Amantissime ! 0 Eex regum rectissime ! 
 Benedictus in ssecula recta regens regimina ! 
 Joannes coram Domino adhuc matris in utero ; 
 Repletus Dei gratia pro vino atque sicera ; 
 Elizabeth et Zacliarias magnum virum genuit, 
 Joannem Baptistam, precursorem Domini — 
 Manet in meo corde Dei amoris flamma, 
 Ut in argenti vase auri ponitur gemma.^ 
 
 The clause beginning ' Elizabeth et Zacharias ' 
 occurs in the mediaeval and in the present Roman 
 ofl&ce for Midsummer's Day, and its occurrence in 
 
 ^ Father ! restrain Thou the thunders and the thunder-bolt, that 
 the fear and the fire of them smite us not. Thee do we dread, 
 O Thou Awful One ! and believe that there is none like unto Thee ; 
 all the songs praise Thee, throughout the Angelic hosts. Thee also 
 do extol the high heavens, the paths of the lightnings, O JESUS 
 most loving ! O King of Kings most righteous ! Blessed for ever 
 [art Thou,] ruling a righteous rule ! John was in the presence of 
 the Lord, while yet in his mother's womb ; filled was he with the 
 grace of God instead of wine or strong drink ; Elizabeth and Zach- 
 arias were the parents of a mighty man, even of John the Baptist, 
 the Forerunner of the Lord. The flame of God's love abides in my 
 heart, as a jewel of gold is laid up in a vessel of silver. 
 
ANCIENT CELTIC LATIN HYMNS. 
 
 27 
 
 the Noli Pater seems to show that it was already 
 in use for that festival before the time of Columba. 
 
 The antiquity of the anonymous hymns contained 
 in the Benchor Antiphonary can be guessed merely 
 from their contents ; three of them seem probably 
 earlier than the seventh century, if not indeed 
 coeval with, or possibly even older than the intro- 
 duction of Christianity into Ireland. 
 
 The hymn styled (for no apparent reason) ' Of 
 the Apostles,' and commencing with the words 
 Precamur Patrem, is a long composition of forty- 
 two verses of four lines each, unhappily marred by 
 two lacunae owing to the decay of the MS. It 
 embodies a sort of epitome of the Life of Christ, 
 and strongly resembles the two compositions first 
 noticed in this paper, especially the Hymnum dicat. 
 As it begins with a sort of welcome to the Lord's 
 Day, it may not improbably have formed part of 
 that vespertinalis Dominicce noctis missa, which was 
 the last service attended by Columba upon earth. 
 The language is very noble ; and it opens with a 
 comparison between His Own Day and the Lord 
 Himself, which the present writer does not remem- 
 ber to have ever met with elsewhere. The poet 
 takes the first mention of Sunday from the Bible : 
 — ' and the earth was without form and void, and 
 darkness was upon the face of the deep. 
 And God said : Let there be light. And there 
 was light. And God saw the light that it was 
 good. And God divided the light from the dark- 
 ness. And God called the light Day, and the 
 darkness He called Night. And the evening and 
 the morning were the first day ' — and he remembers 
 
28 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 with this that our Lord is ' begotten of the Father 
 before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light,' 
 and so hails the Lord and His Day together as 
 first-born children of light. 
 
 Precamur Patrem. 
 Eegem Omnipotentem, 
 Et JESUM Christum, 
 Sanctum quoque Spiritum. 
 
 Alleluia. 
 Deum in una 
 Perfectum substantia 
 Trinum .... 
 
 Universorum 
 
 Fontis jubar luminum 
 
 ^thereorum 
 
 Et orbi lucentium. 
 
 Hie enim dies 
 
 Velut primogenitus 
 
 Coeli ab arce 
 
 Mundi (? mundo) olim micuit. 
 Sic Verbum caro 
 Factum a principio 
 
 Lumen seternum 
 Missum Patre saeculo. 
 Illeque pioto {sic, from the 
 
 Greek) 
 Vires adimens caho 
 Turn improvise 
 Noctem pepulit mundo ; 
 Ita seterno 
 Iste hoste subacto 
 Polum nodoso 
 Solvit mortis vinculo. 
 Tenebrse super 
 Ante erant abyss um 
 Quam radiaret 
 Primus dies dierum ; 
 Haec quam prodiret 
 Vera lux mortalia 
 Contexit alta 
 Corda ignorantia.^ 
 
 ^ We pray to the Father, the Almighty King, and to JESUS Christ, 
 also to the Holy Ghost. Alleluia. (Possibly this Alleluia may be 
 intended to be repeated as a sort of Response after every verse, a 
 feature which will be observed in some other hymns.) God perfect 
 
 in One Being, Three ray from the source of 
 
 all lights in heaven and which shine upon the globe. For this day 
 of old time shone upon the earth as a first-born, from the height of 
 heaven : even so was the Word, Eternal Light fnmi the beginning, 
 made flesh and sent from the Father into the world. And that [day] 
 destroying the primal chaos, then thrust away the night from the 
 earth unseen before : so did He, triumphing over the old enemy, 
 free the sky from death's strong fetter. Darkness was upon the 
 deep before there burst forth the first day of days : before that 
 True Light came forth, deep ignorance covered the dying hearts. 
 
 Day of days is a not uncommon appellation of Sunday, primarily 
 applied to Easter Sunday. 
 
ANCIENT CELTIC LATIN HYMNS. 29 
 
 The hymn Sacratissimi Marty res is one of the 
 noblest efforts of Celtic Latinity. It is marked as 
 to be used on Martyrs' Birthdays (/.e'., their birth 
 by temporal death into a higher life), or for the 
 Sabbath at Mattins — i.e., the midnight service 
 between Friday and Saturday, or that of daybreak 
 on Saturday, for although Adamnan mentions the 
 bell ringing at midnight for the hymai matutini, 
 some of the phrases in the Benchor book (which 
 never mentions Lauds or Prime) clearly point to 
 daybreak as an hour for Mattins. It has a refrain 
 of Alleluia, which may be supposed to have been 
 sung by all present, while the hymn itself was 
 chanted by the precentors. 
 
 Sacratissimi Martyies summi 
 Dei, 
 
 Bellatores fortissimi 
 Christi Eegis, potentissimi 
 Duces exercitus Dei, 
 Victores in ccelis 
 Deo canentes — Alleluia. 
 Excelsissime Christe ! 
 Coelorum Deus Cherubin, (sic) 
 Cui sedes cum Patre sacra, 
 Angeloium ibi et Marty rum 
 Fulgens chorus 
 
 Tibi sancti proclamant — Alle- 
 luia. 
 
 Magnifice, Tu prior 
 Omnium passus crucem, 
 Qui devicta morte refulsisti 
 Mundo, ascendisti ad coelos ; 
 Ti bi Sancti proclamant — Allelui a . 
 Armis spiritalibus 
 Munita mente Apostoli 
 Sancti Te sunt secuti, 
 
 Qui cum ipsa crucis 
 Paterentur morte 
 Tibi Sancti canebant — Alleluia. 
 Christe ! Martyrum Tu es 
 Adjutor potens proeliantium 
 Sancta pro Tua gloria, 
 Qui cum victores 
 Exirent de hoc sseculo 
 Tibi sancti canebant — Alleluia. 
 Illustris Tua Domine 
 Laudanda virtus quae per Spiri- 
 tum 
 
 Sanctum firmavit Martyres 
 
 Qui consternerent Zabulum 
 
 Et mortem vincerent, 
 
 Tibi sancti canebant — Alleluia. 
 
 Manu Dei excelsa 
 
 Protecti contra Diabolum 
 
 Steterunt firmati 
 
 Semper Trinitati fidem 
 
 Toto corde servantes ; 
 
 Tibi sancti canebant — Alleluia. 
 
30 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 Vere regnantes erant (? erunt.) Supplices obsecremus 
 
 Tecum, Christe Deus ! Ut in Ipsius gloriam 
 
 Qui passionis merito coronas Consummemur, et in sanctam 
 
 Habent et centenario (? sancta) 
 
 Fructu repleti gaudent ; Hierusalem civitatem (? civitate) 
 
 Tibi sancti proclamant — Alle- Dei 
 
 luia. Trinitati cum Sanctis 
 
 Christi Dei gratiam Dicamus — Alleluia.^ 
 
 The hymn Spiritus Divince for the Mattins of 
 the Lord's Day is another work bearing the marks 
 of great antiquity, and itself of much intrinsic 
 grandeur. The interest is heightened by the feeling 
 that if Columba had lived another quarter of an 
 hour he might have been singing it. Unhappily 
 the precise meaning is often very obscure, and this 
 
 ^ Holy Martyrs of God Most High, strong fighters for King Christ, 
 mighty leaders of God's army, conquerors in heaven, singing to God 
 — Alleluia. Exalted Christ ! God of the heavenly cherubim. Thou 
 Who sharest the Father's holy throne, there the Saints, the bright 
 choir of Angels and Martyrs, cry aloud unto Thee — Alleluia. O 
 glorious One ! first of them all to suffer the cross. Thou Who, when 
 Thou hadst conquered death, didst flash back upon the world, 
 Thou hast ascended into heaven ; unto Thee the Saints cry aloud — 
 Alleluia. The holy Apostles, with minds shielded by spiritual 
 weapons, followed Thee, Saints who, as they suffered the very death 
 of the Cross, sang unto Thee — Alleluia. O Christ ! Thou art the 
 mighty Helper of the Martyrs who wrestle for Thine holy glory. 
 Saints who, when they left this world as conquerors, sang unto 
 Thee — Alleluia. Praised, 0 Lord, be Thy famous power, which, by 
 the Holy Ghost, steeled the Martyrs to lay Satan low and conquer 
 death : unto Thee the Saints sang — Alleluia. By God's high hand 
 protected against the devil, they stood steeled, ever keeping true to 
 the Trinity with all their hearts ; unto Thee the Saints sang — 
 Alleluia. In good sooth shall they reign with Thee, O God Christ ! 
 they who have earned by suffering the crowns they hold, and 
 rejoice, filled with fruit an hundredfold ; to Thee the Saints cry 
 aloud — Alleluia. Let us humbly ask the grace of the God Christ 
 that we may be perfected in His glory, and in the holy Jerusalem, 
 the city of God, may with the Saints say to the Trinity — Alleluia. 
 
ANCIENT CELTIC LATIN HYMNS. 
 
 31 
 
 seems probably owing, at least in part, to the 
 corrupt state of the text as printed by Muratori. 
 It has a distinct refrain, which, even more than 
 those of the hymns already cited, gives the idea 
 of being intended to be sung by the whole choir, 
 while the precentors only chanted the rest, like the 
 Invitatories to the Venite in the Roman office- 
 books. The sense of the hymn is to lay stress upon 
 the feature of Sonship in our Lord, and to welcome 
 His Day with an invocation of Him Who upon it, 
 being already from eternity the Only-begotten Son 
 of God (John i. 18) and in time the first-born Son 
 of Mary (Luke ii. 7) became also the first-born of 
 the dead (Col. i. 18 ; Rev. i. 5) and therein the 
 first-born among many brethren (Rom. viii. 29). 
 
 Spiritus Divinae 
 
 Procreati ex fonte vivunt. 
 
 Lucis glorise 
 
 Respice. 
 
 Respice in me 
 
 Hoeredes et quohceredes 
 
 Domine 
 
 Christi Tui, in Quern 
 
 Deus veritatis 
 
 Et per Quern cuncta creasti, 
 
 Domine Deus Sabaoth. 
 
 Quia in praedestinatione 
 
 Deus Israhel, 
 
 A sseculis nobis est 
 
 Respice. 
 
 Deus JESUS Qui nunc coepit. 
 
 Lumen de Lumine 
 
 Respice. 
 
 Referemus Filium Patris 
 
 Unigenito ex mortuis 
 
 Sanctumque Spiritum 
 
 Deo obtinens corpus 
 
 In Una Substantia. 
 
 Claritatem Dei manens 
 
 Respice. 
 
 In saecula sseculorum 
 
 Unigenitus et Primogenitus 
 
 Rex aeternorum. 
 
 A Te obtinemus 
 
 Respice. 
 
 Redemptionem nostram. 
 
 Quia nunc coepit Qui semper 
 
 Respice. 
 
 Fuit naturiB Tuse Filius 
 
 Natus es Spiritu Sancto 
 
 Divinse Lucis gloriae Tuse 
 
 Ex Maria Virgine 
 
 Qui est forma et plenitudo 
 
 In idipsum in adoptionem 
 
 Divinitatis Tuse frequens. 
 
 Filiorum qui Tibi 
 
 Respice. 
 
32 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 Persona Unigeniti Efc Deum verum a Deo vero 
 
 Et Primogeniti Semper semper confitemur 
 
 Qui est Totus a Toto Tribus Personis 
 
 Diximns Lux de Lumine. In una substantia 
 
 Eespice. Respice in me Domine.^ 
 
 With these hymns may be said to end the most 
 interesting and attractive of the group of com- 
 positions here dealt with. Before, however, passing 
 to those locally connected with Benchor, and there- 
 fore hardly to be ascribed to any date earlier than 
 the seventh century, it is well to mention the 
 hymn of the Antiphonary which begins Ignis 
 Creator igneus — ' Fiery Creator of the fire,' and 
 
 1 Spirit of the Divine Light of glory — Lord, do Thou look upon 
 me. God of Truth, Lord God of Sabaoth, God of Israel — Lord, do 
 Thou look upon me. We will confess that the Son of the Father 
 is Light of Light, and that the Holy Ghost is of one [and the same] 
 Substance — Lord, do Thou look upon me. Only-begotten and First- 
 begotten, from Thee we have our redemption — Lord, do Thou look 
 upon me. Thou wast born by the Holy Ghost from the Virgin 
 Mary for this very purpose, for the adoption of sons who are born 
 of the font and live unto Thee — Lord, do Thou look upon me. 
 Heirs and joint-heirs with Thy Christ, for Whom and by Whom 
 Thou hast created all things, for in predestination He Who now 
 beginneth is from everlasting our God JESUS — Lord, do Thou look 
 upon me. [The text of the next verse seems to be almost certainly 
 corrupt, and in the absence of a new examination of the Codex, 
 nothing more can be done than to give a literal translation of the 
 words as printed by Muratori.] God Only-begotten from the dead, 
 having a Body, the Brightness of God, abiding for everlasting the 
 King of everlasting ages — Lord, do Thou look upon me. For now 
 doth He begin who hath ever been the Son of Thy nature. Who 
 is the express image of the Divine Light of Thy ojlory, and the 
 abounding fulness of Thy Godhead — Lord, do Thou look upon me. 
 The Person of the Only-begotten and First-begotten Who is all of 
 all — we have said — Light of Light — Lord, do Thou look upon me. 
 And ever, ever do we confess that He is Very God of Very God — 
 Lord, in Three Persons, in One substance, do Thou look upon me. 
 
ANCIENT CELTIC LATIN HYMNS. 33 
 
 which is headed by a direction to use it ' when 
 the wax-candle is blessed.' The contents leave no 
 doubt that the Paschal candle is meant, and the 
 hymn itself, like the Roman Exultet for the same 
 occasion, after expressing the wish that the light 
 may burn all night, speaks of the column of cloud 
 and fire which led the Israelites out of Egypt, and 
 then of the work of bees, of the formation and 
 combustion of wax. Part of it may remind the 
 reader of the beautiful lines in Ivanhoe — 
 
 When Israel of the Lord beloved 
 Out of the land of bondage came, 
 
 Her fathers' God before her moved 
 An awful Guide in smoke and 
 flame. 
 
 Ex ^gypto migrantibus 
 Indulges geminam gratiam ; 
 Nubis velamen exhibes, 
 Nocturnum lumen porrigis — 
 
 By day along the astonished lands Nubis columna per diem 
 
 The cloudy pillar glided slow ; Venientem plebem protegis ; 
 
 By night Arabia's crimsoned sands Ignis columna ad vesperum 
 
 Returned the fiery column's glow. Noctem depelliis lumine. 
 
 The death of Comgall of Benchor is recorded at 
 A.D. 602. The Antiphonary of his monastery 
 contains, as might be expected, a long poem in 
 his honour. It is monotonously eulogistic, without 
 biographical interest, and certainly wearisome. It 
 is the most artificial composition of its class. After 
 an introductory stanza, it proceeds to give one to 
 every letter of the alphabet, each stanza being of 
 eight lines, exclusive of a refrain of^ — 
 
 Quem Deus ad aetherea 
 Conduxit habitacula 
 Ab Angelis custodita 
 Permansura in saecula.^ 
 
 ^ God hath brought him to the heavenly mansions, which are 
 guarded by Angels, and will endure for ever. 
 
34 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 — of which the whole or the two latter lines are 
 alternately appended to every verse. But, in 
 addition to this, the author has contrived to make 
 every line in each stanza respectively, with rare 
 exceptions, end with the same syllable ; and has 
 also evidently desired to make the capital letter of 
 each stanza the first letter of every line in it, an 
 aim which he has only fully attained with A and D. 
 
 The lines beginning and ending Benchuir bona 
 regula — ' Good is the rule of Benchor ' — are an 
 ardent benediction upon that monastery, by means 
 of a number of Scriptural comparisons, including 
 the Ark of the Covenant, and the Virgin Mother 
 herself Curiously enough the Gaelic word Munther 
 (Muinter) is used in it (probably to suit the scan- 
 sion) instead of familia. 
 
 Somewhat similar is the poetical commemoration 
 of the Abbots of Benchor with which the Anti- 
 phonary ends, and the date of which, and possibly 
 of the MS. containing it, is indicated, by the name 
 of the Abbat whose long life is prayed for, to be 
 somewhere between 680 and 691. 
 
 There are no more rhythmical hymns contained 
 in .the Antiphonarium Benchorense, beyond those 
 above mentioned, but there remains to be men- 
 tioned one which is certainly, and four which are 
 possibly, older than that Codex. 
 
 Cummain Fota of Clonfert, who died in 661 or 
 662, is the author of a hymn in honour of the 
 Apostles. It begins with the words Celebra Juda, 
 and consists of twenty-three short stanzas, of which 
 all but the first have a refrain of Alleluia. A verse 
 each is given to St. Peter, St. Paul, the eleven other 
 
ANCIENT CELTIC LATIN HYMNS. 
 
 35 
 
 Apostles, SS. Mark, Luke, Patrick, and Stephen ; 
 the omission of St. Barnabas is remarkable. Cum- 
 main had a great reputation for learning, which is 
 borne out by the Hebrew scholarship displayed in 
 commenting upon the proper names. 
 
 Molaisran of Leighlin — better known in Scotland 
 as Molio of the Holy Isle in Lamlash Bay — died 
 in 639. The Trinity College Codex contains an 
 uncouth hymn in his honour, with one short line 
 for every letter of the Alphabet, but that it is of 
 a date near to his own time must be regarded as 
 at least very problematical, especially if a prayer 
 at the end, in which he is styled summus sacerdos, 
 be contemporary with the rest of the composition, 
 since the idea of his having been a bishop seems so 
 much opposed to the known facts of his life as to 
 postulate a considerable lapse of time for its evolu- 
 tion. In the text of the hymn, however, he is only 
 called an approved abbat. Whatever be the case, 
 the hymn is not found in the St. Isidore Codex. 
 
 This Codex, however, is peculiar in containing 
 two hymns which are probably of the seventh cen- 
 tury. The first of these is a short hymn, beginning 
 Christe Qui Lux es — ' 0 Christ, Who art the Light ' 
 — and evidently intended for use before retiring to 
 rest. It contains the prayer for protection against 
 evils in the night, which is usually found in hymns 
 for the same occasion. It belongs to the Ambrosian 
 school, and is, of course, attributed to Ambrose 
 himself ; but the date here suggested for it, is that 
 assigned to it by Daniel in his Thesaurus. The 
 other hymn is a long composition beginning with 
 the words Christi, Patris in dextera. It is about the 
 
36 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 Apostles, and conveys the idea of being intended 
 for the Feast of Pentecost, an idea supported by 
 the fact that it contains just fifty hues. It is 
 marked by the first dozen hues all ending with 
 a, the second dozen with }im, and the rest with a, 
 except the 37th and 38th, which end in o. This 
 appears to have been much admired, as these ter- 
 minations are not, in the MS., attached to the 
 words to which they belong, but arranged in a 
 column at the end of the lines, running down the 
 page. 
 
 The same frigid conceit forms the chief feature 
 of an old Irish ABCDarian hymn in praise of 
 Brigid, which is found written in the beginning of 
 an antient Irish copy of the Greek Psalter, pre- 
 served at Bale. The hymn itself is printed by 
 Mone (iii. 241), and consists of 46 lines, w^th four 
 more added, all ending with a except one which 
 ends in cb. It is merely eulogistic, and that, to an 
 extreme degree, ending with the statement that 
 ' she hath sat down upon the throne along with 
 the mother Mary.' It is marked by the use of 
 Greek words, so characteristic of the oldest Irish 
 Latinists. 
 
 Of the early part of the eighth century we 
 possess three Latin hymns. A certain change of 
 style now becomes perceptible, appearing, among 
 other things, in the celebration of Saints of Scrip- 
 ture, a practice of which Cummain Fota seems to 
 offer the only earlier example. One of these hynms 
 is a prayer for the protection of the Archangel 
 Michael, attributed to the three sons of Murchon, 
 of whom one (Colman) is stated to have died in 731. 
 
ANCIENT CELTIC LATIN HYMNS. 
 
 37 
 
 The style strikes the present writer as showing 
 an approach to the mediaeval. An air of greater 
 antiquity distinguishes the six verses in praise of 
 Oengus McTipraite (who died in 745), which 
 enjoyed a reputation as a lorica. 
 
 There seems to be no doubt that the remaining 
 poem of the three is really by Cuchuimne, who 
 died in 742, 746, or 747, and is unpleasantly dis- 
 tinguished from the other authors here noticed by 
 the fact of a part of his career having been stained 
 by moral obliquity, the subject of a sufficiently 
 pungent epigram attributed to Adamnan. The 
 somewhat un-Irish style is probably to be explained 
 by the attainments of Cuchuimne (which are ad- 
 mitted) familiarizing him with foreign compositions. 
 This hymn is again in honour of a Scriptural per- 
 sonage, namely, of the Blessed Virgin, being the 
 only one in her praise belonging to the group here 
 discussed, but it is in itself a proof of the feeling 
 on the subject entertained among the members of 
 the antient Scoto-Irish churches. 
 
 Cantemus in omni die 
 Concinentes varie 
 Conclamantes Deo dignum 
 Hymnum sanctse Marise. 
 Bis per chorum hinc et inde 
 CoUandemus Madam 
 Ut vox pulset omnem anrem 
 Per laudem vicariam. 
 Maria de tribu Judse 
 Suranii mater Domini 
 Opportunam dedifc curam 
 ^grotanti homini. 
 Gabriel advexit verbum 
 Sinu Patris paterno 
 
 Quod conceptumet susceptum 
 
 In utero materno. 
 
 Hsec est summa, hsec est sancta, 
 
 Virgo venerabilis, 
 
 Qu8e ex fide non recessit 
 
 Sed extetit stabilis. 
 
 Huic matri nec inventa 
 
 Ante nec post similis, 
 
 Nec de Prole fuit plane 
 
 Humanse originis. 
 
 Per mulierem et lignum 
 
 Mundus prius periit, 
 
 Per mulieris virtutem 
 
 Ad salutem rediit. 
 
38 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 Maria mater miranda 
 Patrem suum edidit 
 Per Quern aqua late lotus 
 Totus mundus credidit. 
 Hsec concepit Margaretam — 
 Non sunt vana somnia — 
 Pro qua sani Christiani 
 Vendunt sua omnia. 
 Tunicam per totam textam 
 Christi mater fecerat, 
 Quae peracta Christi morte 
 Sorte statim steterat. 
 
 Induamus arma lucis 
 Loricam et galeam 
 Ut simus Deo prefecti 
 Suscepti per Mariam. 
 Amen, Amen, adjuramus 
 Merita Puerperae 
 Ut non possit flamma pyrse 
 Nos dirse decipere. 
 Christi nomen invocemus 
 Angelis sub testibus 
 Ut fruamur et scribamur 
 Litteris coelestibus.^ 
 
 The ' Patrem suum editit ' will remind readers 
 of Dante of the line in the Paradiso — 
 
 Vergine Madre, figlia del tuo Figlio, 
 0 Virgin Mother, daughter of Thy Son. 
 
 ^ Let us sing every day in changing harmony, raising to God with 
 one consent a worthy hymn of the holy Mary. Backward and for- 
 ward, from this side of the choir and from that, let us join together 
 in praising Mary, that the voice may strike on every ear with praise 
 from one and the other in turn. Mary of the tribe of Judah, the 
 Mother of the Lord Most High, hath given timely heed to sick 
 mankind. Gabriel brought, from the fatherly breast of the Father, 
 the Word which was conceived and received in the mother's womb. 
 This is the excellent, this is the holy, venerable Maiden, who failed 
 not in faith, but stood firm. Neither before her nor since hath one 
 been found like to this Mother ; nor was she [the parent] of a Child 
 of merely human origin. The world first perished by a woman and 
 a tree ; by a woman's virtue hath it returned to health. Mary, the 
 wondrous Mother, brought forth her own Father, and through Him 
 all the world widely washed in water hath believed. She conceived 
 the Pearl — these are not idle dreams — for which wise Christians sell 
 all that they have. The Mother of Christ made the seamless gar- 
 ment woven from the top throughout which, when Christ's death 
 was done, was forthwith put to lot. Let us put on the armour of 
 light, the breast-plate and the helmet, that we may be presented to 
 God, received through Mary. Amen, amen — we invoke the sake of 
 her tiiat bare, that the fire of the dread burning may not be able to 
 take \is : we call upon the name of Christ, in the presence of the 
 Angels, that we may rejoice, and may be written in the book of heaven. 
 
ANCIENT CELTIC LATIN HYMNS. 39 
 
 It is interesting to notice in this composition 
 the evidence that the Antiphonal mode of singing 
 was in use in the time of the writer, as also the 
 occurrence of the well-known comparison or rather 
 contrast, between Eve with the tree of knowledge, 
 and Mary at the Cross, the tree of life of the 
 Second Adam. This hymn seems to supply one of 
 the earliest statements as to the making of the 
 seamless garment ; and, if any weight can be 
 attached to quantities in the Latinity of this school, 
 it is worth remarking that the writer follows some 
 very antient examples in shortening the penultima 
 of Maria. The old gloss upon this hymn is also 
 remarkable as one of the passages showing that 
 the reading Stella Maris for Stilla Maris (Star- 
 of-the-Sea for Drop-of-the-Sea) which is now found 
 in Jerome's treatise on Hebrew names as an inter- 
 pretation of the name Mary, and is apparently a 
 corruption, was not the reading known in Ireland ; 
 the meaning given is Stilla Maris. 
 
 The Trinity College Codex alone contains two 
 hymns for the Feasts of Patrick and Brigid respec- 
 tively, commencing with the words Ecce fidget 
 clarissima Patricii solemnitas, ' Behold, the solemn 
 Feast-day of Patrick is shining with glorious bright- 
 ness,' and Phcebi diem fert orbita, ' The path of 
 Phoebus brings the day.' Neither are long, and 
 both bear a greater resemblance to mediaeval and 
 foreign poems than to the earlier works of their 
 own school. That in praise of Patrick is the 
 longest, the best, and also the most national in 
 style ; but its very existence seems to point to a 
 period when the singing of the hymn of Sechnall 
 
40 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 for three days and three nights had ceased to 
 distinguish the anniversary of the falling-on-sleep 
 of the son of Calphurn. 
 
 It must be admitted that the interest of these 
 poems is mainly, though by no means entirely, 
 archaeological. Some of the writers were certainly 
 endowed with a poetical genius, but even with 
 these, the struggle against a dead language is less 
 successful than in the case of several continental 
 authors, and the beauty of their compositions lies 
 rather in the impressiveness of sincere and earnest 
 feeling expressed with taste and simplicity. The 
 real value of their works is chiefly in the character 
 of monuments, not only of the prevalent beliefs and 
 practices of their time and race, but also of the 
 state of literary culture, among which the evidences 
 of the study of Greek and Hebrew are not the 
 least remarkable feature. 
 
THE NEW LIGHT UPON ST. PATRICK. 
 
 Vita Sancti Patricii, Hibernorum Apostoli, auctore 
 Mtiirchu Macciimachtheni, et Tirechani Col- 
 lectanea de S. Patritio — nunc pvinium Integra 
 ex Libra Armachano, ope Codicis Bi uxeJlensis. 
 Edidit R. P. Edmundus Hogan, S.J., operam 
 conferentibus PP. Bollandianis. (Excerptuni 
 ex Analectis Bolla7idianis.) Bruxellis. Typis 
 PoUeunis, Ceuterick et Lifebure, 1882. 
 
 TT has long been admitted among the learned 
 that the documents concerning the Apostle of 
 Ireland, contained in the Book of Armagh, are the 
 purest and earliest records of his life which exist, 
 and to a great extent the foundations upon which 
 all subsequent matter of the sort has been based, 
 and that among these documents the most im- 
 portant pieces, after the Confession, which is the 
 work of Patrick himself, are the Life and the Col- 
 lectanea. That these works had hitherto been 
 placed before students only in a most imperfect 
 manner was but little less matter of regret and 
 complaint than the fact that the Life was imperfect 
 in the Armagh Codex, and that the loss of the 
 beginning, in particular, rendered it useless upon 
 tlie earlier part of his career, and especially upon 
 the details of his mission to Ireland, the very point 
 upon which historical controversy had been most 
 
 4 41 
 
\ 
 
 42 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 keenly exacerbated, one group of writers main- 
 taining that he was an emissary despatched by 
 Pope Celestine before the end of July, a.d. 432, 
 and another that his emigration to the scene of his 
 apostolate was of somewhat later date. The ex- 
 citement among the increasing school to whom the 
 history of Ireland and of Celtic Christianity is the 
 subject of scientific investigation was therefore 
 very great, when it was known that the Bollandist, 
 Fr. de Smedt, had discovered a new Codex of the 
 same biography as that contained in the Book of 
 Armagh, embracing not only the three chapters 
 hitherto missing in the body of the work, but the 
 lost commencement as well. The Bollandists, with 
 that earnest devotion to solid historical science 
 which is among them so glorious a tradition, deter- 
 mined to issue a critical text of the Vita and Col- 
 lectanea, and entrusted the task to Fr. Edmund 
 Hogan, now one of the Professors of Gaelic in the 
 Catholic University of Dublin. The result most 
 fully justifies the acuteness of their selection. The 
 least merit of the work is that it is printed with a 
 luxurious clearness which robs the masses of foot- 
 note and reference of nearly all their terrors. The 
 texts have been produced with such correctness 
 that a most searching examination by Dr. Whitley 
 Stokes is said to have revealed only some half-dozen 
 unimportant misprints. The collations of the MSS. 
 are given in full, with the addition of a vast 
 number of ingenious conjectural emendations, and 
 a judicious number of pregnant notes. The lucid 
 clearness of the editor's own style is a merit of 
 which it would be affectation to deny the value. 
 
THE NEW LIGHT UPON ST. PATRICK. 43 
 
 when the question is of reading a book in Latin, 
 and he has been singularly happy in the way in 
 which, in an introduction consisting entirely of 
 matter of the keenest interest, he has succeeded in 
 being concise without obscurity, and full without 
 diffuseness. The extent of his reading is evidently 
 admirable, and he is gracefully courageous in his 
 references to other writers, while he seems himself 
 to have succeeded in forming, although he abstains 
 from enunciating it, some definite idea of his own 
 upon the history of Patrick, a feat the difficulty of 
 which can be realised only by those who have 
 attempted it. 
 
 The Book of Armagh is a New Testament, en- 
 riched with Concordance Tables, and illustrative 
 matter from Hilary, Jerome, and the arch-heretic 
 Pelagius. It contains the Epistle to the Laodi- 
 ceans, attributed to St. Paul, though with the 
 remark that Jerome denies its authenticity. The 
 books of Scripture are followed by pieces relating 
 to Martin of Tours, and preceded by four connected 
 with Patrick. These are («) the Life {h) the Col- 
 lectanea, followed by an Index of the preceding, 
 (c) the Book of the Angel, or alleged Revelation 
 made to Patrick by the Angel Victor concerning 
 the prerogatives of the Church of Armagh, and [d) 
 the Confession. The precise date of the MS. has 
 been discovered with extraordinary acuteness by 
 the Rev. Charles Graves. By minute investigation 
 he found, in a palimpsest form, some colophons 
 indicating that it had been written by one Fer- 
 domnach, at the order of a Bishop of Armagh, 
 whose name ended in aeh. The deaths of two 
 
44 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 scribes of Armagh named Ferdomnach are recorded 
 at 726 and 844 respectively, but the latter alone 
 was contemporary with Bishops whose names ended 
 in ach, and of these the name of Torbach alone fits 
 the space of the erasure. As Torbach sat only one 
 year, the date is fixed with certainty to 806 or 807, 
 or accepting O'Donovan's amended chronology, 811 
 or 812. The idea, however, came to prevail that 
 the MS. contained an autograph of Patrick ; ^ as 
 early as 937 Donnchad, son of Flann, King of the 
 Irish, enclosed it in a precious reliquary ; and the 
 M'Moyre family were ultimately endowed (Maor = 
 Keeper) to keep it safely. Florence M'Moyre 
 pawned it for £5 in 1680, when he was going to 
 London to give evidence against Archbishop Oliver 
 Plunket. Thus it came into the hands of Arthur 
 Brownlow, and remained in the Brownlow family 
 till 1853, when the Rev. William Beeves bought it 
 for £300, and sold it for the same sum to the 
 Anglican Archbishop Beresford, on condition that 
 it should be deposited for ever in Trinity College 
 Library, where it now is. As regards the dates of 
 the two authors whose works are now published 
 from this noble Codex in so worthy a form, both 
 are of the seventh century. Tirechan describes 
 himself as a disciple of Ultan O'Conchobair, whose 
 death is recorded at a.d. 656, and Muirchu Mac- 
 cumachtheni as writing at the command of Aed, 
 Bishop of Sletty, who died about a.d. 698. 
 
 ^Possibly on accouMt of the following words (evidently referring 
 to the contents or copied from a note on the original copy) after the 
 Confession — ' Thus far the book which Patrick wrote with his own 
 hand. On the seventeenth day of March was Patrick taken to the 
 heavens.' 
 
THE NEW LIGHT UPON ST. PATRICK. 45 
 
 The newly discovered text of the Life is con- 
 tained in a MS. collection of Saints' Lives in the 
 Royal Library of Brussels ; and the only complaint 
 which can be made of Fr. Hogan is that he has 
 not given a rather fuller account of the other 
 contents of this volume. It is true that these so- 
 called biographies only too generally consist of 
 stories which can scarcely be called history, but it 
 is from them, by a proper application of critical 
 solvents, that a very great deal of the true his- 
 tory of the times to which they relate is derived, 
 and they are, at worst, most interesting monu- 
 ments of the epoch when they were written, and 
 picturesque records of very antient and generally 
 graceful popular legends. This actual volume 
 shows three hands of the eleventh century. It 
 formerly belonged to the Irish Monastery of Wlirz- 
 burg. 
 
 To write a thorough disquisition upon the 
 publication now in question would be to write a 
 book upon the Life and Times of Patrick. It is 
 therefore proposed here merely to take the portion, 
 nearly all of which is perfectly new, viz., that 
 touching the career of Patrick till his arrival in 
 Ireland as her Apostle, and to set it in comparison, 
 assisted by a few observations, with his own 
 account of the same period in his Confession. This 
 is indeed the only part of his Life which can be 
 submitted to that test. To the rest of the book it 
 is purposed to refer here no more than may be 
 necessary, and an endeavour will also be made to 
 keep as clear as possible of the wearisome, en- 
 venomed, and not unfrequently even ridiculous 
 
46 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 controversies which have for so long raged around 
 this interesting subject. The scribe of the Wlirz- 
 burg Codex gives the reader at the very outset a 
 terrible indication of his ignorant capacity. His 
 so-called Prologue is actually a scrap from some 
 Life of Basil the Great, with two sentences 
 regarding Patrick embedded in it. They are as 
 follows : — ^ 
 
 ' From the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ 
 unto the death of Patrick are reckoned 436 years. 
 
 ' I have found four names in the book Scripta 
 Patricii belonging to Bishop Ultan Concubrensus : ^ 
 holy Jmigonus, which is clear ; Sucsetus, he is 
 Patrick ; for he served four houses of magi, and 
 one of them whose name was the magus Miluch 
 Mocuhoin bought him, and he served him seven 
 years. Patrick the son of Alfornus had four 
 names. Sachet, when he was born ; Contice, when 
 he served : Mavonius, when he read ; Patrick, 
 when he was ordained.' 
 
 Since it may be regarded as certain that 
 Maccumachtheni imagined the Passion to have 
 taken place in a.d. 34, it will be observed that he 
 
 ^The heading, after the real old Irish manner, contains a Greek 
 word, ' In the name of the King of the sky, the Saviour of this 
 Tiosmos. ' 
 
 ^ Ahuduldaiium episcopum Concubrensum. Fr. Hogan's conjectural 
 emendation for the first word is ' apud Ultanum.' Concuhrensum is 
 elsewhere written Conchuhurnensium. From his being called, in 
 the Festology of Oengns, maic hui Conchobair, it would appear 
 that this strange title simply means that his surname (as we should 
 now call it) was ' O'Conchobar. ' Coiicuhrensum or Comhuhurnensium 
 is perhaps meant for a Genitive Plural, and, if so, would mean, 
 * Bishop of the Hyconchobar.' 
 
THE NEW LIGHT UPON ST. PATRICK. 47 
 
 fixes the death of Patrick at or about a.d. 470. 
 After this singular preface, the Life proceeds as 
 follows : — ^ 
 
 '1. Of the birth of holy Patrick and of his 
 captivity in Ireland. 
 
 ' Patrick, who was also called Socket, a Briton 
 by nation, [was] born in the Britains,^ begotten of 
 the Deacon Cualfarnus, a son, as he himself saith, 
 of the Priest Potitus, who was of the village Ban 
 navem thabur iiidecha, not (ut? hand) far from 
 our sea, which village we have constantly and 
 undoubtedly ascertained to be ventre,^ conceived 
 also of a mother named Concessa. When he was 
 a boy of sixteen years [of age] he was captured 
 along with others, carried over into this island 
 of savages, [and] held in slavery with a certain 
 heathen and cruel king. He [there passed] six 
 years after the Hebrew manner,^ with fear of 
 God and trembling, according to the saying of the 
 Psalmist, in many watchings and prayers. An 
 
 The present writer begs to deprecate criticism upon the badness 
 of the English of his translations. It is impossible to translate 
 Latin word for word into good English, and here the Latin is, in 
 addition, very bad. He has preferred verbal fidelity to any attempt 
 at elegance. 
 
 Britannis, but Britan7iiis seems almost certainly meant. 
 
 ^ The word seems to have been first written venitre. Fr. Hogan 
 gives, in a footnote, a guarded adhesion to the opinion which identi- 
 fies Beti navem thaour indecha with Kilpatrick on the Clyde. The 
 meaning on the surface of ventre would be ivhite town (gwen, tre). Is 
 it possible that it has something to do with nearness to Paisley, 
 generally identified with Vanduara or White-water (gweu, dwfr), 
 from the White Cart? Assuming ve^dre, as is not improbable, to be 
 a genitive, the passage might be arranged ' which we have ascer- 
 tained . . . to be a village of Ventra.' 
 
 * The reference is to Ex. xxi. 2, etc. 
 
48 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 hundred times in the day and an hundred times in 
 the night used he to pray, wilhngly returning, 
 and beginning to fear God and to love the Lord 
 Almighty : for until that time he knew not the 
 true God, but then the spirit grew hot within him. 
 After many tribulations there, after hunger and 
 thirst, after cold and nakedness, after feeding 
 flocks, after many visits of the angelic Victoricus 
 sent unto him from God, after great virtues known 
 unto almost all, after answers from God, of which 
 I will show only one or two here for example's 
 sake — Thou fastest ivell, thou shalt soon go unto 
 thine own fatherland, and again : Behohl, thy ship 
 is ready, which was not at hand, but he had 
 perchance miles to traverse^ where he had never 
 travelled ; after all these things, as we have learnt, 
 which hardly any one can count, with unknown 
 savage and heathen men, worshippers of many and 
 false gods, already in the ship prepared for him, 
 having forsaken the tyrant and heathen with [all] 
 his works, and taken the heavenly and eternal 
 God in holy company. . . save that of God, 
 in the twenty-third year of his age he sailed over 
 unto the Britains.^ 
 
 '2. Of his voyage with the Gentiles. 
 
 ' So [he was] carried about hither and thither in 
 the sea for three days and as many nights, like 
 
 ^ Ducenda, but Fr. Hogan suggests ducenta, tivo hundred. 
 ^ Excepto divino ; there is evidently an hiatus here, and Fr. Hogan 
 suggests, with great probability, some such words as ' with no help.* 
 •'In the Plural, i.e., the Roman provinces in Great Britain. In 
 the Singular, Britannia sometimes means Brittany, but never in the 
 Plural. 
 
THE NEW LIGHT UPON ST. PATRICK. 49 
 
 unto Jonah, along with the wicked, afterwards for 
 twice ten and eight daily lights together, in the 
 manner of Moses, but in another sense, wearied in 
 the desert, the Gentiles murmuring like the Jews, 
 ready to faint with hunger and thirst, [he] con- 
 strained by the captain [of the ship], tried, and 
 besought that he would pray for them unto his 
 God that they might not perish, moved with 
 compassion upon the multitude, troubled in spirit, 
 worthily crowned, glorified by God, he afforded 
 abundance of meat [for himself along] with the 
 multitude, from an herd of swine which God sent 
 unto him, as from [a flock of] quails.^ Wild honey 
 also came unto him, as unto John of old, the flesh 
 of swine, however, being substituted, as the utterly 
 degraded Gentiles deserved, for the eating {iisu? 
 esu) of locusts. But that holy Patrick, tasting 
 nothing of these meats, for it had been offered [to 
 idols], remained unhurt, neither hungering nor 
 thirsting. But the same night, while he slept, 
 Satan vehemently tried him, fixing vast rocks 
 upon him and already breaking his arms and legs, 
 but when he had twice called aloud upon Elias, 
 the sun arose upon him, and by its splendour 
 drove away all the darkness of the night, and his 
 strength was restored unto him. 
 
 ' 3. Of the other captivity of Patrick. 
 
 ' And a second time after many years he 
 endured captivity by strangers. Where, the first 
 
 1 Ex coturni, but Fr. Hogan's suggestion that this is a mistake for 
 cotiirnica or coturnicibus seems (from the previous comparison to 
 Moses and the Israelites in the wilderness) overwhelmingly probable. 
 
50 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 night, he earned to hear an answer from God, 
 saying unto him : Two Months shall thou he with 
 them, that is, with thine enemies. And so it was. 
 And upon the sixtieth day the Lord dehvered him 
 out of their hands, providing unto him and his 
 comrades food and fire and dryness until upon the 
 tenth day they came unto men. 
 
 ' 4. Of his welcoming by his kinsfolk. 
 
 ' And a second time, after a few years, as before, 
 he rested in his own fatherland among his kinsfolk, 
 who received him as a son, beseeching him that 
 then at any rate, after so great tribulations and 
 trials, he would never leave them again for the 
 rest of his life. But he consented not. And there 
 were shown unto him many visions. And he was 
 thirty years of age, according to the [word of the] 
 apostle unto a perfect man et cetera, to the fulness 
 of Christ.^ He went forth to visit and honour the 
 Apostolic See, to the head also of all the Churches 
 of the whole world, that now knowing the divine 
 and holy mysteries whereunto God called him that 
 he might learn, and understand, and fulfil them, 
 and that he might preach and confer the grace of 
 God among the nations outside, turning [them] 
 unto the faith of Christ. 
 
 '5. Of the finding of holy Geraianus^ in the 
 Gauls, and therefore he went forth no farther. 
 
 ' When, therefore, he had sailed over the right- 
 hand British sea, and started on the journey 
 through the Gallic Alps, to pass through, as he 
 proposed in his heart, even unto the uttermost, he 
 
 1 Sic ! 
 
 2 So the MS., but surely Germanus must be meant. 
 
THE NEW LIGHT UPON ST. PATRICK. 
 
 51 
 
 found a certain most holy Bishop in the city of 
 Alsiodorum/ the Prince Germanus, a most precious 
 gift. With him he tarried no small while, accord- 
 ing to that which Paul was at the feet of Gamaliel, 
 and, in all subjection, and patience, and obedience, 
 with all the desire of his soul, learned, loved, and 
 kept knowledge, wisdom, and chastity, and all 
 useful things not only of the spirit but also of the 
 soul, with great fear and love of God, in goodness 
 and singleness of heart, in strength " in body and 
 in spirit. 
 
 ' 6. Of his age when the angel visited him that 
 he should come unto Ireland. 
 
 ' And when many times were passed there, as 
 [sayj some, xL, others, xxx. years, that right 
 faithful elder called Victoricus, who [at this point 
 begins th'< Booh of Armagh, hat the text here given 
 is still that of the Wurzhurg Codex] had said all 
 things unto him when he was in captivity in 
 Ireland, before that they were, visited him with 
 many visions, saying unto him that the time is 
 come that he should come and preach the Gospel 
 among the fierce and savage tribes, to teach whom 
 
 ^ It is natural to suppose that this is meant f(jr Auxerre — Antissio- 
 dorum — the See of Germanus, but Fr. Hogan brings forward, with 
 great modestj^, an ingenious suggestion that it may mean Auch — 
 Augusta Ausciorum — and that Patrick's consecrator, variously called 
 Amathus, Amathorex, etc., etc., may have been one Armentarius, 
 Bishop of Auch in the middle of the fifth century. The present 
 writer cannot express his assent to this view, and inclines to 
 Antissiodorum, but any suggestion coming from such a man as Fr. 
 Hogan must be received with attention. 
 
 ^ Vigore. Probus reads virgo, and Fr. Hogan wishes to follow him. 
 
52 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 God had sent him to fish ; ^ and there it was said 
 unto him : The sons and daughter's of the rvood of 
 Foclada are calling thee, et cetera} 
 
 '7. Of his return from the Gauls and the ordin- 
 ation of Palladius. 
 
 ' When therefore a meet time commanded, God's 
 help companying with him and counsel company- 
 ing, he entereth upon the way [already] begun, 
 unto the Gospel work for which of old time work 
 had been prepared, and he sent the elder Ger- 
 manus with him,^ that is, Segitius the Priest, that 
 he might have a witness and useful comrade, for 
 neither yet was he ordained in the Episcopal grade 
 by the holy lord Germanus. For the others were 
 that Palladius archdeacon of Pope Celestine, of 
 the city, who then held the Apostolic See, being 
 forty-fifth from the holy Apostle Peter, that 
 Palladius, to wit, had been ordained by the holy 
 Pope, and sent to convert this island lying under 
 Roman cold/ But God hindered him, for no man 
 can receive from earth unless it hath been given 
 
 A The Armagh Codex is much better — 'and fish with the Gospel 
 net for the tierce,' etc. 
 
 ' Sic. 
 
 ^ The Armagh reading seems infinitely preferable — ' unto the work 
 for which he had of old time been prepared, that is, [the work] of 
 the Gospel, and Germanus sent an elder with him, that is, Segitius 
 tlie Priest, that he might have a comrade with him for a 
 witness,' etc. 
 
 *The above sentence, as compared with the Armagh Codex, bears 
 all the signs of having been written to dictation by a person who did 
 not understand Latin. The Armagh gives, ' For it was certain {certe 
 enim erat for cmteri enim erant), etc. — Bishop of the city of Rome — 
 ordained and sent — wintry cold {brumali for romani).^ 
 
THE NEW LIGHT UPON ST. PATRICK. 
 
 53 
 
 him from heaven. For neither do the in-bring- 
 ing (?) and uncouth easily receive his teaching, nor 
 also did he wish to pass that long time in a land 
 not his own : ^ but while he returned unto him 
 who sent him, after passing the first sea, he ended 
 his life in the coasts of the Picts. 
 
 '8. Of the ordination of Patrick by Amathus, 
 King and Bishop. 
 
 ' When therefore he had heard of the death of 
 holy Paladius ^ among the Britains, for the disciples 
 of Paladius, Augustine, and Benedict, and the 
 others, brought news in Curbia concerning his 
 death, Patrick and they that were with him turned 
 out of the way unto a certain marvellous man, a 
 chief Bishop, King Amatho by name (Amatho 
 regem nomine? Amathorex hy name) who was 
 dwelling in a place hard by ; and therefore holy 
 Patrick, knowing the things which were to come 
 unto him, received the episcopal step from King 
 Amathus (Amatho rege ? Amathorex) the holy 
 Bishop. But also Auxilius and Sanninus and the 
 other lower steps were ordained on the same day 
 [as] holy Patrick. Then when blessings had been 
 given and all had been perfect according to custom, 
 and there had been sung [by] Patrick as specially 
 and suitably this verse of the Psalmist : Thou art 
 a Priest for ever according to the order of Melchi, 
 
 ^ Here again common-sense favours the Armagh — ' For neither 
 did these fierce ( /eri for inferientes) and uncouth men easily receive 
 his teaching,' etc. That transegere (both MSS.) is a slip of the pen 
 for transigere may perhaps be assumed. Armagh gives Britons 
 instead of Picts. 
 
 ^ With one I in this chapter. 
 
54 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 — the venerable traveller taketh in the name of 
 the Holy Trinity the ship prepared for him, and 
 Cometh even unto Britain, and omitting all cir- 
 cuitous routes of walking except the office of the 
 common way . . . . ^ he reacheth our sea with 
 a prosperous journey.' 
 
 The first emotion of the student on reading the 
 above will probably be of a feeling of amazement, 
 followed perchance by an emotion of vindictive joy, 
 at the disappearance of his old enemy Eboria. 
 Not only, however, does the Brussels Codex read 
 Carhia where the Armagh gives Ebinoria, but we 
 now learn that the scribe of the Armagh Codex 
 himself has marked Ehmoria with the sign Z, 
 indicating a doubtful reading. Can it be possible, 
 after all, that this geographical will-o'-the-wisp, 
 which has eluded the researches of so many 
 students, consumed so much time, and caused so 
 much temper, never existed at all except in a 
 lapsus calami f It is not necessary here to enter 
 upon the subject, or to touch the feast for the 
 historical controversialist which Curhia will no 
 doubt henceforth alford. 
 
 The passage of Tirechan's Collectanea which 
 refers to the same period is as follows : — 
 
 ' I have found four names written in the book of 
 Patrick, with Bishop Ultan, Conchuburnensius — 
 holy Magonus, which is clear ; Succetus, which is 
 Patrick ; Cothirthiacus, for he served four houses 
 of magi. And one of them, the magus whose 
 
 ^ There is here a clause which seems unintelligible in both Codices. 
 Brussels — Nemo itaque desideria qucurit Dominun. Armagh — Nemo 
 enim dissidia qucerit Dominum. 
 
THE NEW LIGHT UPON ST. PATRICK. 55 
 
 name was Miliuc Mac Cahoiii, bought him, and he 
 served him for seven years in all servitude and 
 double labour, and he put him for a swineherd in 
 the glens of the mountains. But at last the Angel 
 of the Lord visited him in dreams upon the peaks 
 of Mount Scirte, near Mount Miss. But when the 
 speech of the Angel was finished : Behold, thy ship 
 is ready, arise and tvalk, — and he went away from 
 him into heaven, — he arose and walked, as the 
 Angel of the Lord, Victor by name, said unto him. 
 In the seventeenth year of his age was he captured, 
 brought, sold into Ireland. In the twenty-second 
 year [of his age] he was able to leave the work of 
 the magus. Seven other years did he walk and 
 voyage amid the waves, amid country places, and 
 mountain glens through the Gauls and all Italy 
 and in the islands which are in the Tyrrhenian sea, 
 as he himself said in the memorial of his labours. 
 And he was in one of the islands which is called 
 Aralanensis,^ for thirty years, as Bishop Ultan 
 testifies unto me. But all the things which came 
 to pass ye will find written in his full {plana) 
 history. These are his latest wonders, finished 
 and happily wrought in the fifth year of the reign 
 of Loiguire m Neill. Now, from the passion of 
 Christ unto the death of Patrick are reckoned four 
 hundred and thirty-six ^ years. And Loiguire 
 reigned two or five years after the death of Patrick. 
 And the time of all his reign was thirty-six years, 
 as we think.' 
 
 ^ Possibly meant for Aries — Arelatensis. 
 2 Perhaps not six but three. 
 
56 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 Before proceeding to compare these narratives 
 with what we are told by Patrick himself, it is as 
 well to take a glance at the known chronology of 
 Germanus of Auxerre. He was consecrated to the 
 See of Auxerre on July 7, 418, and died at 
 Ravenna on July 31, 448, having held his See 
 thirty years and twenty -five days. The statement 
 of Maccumachtheni, that Patrick studied under 
 him for forty or thirty years, may therefore be at 
 once dismissed, for the career of Germanus before 
 becoming a Bishop was not that of a teacher. Fr. 
 Hogan appears to consider that the Aralanensis 
 of Tirechan is a mistake for Alsiodoreusis, and 
 thus identifying the sojourns spoken of by Mac- 
 cumachtheni and Tirechan respectively, ingeniously 
 suggests for the ' xxx.' of the latter the conjectural 
 emendation ' xx.' If the chronology of Tirechan 
 be accepted with this emendation, Patrick must 
 have been about forty-nine years of age at the 
 time of his coming to Ireland. Now, he himself 
 says (as will appear presently) that before his 
 consecration some of his elders found against him, 
 after thirty years, a fault which he had committed 
 when he was about fifteen years of age. Con- 
 sequently, he was then at least forty -five. These 
 statements are really harmonious, for ' after thirty 
 years ' may well be a round way of stating a 
 number somewhat above thirty ; and, on the other 
 hand, it is clear that Tirechan does not reckon 
 whole periods of twelve months each when he 
 speaks of years, and probably his rows of x's are 
 also round numbers. To go farther than this, here, 
 would be to plunge into the vortex of the chrono- 
 
THE NEW LIGHT UPON ST. PATRICK. 57 
 
 logical controversy. It will therefore suffice to 
 point out the entire inconsistency of the statements 
 here made by Tirechan with that made by him 
 and Maccumachtheni elsewhere, to the effect that 
 Patrick attained the age of 120 years. That these 
 authors laboured under the error of believing that 
 the Passion of Christ took place in the year a.d. 
 34, may be assumed as a moral certainty ; conse- 
 quently they must be understood to place the 
 death of M'Calphurn about a.d. 470. If he was 
 120 years old at that time, he must have been 
 born about 350, and arrived in Ireland about the 
 close of the Fourth Century — some twenty years 
 before the consecration of Germanus, under whom 
 he is said to have previously studied for so many 
 years. The fact is, that the age of 120, whether 
 based on a copyist's slip of the pen or upon any- 
 thing else,has become one of the imaginary features 
 by which a later age endeavoured to fix upon the 
 career of M'Calphurn a variety of circumstances 
 identical with those of the life of Moses, and which 
 is here found in juxtaposition, and glaring contra- 
 diction, with the remains of a tradition earlier and 
 truer, albeit probably somewhat corrupted. The same 
 remark applies to the alleged mission of Patrick 
 by Pope Celestine. That Pope died August 1, 
 432. If, therefore, Patrick commenced his studies 
 under Germanus in the very year of the latter's 
 consecration (which is highly improbable), and 
 remained with him, not forty, nor thirty, nor even 
 twenty, but only fifteen years, he must have been 
 there beyond the time of that Pope's death. The 
 Celestine idea is therefore hopelessly inconsistent 
 
 5 
 
58 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 with the chronology of both Maccumachtheni and 
 Tirechan, and they no more allude to it than 
 Patrick does himself/ 
 
 Let the reader now turn from these, which seem 
 the earliest records of Patrick M'Calphurn now 
 known, of a later period than his own, and see 
 what he himself says of the same part of his 
 career. 
 
 The Confession of Patrick is a composition in- 
 stinct with a beauty so noble and so touching, that 
 for any man to read it without a certain amount of 
 emotion would be a proof of his own low in- 
 tellectual organism. But this work, in the truest 
 sense sublime, presents the gravest difficulties to 
 the cold eye of merely historical criticism. It is 
 true that the grounds upon which its authenticity 
 
 ^The penultimate paragraph of the Collectanea, before the Addi- 
 iamenta (page 89 of the edition before us) is as follows : — ' In the 
 thirteenth year of the Emperor Teothasins {sic) by Celestine the 
 Bishop, the Pope of Rome, is a Bishop Patrick sent {Patricius epis- 
 copus mittitur) for the teaching of the Scots. This Celestine was the 
 forty-seventh Bishop from the Apostle Peter in the city of Rome. 
 Bishop Paladius is sent first, who was called Patrick by another 
 nauie, who suffered martyrdom among the Scots, as the holy elders 
 hand down. Then Patrick the second is sent by an angel of God, 
 named Victor, ajid by Pope Celestine, in whom all Ireland believed, 
 who baptised nearly all of her.' It is clear that contradictories can- 
 not both express the opinion of Tirechan, and eitlier this or the 
 body of the work must be discredited. On several grounds the 
 present writer cannot consider that the above isolated and contra- 
 dictory paragraph can be anything but a later interpolation ; he 
 thinks it possible, however, that it may be itself in a corrupt form, 
 and that the italicised words ' and by Pope Celestine ' have been 
 inserted either by a slip of the pen or by a wilful emendation on the 
 part of the scribe, the general tone of the passage being to draw a 
 distinction between the first Patrick, who was sent by man and 
 failed, and the second Patrick, who was sent by an Angel of God 
 and succeeded. 
 
THE NEW LIGHT UPON ST. PATRICK. 59 
 
 has been questioned are so flimsy as to be almost 
 absurd, and no hesitation can be felt in accepting 
 the all but universal recognition of its genuineness 
 on the part of the learned. It is evident therefore 
 that this work (together with such historical state- 
 ments as occur in the equally undoubtedly genuine 
 Epistle to the subjects of Coroticus) must be taken 
 as the absolute standard of truth in any biography 
 of this Patrick. The same supernatural import- 
 ance which he attaches to his dreams may not be 
 ascribed to them ; but of his perfect honesty in 
 stating them, and consequently of the fact of their 
 occurrence, there can be no doubt. Whatever state- 
 ment is to be found in the Confession and in the 
 Epistle is true ; whatever statement is opposed to 
 them is false, at least as relating to M'Calphurn ; 
 whatever statement is neither in nor opposed to 
 them must be examined on other grounds. It is 
 in the text of the Confession itself that the diffi- 
 culties commence. The number of variants, to 
 begin with, is evident by glancing at a page of 
 Villanueva's edition ; and many of them are very 
 serious. If, however, even this were cleared away, 
 the language itself is very hard to understand. 
 M'Calphurn does not seem to have been a man of 
 high literary culture ; he describes himself [Con. 
 i. 1) as rusticissimus, and, in his Epistle to the 
 subjects of Coroticus (l), the genuineness of which 
 is as certain as that of the Confession, distinctly 
 states that he was indoctus. He says (Con. i. 3.) 
 that the habitual use of another language had 
 impaired his facility in Latin, such as it was. The 
 language of his writings simply bears out this 
 
60 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 description. It becomes sometimes a matter of 
 little better than guess-work to make out what 
 was the idea which he wished to express. Hereby 
 also arises the doubt whether the rules of interpre- 
 tation which are applicable to a classical composi- 
 tion can be safely used to language of this sort. 
 Even, however, if the text of the Confessio)i were 
 absolutely certain and couched in the most lucid 
 Latinity, its form would be very difficult. The 
 intention of the author seems to have been to 
 write a kind of autobiography, somewhat in the 
 style of Augustine, in which the dealings of God 
 with him should be made the subject of thankful 
 acknowledgment, as a debt of gratitude on his own 
 part as well as a source of edification to others. 
 This intention is more or less perfectly preserved in 
 the opening paragraph of the First Chapter, and 
 throughout the whole of the Second. In the Third 
 Chapter the autobiographical style is largely de- 
 parted from, and the tone becomes declamatory 
 when speaking of the falseness of the friend by 
 whom he w^as betrayed. The Fourth and Fifth 
 Chapters are purely declamatory, and only contain 
 historical matter incidentally. The following is a 
 literal translation of the whole of the autobio- 
 graphical part, including the Third Chapter : — 
 
 ' I. — 1. I, Patrick, that most clownish sinner 
 (peccator rusticissimus) , and least of all the faith- 
 ful, and most contemptible among multitudes, had 
 for a father the Deacon Calpornius, the son of the 
 late Priest Potitus : who was of the village of Ben- 
 aven Tabernise, for he had the farm [of Enon] near 
 by, where I fell into captivity. I was then nearly 
 
THE NEW LIGHT UPON ST. PATRICK. 61 
 
 sixteen years of age. For I knew not the true 
 God ; and I was brought into Ireland in captivity, 
 with so many thousand men, according to our 
 deserts ; for we fell away from God, and kept not 
 His commandments, and were disobedient unto our 
 Priests (sacei^Iotibus), who warned [us for] our 
 salvation : and the Lord brought upon us the 
 wrath of His indignation, and scattered us among 
 many nations, even unto the end of the earth, 
 where now my littleness is seen to be among aliens. 
 And there the Lord opened the understanding of 
 the unbelief of mine heart, that even late as it was 
 I might call to mind mine offences, and turn me 
 with all mine heart unto my Lord, Who looked 
 upon my lowliness, and had compassion upon my 
 youth and mine ignorance, [and] kept me, before I 
 knew Him, and before I tasted or distinguished 
 between the good and the evil, and admonished 
 me, and comforted me, as a father [comforteth] his 
 son.' 
 
 The style then becomes declamatory, containing 
 the celebrated passage in the form of a Profession 
 of Faith, commonly known as the Creed of St. 
 Patrick. With the beginning of the Second 
 Chapter, however, the autobiographical matter is 
 gradually resumed — 
 
 ' II. — 6. And so it behoveth to distinguish those 
 things which are of loyalty toward the Trinity 
 [quae Jidei Triuitatis sunt), and without blame of 
 danger to make known the gift of God, and His 
 eternal consolation, and without fear to spread 
 God's name faithfully everywhere, and to leave 
 [the same] even after my death unto my brethren 
 
62 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 and sons, whom I have baptized in the Lord, so 
 many thousand men — albeit I was not worthy, nor 
 such an one that the Lord should grant this unto 
 His servant, and give him so great a grace, after 
 griefs of such burden, after captivity, after many 
 years in that nation, which [thing] I never once 
 hoped for in my youth nor thought of But after 
 I came to Ireland I fed flocks every day, and I 
 prayed often in the day, and more and more did 
 the love of God come to me, and the fear of Him 
 and faith increased, and the Spirit increased, so 
 that in one day I would make as many as an 
 hundred prayers, and in the night well nigh like- 
 wise : and I abode even in the woods and in the 
 mountain, and I was roused up to prayer before 
 the light, in snow, in frost, in rain, and I felt no 
 evil, neither was there any sloth in me, [such] as I 
 see now : for then the Spirit glowed in me. And 
 there certainly one night in sleep I heard a voice 
 saying unto me : Thou fastest well, [thou art] soon 
 about to go to thy fatherland. And a second time 
 after a very little while I heard an answer saying 
 unto me : Behold, thy ship is ready. And it was 
 not near, but perchance it was two hundred miles 
 away, and I had never been there neither did I 
 know any man there. 
 
 ' 7. And then afterwards I turned to fly : and I 
 left the man with whom I had been for six years : 
 and in the strength of God, Who directed my 
 faith, I came unto Benum : ^ and I feared nothing, 
 until I came unto that ship. And as soon as I 
 came unto her, she went forward from her place, 
 
 Villamieva understands the Boyne to be meant. 
 
THE NEW LIGHT UPON ST. PATRICK. 63 
 
 and I spake that I might have whence to voyage.^ 
 But it displeased the Captain, and he answered 
 sharply with anger : Thou needest not to seek to 
 go with us. And when I heard these words, I 
 parted from them, to come unto the hut where I 
 was lodging : and on the way I began to pray : 
 and before I finished the prayer, I heard one of 
 them cry lustily after me : Come quick, for these 
 men call thee : and forthwith I returned unto 
 them : and they began to say unto me : Come, for 
 we receive thee of faith, ^ and make friendship with 
 us as thou shalt will. And in that day I had to 
 arise into their ship for God's sake. Nevertheless, 
 I hoped [not] of them that they would say unto 
 me : Come in Christ's faith : for they were 
 Gentiles ; and this I obtained with them ; and 
 straightway we set forth on the voyage. 
 
 ' 8. And after three days we landed ; and we 
 travelled through a desert for seven -and-twenty 
 days. But food and drink failed us, and famine 
 waxed strong upon us. And another day the 
 Captain began to say unto me : What is it, O thou 
 Christian ? Thou sayest, thy God is great and 
 almighty ; why therefore canst thou not pray for 
 us ? Pray for us, for we are imperilled with 
 hunger, for it is hardly that we should ever see 
 a man. But I said unto them openly : Turn ye 
 with all your heart unto the Lord my God, for 
 nothing is impossible with Him, that He send us 
 
 ^ The iDeaning seems to be that he could not pay for his passage. 
 He perhaps told them that he had relations in Britain who would 
 pay for him on his arrival. 
 
 ^ Ejcfide, viz., in trust on his promise of future payment. 
 
64 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 food into our way this day, until ye be filled, for 
 He hath abundance everywhere. Therefore by 
 God's help, it was so. 
 
 ' Behold, an herd of swine came before our eyes 
 in the way, and they killed many of them : and 
 there they abode two nights well refreshed, and 
 were relieved with their flesh, for many of them 
 failed and were left half-dead beside the way. 
 And after this they rendered the highest thanks to 
 God, and I was made honourable in their eyes. 
 
 ' 9. But from that day they had food in abund- 
 ance : moreover they found wild honey, and 
 brought a portion unto me, and one of them said : 
 This hath been offered^ — Thanks be to God, 
 thenceforth I tasted nothing. But the same night 
 I was sleeping, and Satan vehemently tried me, so 
 that I shall remember it as long as I am in this 
 body. For there fell upon me as it were an huge 
 rock, and it took away the strength from all 
 my limbs. But whence it came, I know not, that 
 I should call in spirit upon Elias.^ And with that 
 I saw the sun rise in the sky ; and while I cried, 
 Elias, Elias, with all my strength, behold, the 
 
 ^ i.e., to idols. 
 
 ' There are three opinions as to this exclamation ; (1) that he 
 called on the Prophet Elias, as given here, in Maccumachtheni, and 
 in all the later lives but two ; (2) that he exclaimed, ' My God ! ' in 
 Hebrew (' Eli ') as given in two of the later lives, a view supported 
 on the ground that El is a title used in the Hymn of Hilary to 
 Christ, which is perhaps older than Patrick's time, and that this cry 
 here is specially attributed to the Spirit of Christ, Who is recorded 
 in the Gospels to have uttered this very ejaculation : (3) founded on 
 the context, that M'Calphurn invoked the sun (Helios) in Greek. 
 This last idea, at any rate, seems hard to reconcile with the noble 
 passage upon the worship of the sun with which the last paragraph 
 of the Confession opens. 
 
THE NEW LIGHT UPON ST. PATRICK. 65 
 
 brightness of the sun fell upon me and straightway 
 took away all the heaviness from me. And I 
 believe that I was holpen by my Christ, and that 
 His Spirit then cried out for me : but I hope that 
 it will be so in the day of my distress, as the Lord 
 witnesseth in the Gospel : In that day, saith He, 
 it is not ye that speak but the Spirit of your 
 Father Which speaketh in you. But He provided 
 food and fire for us in our journey, and dryness 
 every day, until upon the fourteenth day we 
 came unto men : as I have mentioned above, we 
 journeyed through the desert for eight-and-twenty 
 days, and that night we all came [unto men] we 
 had no food [left]. 
 
 ' III. — 10. And a second time, after many years,^ 
 I fell again into captivity ; and the first night I 
 abode with them. But I heard an answer from 
 God, saying unto me : Two months shalt thou be 
 with them. And it was so. Upon that sixtieth 
 night, therefore, did the Lord deliver me out of 
 their hands. A second time," after a few years, I 
 was in the Britains with my kinsfolk,^ who re- 
 
 1 Villanueva prints a ' not ' in brackets () before ' many,' but this 
 appears to be merely a fancy emendation. It is not only opposed to 
 tlie narrative, which requires us to divide a period of some twenty- 
 three years between the period mentioned here and that of a ' few ' 
 years mentioned just after, but also to the corresponding passage in 
 Maccumachtheni, which seems to be a quotation. 
 
 ^ This seems to imply that he had returned there from captivity 
 before. 
 
 ^ Parentes. This is hardly ever used, at least in classical Latin, 
 like the French parent, to indicate any relation except in the direct 
 ascending line. Yet it seems doubtful whether his grandparents are 
 meant, considering his own age. It seems clearly implied that they 
 were not his actual parents. He uses the word again (iv. 19.) writ- 
 ing at the very close of life and speaking of living persons. 
 
66 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 ceived me as a son, and sincerely besought me, 
 that now at any rate after so great tribulations 
 which I bare, I would never leave them. And 
 there certainly I saw in a night vision a man 
 coming as it were from Ireland, Victricius by 
 name, with countless epistles ; and he gave one of 
 them unto me ; and thereupon (contmenter ) I read 
 the beginning of the Epistle : The Voice of the 
 Irish. And when I read aloud {rtcitahnn) the 
 beginning of the Epistle, I thought at that very 
 moment I heard the voices of them that were near 
 the wood Foclut, which is hard by the Western 
 Sea. And thus they called out, as it were with 
 one mouth : We beseech thee, holy lad,^ come and 
 walk still among us. And I was greatly pricked 
 in the heart, and could read no more : and so I 
 awoke. Thanks be to God that, after very many 
 years, the Lord hath granted unto them according 
 to their cry. 
 
 '11. And another night, I know not, God 
 knoweth, whether it were in me or beside me, I 
 heard some singing by the spirit inside me, in very 
 learned ('peri(issimus) words, and I knew not who 
 they were whom I heard, and I could not under- 
 stand except at the end of the prayer he said 
 thus : He who gave his life for thee. And so I 
 woke up. And a second time I heard him praying 
 in me ; and he was as it were inside my body : and 
 I heard above me, that is, above mine inner man, 
 
 ^ Fuer. This must mean that he had been a lad when they had 
 seen him last, for the term is not applicable after ' many years,' and 
 then ' a few years ' more after the age of twenty-two. 
 
THE NEW LIGHT UPON ST. PATRICK. 67 
 
 and there he was praying vehemently with groan- 
 ings. And at these things I was astonished, and 
 marvelled, and thought who it could be that was 
 praying in me. But at the end of the prayer, he 
 said that he was the Spirit.^ And I remembered 
 the Apostle saying : The Spirit helpeth the in- 
 firmity of our prayer ; for we know not what we 
 should pray for ; but the Spirit Itself maketh 
 intercession for us with groanings which cannot be 
 uttered, which I cannot express in words. And 
 again : The Lord is our advocate, and He maketh 
 intercession for us. And when I was tempted by 
 some of my elders, who came, on account of my 
 sins, against my toilful Episcopate, sometimes in 
 that day I was vehemently inclined, to fall here 
 and for ever. But the Lord spared the convert 
 and pilgrim for His Name's sake, and came to help 
 me very mercifully in that treading under foot, 
 [so] I came not badly into disgrace and shame. I 
 pray God that the occasion be not imputed unto 
 them for sin. For after thirty years they found a 
 thing against me which I had confessed before I 
 was a Deacon. 
 
 ' 12. On account of anxiety I whispered with a 
 sad heart to my dearest friend the things which I 
 had done in my boyhood one day, yea, in one hour, 
 for I was not yet strong. I know not, God 
 knoweth, if I was then fifteen years of age, and 
 I did not believe in one ^ God from mine infancy ; 
 
 ^It is perhaps hardly worth while to mention the ridiculous 
 variant of episcopum for spiritum, probably arising from the mistake 
 of some antient blunderer between epm and spm. 
 
 2 Or, the living God. 
 
68 
 
 ESSAYS OX HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 but I remained in death and in unbehef, until I 
 was greatly chastened; and in truth I was brought 
 low with hunger and nakedness ; and day by day 
 I went forth against my will in Ireland until I all 
 but fainted. But this rather was well for me ; for 
 by this I was amended by the Lord, and he fitted 
 me to be this day what once was far from me, that. 
 I should have cares or labour for the salvation of 
 others, when I was not thinking even about myself, 
 Wherefore in that day wherein I was rebuked 
 by them whom I have mentioned above, that 
 night in a night vision I saw written against my 
 face. Without honour. And with that I heard an 
 answer from God saying unto me : We have looked 
 
 ill upon the face of (plainly designated 
 
 by name).^ Neither did He say thus : Thou hast 
 looked ill, but. We have looked ill, as if He joined 
 Himself there, as He said : He that toucheth you, 
 toucheth the apple of Mine eye. Wherefore I give 
 thanks unto Him Who hath strengthened me in 
 all things, so that He hindered me not from my 
 
 ^ Who this person was, whose name Patrick conceals, does not 
 seem very clear. At one time the present writer believed that it 
 must be meant to indicate Palladius, whose labours had met with 
 such scant blessing from God or acceptance from men, but whom 
 Patrick was almost certain to have regarded with great tenderness, 
 delicacy, and respect, so as to be unwilling to allude openly to his 
 failure. On repeated consideration, however, he is inclined to think 
 that the person indicated must be the friend by whom Patrick had 
 been betrayed ; that Patrick took the ' we ' to mean God Almighty 
 and himself, and regarded the dream as an indication of the Divine 
 displeasure at the way in which he had been publicly held up to dis- 
 grace ; and that he conceals the name for fear of getting the offender 
 into trouble, as he afterwards says, ' Neither shall it arise from me 
 that he be beaten.' 
 
THE NEW LIGHT UPON ST. PATRICK. 69 
 
 going forth, which I had appointed, and for my 
 work also, which I had learned from my Christ ; 
 but the more, from that, I felt in me no little 
 strength, and my faith hath been approved before 
 God and man. 
 
 ' 13. Whence I say boldly, my conscience re- 
 proveth me not. I have God for my Witness that 
 I have not lied in the things which I have told : 
 but I grieve rather for my dearest friend, why we 
 deserved to have such an answer, unto whom I 
 entrusted even my soul. And I heard from some 
 of my brethren before that defence,^ because I my- 
 self was not present [on the occasion], neither was 
 I [dwelling] in the Britains [at the time], neither 
 shall it arise from me, that he also should be beaten 
 in my absence on my account. He with his own 
 mouth had said : Behold, thou art to be promoted 
 unto the step of the Episcopate, whereof I was not 
 worthy. But whence came it unto him afterwards 
 to expose publicly against me before all, good and 
 bad, what he had before forgiven willingly and 
 gladly ? It is the Lord Who is greater than all. 
 I say enough. But nevertheless I ought not to 
 hide the gift of God which He granted unto me in 
 in the land of my captivity. For then did I 
 vehemently seek Him, and there did I find Him, 
 and He kept me from all iniquities by His in- 
 dwelling Spirit, Who hath wrought in me even 
 unto this day. But the Lord knoweth, if I had 
 
 ^ Defensionem. In classical Latin this means a defence, as trans- 
 lated, but Villanueva inclines to the opinion that it had already 
 obtained in Gaul the sense of the modern French defense, — viz. : ' a 
 prohibition,' and proposes here to take it so. 
 
70 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 heard these things from a man, perchance I had 
 been silent for the love of Christ. 
 
 ' 14. Whence I will give unv^earied thanks unto 
 my God, Who kept me faithful in the day of my 
 temptation, so that this day I confidently offer 
 sacrifice unto Him, and consecrate my soul as a 
 living victim unto my Lord, Who hath saved me 
 from all my straits, that I may say unto him : 
 Who am I, Lord ? And what are my prayers, 0 
 Thou Who hast revealed unto me so much [of Thy] 
 Divine [glory] ? So that this day I should exalt 
 and magnify Thy Name in what place soever I be ; 
 and not only in things favourable, but also in 
 tribulations ; that whatsoever befalleth me, be it 
 good, be it evil, 1 am equally bound to accept it, 
 and always to give thanks to God, Who hath 
 shown unto me that I should never cease to 
 believe that He is beyond all doubt, and Who 
 will have heard me ; that I also in [these] last 
 days should dare to take in hand this work so 
 godly and so wondrous, so that I should imitate 
 them whom the Lord foretold of old time, that 
 they should preach His Gospel for a testimony 
 unto all nations before the end of the world. 
 Which is fulfilled, even as we have seen. Behold, 
 we are witnesses that the Gospel has been preached 
 everywhere, [in a place] beyond which there is no 
 man.' 
 
 In comparing the above unaffected narrative 
 with the statements of its author's earliest bio- 
 graphers, it is peculiarly interesting to observe in 
 the latter the development of the historical matter 
 in a middle stage, between his own simple account 
 
THE XEW LIGHT UPON ST. PATRICK. 71 
 
 on the one hand, and the full-blown romances of 
 the later craters on the other. The very name of 
 Calphurn's domicile is not a bad specimen of the 
 process. ' Benaven Tahern ice,' says VsLtrick. These 
 two simple words, which are generally admitted to 
 mean River-head Tavern, seem to be the oriofin of 
 the four — 'Ban navem thabur indecha' -—m Maccu- 
 machtheni ; and the two central of these {navem 
 thahur), in their turn, appear to be the origin of 
 the curious name in the first line of the hymn 
 ascribed to Fiacc — 
 
 ' Patrick was born in Xemthur.'' 
 
 The most interesting instance is perhaps that of 
 the dream-visitant. Whether the * Angel Victor ' 
 ever had anv other orioin than the ' man comino', 
 as it were, from Ireland, Victricius by name,' is a 
 question which it is unnecessary here to discuss ; 
 that they became identified in later belief is cer- 
 tain. In Maccumachtheni the identification s.p- 
 pears in an imperfect stage. When Patrick says 
 that he dreamt that he ' saw in a night vision a 
 man coming, as it were, from Ireland, Victricius by 
 name,' the natural meaning is that this Victricius 
 of whom he dreamt was a particular man whom he 
 had known in Ireland, probably a native Christian ; 
 that such were by no means very few, is evident 
 from the fact — amono- others — that Palladius was 
 sent as a Bishop for them, — ad Scotos in Christum 
 credentes. In Maccumachtheni the mere words, 
 ' heard in sleep,' as to his fasting well, and so on, 
 are transferred into visitations by Victoricus, with 
 a statement that these visitations were frequent, 
 both at that time and at that of the dream about 
 
72 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 the Epistles from the Irish. The personage him- 
 self is in a state of transformation, as if Maccu- 
 machtheni were uncertain whether to make him 
 the same person as the ' Angel Victor ' of the 
 latter part of his own narrative, or not. He 
 accordingly designates him by terms of either 
 meaning — ' the angelic Victoricus sent to him 
 from God,' and ' that right faithful elder called 
 Victoricus, who had said all things unto him when 
 he was in captivity in Ireland, before that they 
 were.' Elder is certainly an hardly consistent 
 designation for an angel, a being exempted by his 
 very nature from experiencing the effects of time. 
 
 Perhaps the most singular discrepancy between 
 Patrick and his biographer is one in connection 
 with the dream about this man Victricius and the 
 epistles. Patrick says it took place in the 
 Britains — ' I was in the Britains with my kinsfolk 
 , and there certainly I saw,' etc. Maccu- 
 machtheni gives him the lie direct — ' When many 
 times were passed there [at Alsiodorum] . 
 Victoricus . . visited him, saying,' etc., and 
 accordingly he starts and comes over, ' even unto 
 Britain,' or, as the Armagh text has it, ' the 
 Britains.' The reason of a course on the part of 
 Maccumachtheni so extraordinary as flatly contra- 
 dicting Patrick himself, is hard to explain, unless 
 upon the ground of some legend having already 
 arisen to which he attached more importance than 
 to the plain evidence of his own senses. 
 
 Another remarkable feature is the appearance of 
 the Mosaic comparison with regard to the journey 
 in the desert. This not only appears in the 
 
THE NEW LIGHT UPON ST. PATRICK. 73 
 
 grotesque comparison between pigs and quails, 
 with its grim explanation by the degradation of 
 the Gentiles beneath Israelites, but in the violent 
 attempt to parallelize Patrick's abstention with the 
 fast of Moses upon Mount Sinai : that it was only 
 the honey he abstained from is plain enough from 
 his own words, as well as from the obvious fact that 
 if he had not eaten the pork (doubtless wretchedly 
 cooked), he would not have had the night-mare 
 which made such an impression upon him. 
 
 It is greatly to be regretted that the line of 
 writing into which Patrick has fallen affords us so 
 very little information as to his career, between his 
 escape from Ireland and his return as her Apostle. 
 It appears evident that he was out of the Britains 
 for some years, but it does not clearly appear 
 whether this absence was before or after his second 
 captivity, or both. Maccumachtheni distinctly 
 states that he went from Ireland to the Britains 
 in the ship, and the same may be implied from 
 M'Calph urn's own expression, that at a later 
 period he had returned home to his relations ' a 
 second time.' Maccumachtheni also clearly implies 
 that he did not go abroad until after the second 
 captivity. If this be so, the period of his foreign 
 residence is described by Patrick himself as com- 
 prised within ' a few years,' which leaves no time 
 for the protracted study under Germanus. ' Few ' 
 can hardly mean more than three or four. As to 
 the place of his foreign residence, it will be ob- 
 served that Maccumachtheni says that he started 
 to go to Italy, but never got farther than Alsi- 
 odorum ; Tirechan, on the contrary, gives us an 
 
 6 
 
74 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 early indication of those alleged travels about the 
 Mediterranean of which the later lives contain so 
 much. That Patrick was actually in Gaul, and 
 was on friendly terms with ecclesiastics there, is 
 sufficiently plain from the Confession, iv. 19. 'I 
 am able, if I would, to leave [the hand-maidens of 
 the Lord in Ireland], and to go unto the Britains, 
 yea, (?) I would be most cheerfully ready to go, as 
 unto my fatherland and kinsfolk : and not that 
 only, but even unto the Gauls, to visit my 
 brethren, to see the face of the Saints of my Lord : 
 the Lord knoweth that I greatly desired it.' That 
 he sat at the feet of Germanus is all the more pro- 
 bable because that Saint was much occupied in the 
 ecclesiastical affairs of Britain, whither he was first 
 sent by Pope Celestine in 429. At what period 
 Patrick mentioned his youthful error to his dis- 
 honourable friend does not appear. What is clear 
 is that there had already been some mention 
 between them of Patrick's promotion to the Epis- 
 copate, before this friend, during Patrick's absence 
 from Britain, there divulged his confidence. In 
 consequence of this, some of his elders came and 
 cast his fault in his teeth, to dissuade him from 
 taking the Episcopate, and thereupon he had the 
 dream about the man unnamed. But where did 
 these elders come from, and to ? The two dreams 
 regarding Victricius and the Spirit praying within 
 are stated by Patrick to have taken place in 
 Britain, and they seem to have been what gave 
 him the idea of going to Ireland. Are we to 
 understand that he thereupon confidentially con- 
 sulted his friend, who encouraged him in the idea 
 
THE NEW LIGHT UPON ST. PATRICK. 75 
 
 of seeking the position of a missionary Bishop, and 
 and that he thereupon went abroad again (Query 
 — to seek Germanus' sanction ?) and returned for 
 consecration/ to find his fault betrayed to those 
 who came to it ? Such questions form some of the 
 most interesting points of what has become the 
 Patrician controversy. It need only be observed 
 here, in the first place, that if Patrick only went 
 abroad after his second captivity, a ' few ' years 
 before his promotion to the Episcopate, he must 
 have been more than thirty, the age assigned him 
 by Maccumachtheni, since he was, on his own 
 showing, at least forty-five at his consecration. 
 He was twenty-two at the time of his escape from 
 his first captivity, and this leaves ample time for 
 the ' many years ' which passed before the second. 
 In the second place, there are only three courses 
 which can be taken with the Amathus ^-Curbia-or- 
 Ebmoria story ; it must either be adapted to 
 M'Calphurn's Confession, or fixed, mutatis 
 mutandis, upon somebody else, or abandoned as 
 a pure fiction. 
 
 It will be seen that the tendency of this new 
 matter is, on the one hand, to support the theory 
 of the BoUandists, to the effect that Patrick's 
 death took place a good deal earlier than the date 
 
 ^ That M'Calphurn's consecration took place in Britain is the 
 opinion of the Rev. J. F. Shearman (Loca Patriciana, 447), but 
 though this is perhaps the most natural inference from the language 
 of the Confession, it can hardly be regarded as the only possible one. 
 
 2 The custom of calling this (possibly fabulous) person Amathorex 
 is so well established that the writer feels some trepidation in de- 
 parting from it, but the rex appears as a title separate from the 
 name in both the Armagh and the Brussels Codices. 
 
76 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 commonly assigned to it. They, of course, reject 
 the age of 120, and, by supposing the c. in cxxxii. 
 (which occupies the place of cxx. in some texts) to 
 be a blunder for L, suggest the age of 82. If so, 
 and he died about 470, he must have gone to 
 Ireland some time after 433. It may, however, be 
 suggested that if it is to be allowed to turn c. con- 
 jecturally into 1. in cxxxii., it is equally easy to 
 do so in the much better supported cxx., and read 
 Ixx. This would make Patrick just as old as the 
 century, and consequently send him to Ireland 
 after 455. It is true that an argument to imply a 
 very long residence in Ireland has been found in the 
 expression of the Epistle — ' an holy Priest whom I 
 have taught from infancy,' but those who adduce 
 this argument fail to observe that Patrick does not 
 say luhere he taught him, and it is indeed by no 
 means improbable, since the Priest in question was 
 selected to be sent upon a particularly ticklish 
 mission into Britain, that he was a Briton trained 
 by Patrick from any period after the first cap- 
 tivity, and who had accompanied him to Ireland 
 — Isernius, perhaps. These texts are also gener- 
 ally favourable to the sort of chronology as to the 
 date of Patrick's arrival in Ireland, indicated by 
 the late Dr. Todd in his St. Patrick, Apostle of 
 Ireland. They must prove in any case an heavy, 
 if not a fatal blow, to the school who credit 
 M'Calphurn with a mission from Pope Celestine. 
 
 This publication is perhaps, with the single 
 exception of Villanueva's edition of the Epistle 
 and the Confession, the most valuable which has 
 ever appeared upon the subject upon which it casts 
 
THE NEW LIGHT UPON ST. PATRICK. 77 
 
 SO much light. It is itself a model of the way in 
 which such work ought to be done. And hence- 
 forth nothing with any pretensions to value can be 
 written concerning the Apostle of Ireland without 
 consulting it. 
 
THE SCOTTISH PEERAGE. 
 
 The Peerage of Scotland. By Sm Robert Doug- 
 las of Glenbervie, Bart. Second Edition. 
 Revised and Corrected by John Philip 
 Wood, Esq. Edinburgh : 1813. 
 
 A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the 
 Peerage and Baronetage. By Sm Bernard 
 Burke, C.B., LL.D., Ulster King of Arms. 
 Forty-seventh Edition. London : 1885. 
 
 /^NE of the minor although characteristic fea- 
 ^ tures of the Union of 1707, was to select a 
 particular group of Scotsmen belonging to the 
 more educated and influential class, and condemn 
 them to an almost entire deprivation of any | 
 political rights. This group consisted of the 153 
 Scotch Peers. The Parliament in which their 
 creations had been specially framed to secure them 
 perpetual hereditary seats was abolished. But 
 because they were Peers they were carefully ex- 
 cluded from exercising the rights to which they 
 might have been entitled if other citizens, by voting 
 for Members of the House of Commons, or being 
 eligible to be chosen as such themselves. In 
 honour of the Union itself they were, by a new 
 enactment, specially deprived of the power they 
 had hitherto enjoyed of voting or being elected as 
 
 79 
 
80 
 
 ESSA.YS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 Commoners for places outside Scotland/ Common 
 justice certainly required that if the Unity-of-the- 
 kingdom principle upon which this last piece of 
 legislation was based, were to be really carried out, 
 they should be admitted to the House of Lords at 
 Westminster on the same footing as the English 
 Peers. But they were Scotsmen, or were to be so 
 treated, and therefore it was not done. They were 
 still farther specially prohibited from taking social 
 precedence, even in their own country, over any 
 English Peer of the same degree, whatever the 
 respective dates of creation. The only political 
 right they were henceforth allowed to enjoy was 
 that of electing sixteen representatives — about 
 one-tenth of their whole number — to sit in the 
 House of Lords for each Parliament.^ Under these 
 circumstances, the Scotch Peerage cannot be re- 
 garded as a body representing political power, any 
 more than Edinburgh Castle can be called a place 
 of military strength. They have both reached the 
 * point of being almost purely historical monuments. 
 From the historical point of view the Peerage as 
 well as the fortress is a very interesting structure. 
 The very fact that a Scotch Peerage cannot have 
 been created later than 1707 invests it at once 
 
 ^ The Earl of Dysart and the Lord Fairfax were actually the 
 members for Suffolk and Yorkshire, and were obliged to relinquish 
 their seats. 
 
 ^The number of Scotch Peerages which have disappeared, and 
 the number of others which have received the addition of Peerages 
 of Great Britain or of the United Kingdom, will soon render this 
 election unnecessary, and the occasional ceremony at Holyrood, 
 whose national character is its only merit, will take place no more 
 for ever. 
 
THE SCOTTISH PEERAGE. 
 
 81 
 
 with peculiar dignity among a class of honours 
 where antiquity is one of the most regarded and 
 esteemed features. Nor need a Scotchman admit 
 that in regard to the historic races represented, or 
 the historic facts commemorated, in and by it, the 
 Peerage of his own country will suffer by compari- 
 son with the similar group of families in any other 
 land. 
 
 There is, however, at least one respect in which 
 the Peerage of Scotland differs widely from the 
 antient citadel of her metropolis. It is a monu- 
 ment which is rapidly crumbling away. At the 
 time of the Union there appeared on the Poll 153 
 Peerages. To these have since been added 11 ; 
 that is to say, it has been shown to the satisfaction 
 of the authority concerned that 11 more Peerages 
 were then in existence than were known at the 
 time.^ The total number of Scottish Peerages, 
 therefore, as far as is now known which existed on 
 May 1, 1707, was 164. Of these, all that now 
 remain are represented by 81 individuals, being 
 less than half in number. There were 10 Duchies, 
 to which was added in 1714 the Poyal Duchy of 
 Rothesay, but Gordon and Douglas have disap- 
 peared, and Queensberry was conjoined with Buc- 
 cleuch in 1810 leaving 8. There were three 
 Marquessates, to which Huntly and Queensberry 
 have been added, but Annandale — representing the 
 
 ^ Among the eleven we do not reckon the male Earldom of Mar, 
 discovered by the House of Lords in 1875 to have been created by- 
 Queen Mary on July 29, 1565. Whatever it is, it is indissolubly 
 , united to the Earldom of Kellie, and therefore a quantite negligeable 
 for anal3'tical purposes. 
 
82 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 great Border clan of the John stones — is dormant 
 if not extinct. The Earls were the most numerous, 
 being 75, and Lindsay was added in 1878, but 9 
 have coalesced with others, and 24 have disap- 
 peared, leaving only 43. Time has been hardest 
 upon the Viscounties ; these were 17, and there 
 remain only 5. Of Baronies, 48 were recognized 
 at the Union, and 7 have been added, making 55 
 in all ; but 5 have become conjoined with other 
 Peerages, and 28 have disappeared, leaving only 
 22. At this rate, it may be supposed that in 
 another couple of centuries no such thing as a 
 Scotch Peer will be in existence. But this is 
 hardly probable. There are some titles which are 
 very old and are transmissible by women, and 
 where the descendants of the original holders are 
 consequently so numerous that their entire extinc- 
 tion seems almost impossible. Whether there will 
 then be an House of Lords is quite a different 
 question, and indeed, to a Scotch Peer, as such, it 
 would not much matter. What we mean is that 
 the series of persons entitled to such honours as 
 the Earldoms of Mar or Sutherland is very unlikely 
 to come to end. But they will be brought down 
 to an exceedingly small group. The Scottish 
 Peerage will have been reduced from the condition 
 of Edinburgh Castle to that of the Roman Wall. 
 
 It seems strange, in discussing what is after all 
 a National Institution, to have to ask what is the 
 nationality of the persons who compose it. But 
 Scotch Peers are by no means all Scotchmen. 
 Only three Scotch Peerages, indeed, seem to have 
 been created for English families as so many of the 
 
THE SCOTTISH PEERAGE. 
 
 83 
 
 Irish Peerages were created, viz., simply as a 
 means of giving an Englishman ' an handle to his 
 name ' without a seat in the House of Lords at 
 Westminster.^ One of these is the earliest Scotch 
 Viscounty, that of Falkland, bestowed by James 
 VI. upon the English family of Gary, in 1620. 
 The second is the Barony of Fairfax, created by 
 Charles 1. in 1627 in favour of the old Yorkshire 
 family of that name. The Lords Fairfax furnished 
 the eminent generals upon the Republican side 
 during the Great Rebellion, but began to settle in 
 Virginia more than a century ago, and were allied 
 to General Washington. His present Lordship is 
 a citizen of the United States. The third case is 
 that of the Viscounty of Dunblane, conferred by 
 Charles II. in 1673 upon his notorious minister 
 Danby, who, however, was made an English Peer 
 six months afterwards, and having changed with 
 the Revolution, secured the Duchy of Leeds in 
 1694. The present Duke represents him directly. 
 Almost as alien as these is the family of the Earls 
 of Orkney, ennobled as such by William III. in 
 1696. It is true that they are an offshoot of the 
 Ducal House of Hamilton, who may be said to 
 
 1 There is a story of George III. which is not perhaps so well 
 known as to make it unworthy of repetition. A certain officer 
 having greatly distinguished himself, was sent for by the King, who 
 told him he desired to confer upon him some mark of his favour, 
 and wished to know from him of something which would really 
 gratify him. The officer, after a short reflection, said that his 
 mother was a very old woman, and lived at Windsor, and that he 
 should feel greatly obliged if His Majesty would allow her to drive 
 into the reserved parts of Windsor Park. The King hummed and 
 ha'd, talked of the inconvenience of creating precedents, etc., etc., 
 and at last said, ' but I'll make you an Irish Peer, if you like.' 
 
84 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 have a remote mediaGval connection with Orkney, 
 but as Peers they have always been and remain 
 purely and exclusively Irishmen. Even as Hamil- 
 tons they were entirely unconnected with Orkney, 
 and it is most singular to find a repetition of the 
 venerable and historic title first bestowed by King 
 Harald Harfagri, at the Norwegian conquest of 
 the Orkneys, soon after a.d. 872, upon Rognvald, 
 Earl of Moeri — gloriously borne by these Princes 
 for nearly four centuries — hallowed by the martyr- 
 dom of St. Magnus and the devotion of St. Rogn- 
 vald — handed on through the lines of Angus, 
 Stratherne, and St. Clair — resigned to the Crown 
 of Scotland by the still living family of St. Clair, 
 with the Orkneys themselves, in 1469 — conferred 
 as a Duchy upon Bothwell by Queen Mary in 
 view of their marriage — now held, along with a 
 Viscounty of Kirkwall, by a family of origin 
 totally alien to Orkney, and connected only with 
 Tipperary. It is no want of respect either for the 
 great House of Hamilton or for the noble family 
 of which we are speaking, to suspect that the 
 intense hatred of William III. for Scotland — that 
 hatred which found two of its sweetest moments 
 in arranging the massacres of Glencoe and of 
 Darien — sought and found a childish indulgence in 
 the invention of this later Peerage. 
 
 Upon these follow several Peerages belonging to 
 families which were once Scotch, but have now 
 become so entirely foreign as to be not only held 
 by aliens but by persons who have no property in 
 Scotland. It is painful to have to begin this list 
 — through no want of will in the matter on their 
 
THE SCOTTISH PEERAGE. 
 
 85 
 
 part — with the names of the Erskines, Earls of 
 Mar ; of the Drummonds, Earls of Perth and Mel- 
 fort ; and of the Dalzells, Earls of Carnwath, all 
 among the most ancient and most historical of 
 Scotch families, and the first bearing a title of 
 unknown antiquity — but all once more or less 
 victims of Hanoverian spite. The sympathy with 
 which their Lordships are regarded in Scotland is 
 probably neither unknown to nor unappreciated by 
 them. The Earldom of Dysart belongs to the 
 English family of Tollemache, although the ori- 
 ginal holder (creation, 1643) was a son of the 
 parish minister of Dysart. His daughter was the 
 famous Countess of Dysart, Duchess of Lauderdale, 
 wife of the still more famous Duke of Lauderdale, 
 the Commissioner of Charles II. The beautiful 
 family mansion. Ham House close to Richmond, 
 was built by this Duke, and remains untouched to 
 this day, even to the furniture of the principal 
 rooms, although the decrepitude of age renders it 
 no longer safe to sit down upon many of the chairs. 
 Six Scotch Peerages are held by persons of higher 
 rank in other countries. The Earldom of New- 
 burgh is held by the Princely Poman family of 
 Giustiniani Bandini, who are purely Italian. The 
 families of Giustiniani (Venetian), and Bandini 
 (Poman), which are represented by the present 
 Prince-Earl, are more esteemed for antiquity in 
 Italy than they would be in this country, since the 
 noble families of Italy are generally far more 
 modern than our own ; but through the Cliffords 
 and Courtenays the Prince is directly descended 
 from Edward I. of England, and he represents not 
 
86 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 only the Levingstons, Earls of Newburgh, but the 
 historic RadclifFs, Earls of Derwentwater.^ The 
 expatriation of the peerage is in fact owing to the 
 Jacobite faithfulness of that gallant race. Simi- 
 larly to this, the Barony of Kinross belongs, by 
 female descent, to the Duke of Buckingham f that 
 of Dingwall, to Earl Cowper ; and that of Forrester, 
 to the Earl of Verulam. The Baroness Nairne is 
 Dowager Marchioness of Lansdowne, and the heir 
 
 ^ The descent is curious. Lady Charlotte Levingston, daughter 
 and heiress of Charles, second Earl of Newburgh, married first the 
 Hon. Thomas Clifford, and had female issue only, and secondly, the 
 Hon. Charles Radcliffe (Earl of Derwentwater but for the attainder), 
 who was beheaded on Tower Hill in 1746, and by him had male 
 issue. This male line became extinct in 1814, and the right to the 
 Earldom of Newburgh thus reverted to the heirs of Mr. Clifford's 
 daughter, who had married in exile. There also have been a series 
 of sham Lords Newburgh, who bore the title under the belief that 
 foreigners could not inherit such things, and must be treated as. 
 non-existent. * 
 
 2 His Grace's family consists of three daughters, of whom the 
 eldest is consequently heiress presumptive to the Barony, which 
 would then become separated from the Duchy and other titles. 
 Under similar circumstances the Baronies of Dingwall, Forrester, 
 and Nairne might emerge in the same way ; the latter is a curious 
 case, since Lord Lansdowne has an Irish Peerage, the Lordship of 
 Kerry, which dates from the thirteenth century, and is therefore 
 presumably female, and which, as regards its antiquity, will always 
 overshadow that of Nairne, which only dates from 1681 ; but here 
 comes in the senseless rule which would give the precedence to a 
 Scotch Baron over an Irish Baron, whatever the respective dates of 
 creation, just as a Scotch Peerage is in a similar case subjected to 
 an English one. The history of the Nairne title, though with one 
 of the shortest proved pedigrees in the Scotch Peerage, is a strange 
 and stirring record of Jacobite suffering. The family of Preston, to 
 whom the Barony of Dingwall belonged, existed in Scotland as early 
 as Alexander II., and the line can be traced to the time of David II. 
 The Forresters are also a family stretching back to the reign of 
 David II. 
 
THE SCOTTISH PEERAGE. 
 
 87 
 
 is her son, the present Marquess, now Governor- 
 General of Canada/ The Lord Colville of Culross, 
 representing a Scotch family of at least the twelfth 
 century, must now also be considered an Englishman. 
 
 Very similar to the above are the Earls of 
 Abercorn (D. Abercorn), of Dundonald, and of 
 Loudoun, who, although they possess property in 
 Scotland, do not live there. In a more doubtful 
 position are some half-dozen or more Peers who 
 possess and use houses in Scotland, but are cer- 
 tainly more than half Englishmen, such as the 
 Duke of Lennox (D. Richmond, Lennox, and 
 Gordon), or the Lord Herries. In other words, if 
 the Scottish Parliament were to be restored to-day 
 and aliens were excluded, seventeen Peers at least, 
 and more probably some twenty-four or more, 
 being more than a fourth of the whole body, would 
 find themselves disqualified. 
 
 On the other hand, we have had the pleasure of 
 welcoming back to Scotland the Lord Reay, after 
 his ancestors have been Dutchmen for nearly a 
 century. The MacKays are an Highland family 
 of great antiquity, and probably cognate, at some 
 remote period, with the Forbes. 
 
 It has been said that a man's religion is the 
 most interesting thing about him, but the theme 
 is at once so sacred and so personal that it is 
 difficult to discuss it without impertinence. At 
 the same time, it is a fair subject for statistical 
 analysis, as far as it is a matter of public pro- 
 fession and is made no reproach against any man. 
 
 1 [Now Secretary of State for Foreign Aflfairs, 1903.— ^c^.] 
 
88 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 One Scotch Peer has felt constrained to renounce 
 Christianity, though only for himself personally. 
 Four are Catholics, but of these only one — Lord 
 Lovat — represents an unadulterated and unaltered 
 survival from the days before the Reformation. 
 Lord Herries represents another such Scotch 
 family — the Maxwells, including the historic Earls 
 of Nithsdaill — but he does so in the female line, 
 and, as already remarked, is more than half an 
 Englishman. The Earl of Newburgh (P. Guis- 
 tiniani Bandini) is an Italian, and the Earl of 
 Dumfries and Bute (M. Bute) is a convert. There 
 is another Earl whose name appeared for some 
 years in the Catholic Directory , but is to be seen 
 there no more. Whatever be the case, he was, or 
 is, a convert ; his children did not follow him ; and 
 he never took any more part in Church matters of 
 any sort than in politics. Of the remainder we 
 doubt if as many as a dozen are Presbyterians, 
 although that small band includes some of those 
 whose names are best known and most respected, 
 such as the Duke of Argyll, the Earl of Aberdeen, 
 or the Lord Balfour. The rest are Episcopalians. 
 With some of these the Episcopalianism is heredi- 
 tary since the seventeenth century, but in what 
 are probably the majority of cases, it is the choice 
 of the present or last generation. The fact is that 
 at one time it was common for persons in a certain 
 social position to attend and even communicate in, 
 the Established Churches of whichever country 
 they happened to be in at the time, and with some 
 even now, it needs such an event as a baptism, a 
 marriage, or a funeral, to make distinctly visible 
 
THE SCOTTISH PEERAGE. 
 
 89 
 
 the family's religious belief. The greater attention 
 paid to Church questions in the last fifty years is 
 rapidly exterminating these spiritual chameleons, 
 whose colour only reflected that of the ground on 
 which they might happen to be at the moment. 
 The usual result is the appearance of a small but 
 elegant Episcopal chapel in the immediate prox- 
 imity of the family abode. The cause of this 
 phenomenon is not very often to be found in prin- 
 ciple ; on the contrary, the builder or frequenter 
 of the said chapel would not unfrequently be 
 found to be hostile, more often indifferent, and 
 very often shy upon the subject of the principles 
 by which alone he could dogmatically have been 
 actuated — such as a belief in the divine authority 
 of Bishops, or the absolute necessity for the real 
 celebration of the Lord's Supper, of the ministry of 
 a Priest deriving a direct and continuous succes- 
 sion from the Apostles through Bishops' hands. 
 Nor can such a step be called much a matter of 
 taste. Presbyterian services are certainly neither 
 drier nor longer than the Episcopalian. The 
 average of the preaching is higher from an in- 
 tellectual point of view, and the greater elasticity 
 affords scope for an appositeness and variety of 
 language which a written form — and especially a 
 particularly narrow and monotonous written form 
 like the Book of Common Prayer — necessarily 
 precludes. The social position of a Peer exempts 
 him from a temptation not unknown to the middle 
 classes — viz., that of trying to make himself more 
 ' genteel ' by Anglicizing himself in religion ; and, 
 on the other hand, their lives and manners are 
 
 7 
 
90 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 fortunately not such as to make the comparative 
 laxity of discipline any inducement. It is really a 
 matter of habit, and very much an apj)lication of 
 the old principle of a man inheriting his father's 
 politics and his mother's religion. The young Peer 
 very often indeed finds that his mother is an 
 Englishwoman, and she brings him up with her 
 ways, ideas, and national tastes ; then he is sent to 
 England, and educated in an intensely Anglican 
 atmosphere, first at a private school, then at a 
 public school, then at an English University ; then 
 follows English society, probably service in an 
 English regiment, and when his own English wife 
 petitions for the small but elegant chapel, he is 
 already ' an alien among his mother's children,' the 
 Presbyterian worship is strange and rather dis- 
 tasteful to him — and the acquired habit and the 
 lady are too strong for any little national or 
 historic sentiment — principle on this subject he 
 has none — which he may, by a rare chance, happen 
 to feel upon the subject. 
 
 As we have remarked, however, the real interest 
 of the Peerage is historical, and it is curious to 
 observe the very small number of races repre- 
 sented. Indeed, some dozen surnames will cover 
 more than half It is a feature in it also that the 
 same individual often represents several families. 
 Thus, the Duke of Hamilton represents Stuarts, 
 Douglases, and Hamiltons, and the Duke of 
 Buccleuch and Queensberry, Scotts and Douglases. 
 This is owing to a great extent to the habit of a 
 group of territorial feudal families in the Middle 
 Ages constantly intermarrying. The result is to 
 
THE SCOTTISH PEERAGE. 
 
 91 
 
 render the task of analysis very difficult.^ We 
 will take here, first, some of the families as they 
 have figured most largely in the history of Scot- 
 land, without particular regard to their antiquity. 
 After this we may consider some of the more re- 
 markable cases as regards antiquity. Lastly, we 
 may remark the contrast between the actual dates 
 of the Peerages and the antiquity of the families 
 holding them. No view of this sort, however, will 
 really convey any idea of the history or present 
 state of the existing Scotch aristocracy, because 
 the historic races — such as the Douglases — are 
 very largely represented by Commoners, whereas, 
 by the very design of the present paper, we are 
 here confined merely to the present state of the 
 Scotch Peerage, and such representation, more or 
 less fragmentary, as it ofPers of the historical races. 
 
 The first name which naturally occurs to the 
 mind is that of Bruce, which is borne by two 
 Scotch Peers — the Earl of Elgin and Kincardine, 
 and the Lord Balfour of Burleigh. It is also 
 represented by H.B. H. the Duke of Bothesay 
 (P. Wales) as Earl of Carrick, in the Boyal House ; 
 and by the Lord Kinloss (D. Buckingham). Both 
 the Houses of Balfour and Kinloss are, as Bruces, 
 cadets of the House of Elgin, but the former, as 
 Balfour, can only be traced to the middle of the 
 
 1 It also had the effect, at the time, of producing frequent judicial 
 declarations of nullity of marriage on the ground of consanguinity 
 with absence or irregularity of ecclesiastical dispensation. Between 
 this, the habit of territorial earldoms, and the occasional recognition 
 of bastards, all complicated by the remoteness of time and the fre- 
 quent scantiness of documents, the work of the genealogist also is 
 often very hard and confusing. 
 
92 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 fifteenth century. The exact relation of the family 
 of Lord Elgin to the Royal House of Bruce is un- 
 certain, nor does there seem to be proof positive 
 that it is legitimate. They descend from a R.ol)ert 
 Bruce whom David II. styled his kinsman (con- 
 sanguineus). The Bruces themselves, afterwards 
 Royal, are a Norman family who came to England 
 with William the Conqueror, and became con- 
 nected with Scotland under David 1. By the 
 marriage — so startlingly extraordinary in its cir- 
 cumstances — with Margaret, Countess of Carrick 
 and Lady of Galloway, in 1271, they come to re- 
 present the ancient Lords of Gallow^ay, a dynasty 
 of Gaelic chiefs who at once strike the attention 
 by their strange and unlovely proceedings when 
 they emerge into the light of civilized history 
 towards the close of the twelfth century. 
 
 The Stuarts, as everybody knows, are really 
 Fitzalans, being a younger branch of the same 
 family of which the Duke of Norfolk is the head. 
 They first appear in England under the Conqueror, 
 and Walter Fitzalan entered Scotland under 
 David 1. Nothing is known of their origin beyond 
 the fact that the original Alan's father was called 
 Flaald. It is true that a good deal of ink has 
 been shed in striving to prove that this Flaald is 
 the same person as Fleance, the son of Banquo — 
 which would bring the family back to Scotland 
 again — but it is needless here to enter into this 
 discussion.^ The House of Stuart is, of course, 
 
 1 [Mr. Horace Round lias since shown that Walter Fitzalan was 
 descended from Alan, Dapifer of Dol. Peerage and Family History^ 
 115-146.— AW.] 
 
THE SCOTTISH PEERAGE. 
 
 93 
 
 represented by the Duke of Rothesay. It is 
 hardly necessary to remind the reader that at the 
 lowest computation H.R. H. brings before us, from 
 Kenneth M'Alpin, the august spectacle of a line 
 which has reigned for more than a millennium, 
 and, if we accept the descent of Kenneth from the 
 earlier kings, we pass through the whole history of 
 Scottish Kings, beginning with Loarn the Great in 
 503, until this kingly race disappears from record, 
 but kingly still when it is lost in the blaze of 
 heroic myths in Ireland. Among the other Peers 
 the House of Stuart has no direct lawful represen- 
 tatives of the name descending from a period later 
 than their accession to the throne, except the Earl 
 of Moray, though a very large number of the 
 Peers have the l)lood in lawful descent, owing to 
 the marriage into their families of Princesses or 
 female descendants of Princes.^ The Earl of 
 Moray, as Lord Doune and St. Colm, is descended, 
 through the Lords Avondale and the Kegents 
 Dukes of Albany, from Pobert 11. As Earl of 
 Moray, he of course represents the same blood 
 unlawfully, descending from the Pegent Moray, 
 illegitimate son of James V. by Margaret Erskine. 
 He also holds the Peerage of Gray, a family which 
 dates at least from the time of Pobert I. Perhaps 
 the most prominent of the female descents of the 
 Stuarts is that of the Lyons, Earls of Strathmore, 
 
 ^ The Earldom of Menteith is claimed by Mrs Margaret Barclay- 
 AUardice as representative of David, son of Robert II., but as this 
 lady's title, however good, has not been proved and recognised, it is 
 not within the scope of an article on the Scotch Peerage as now 
 officially existing. 
 
94 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 from the Princess Jean, daughter of Robert II. 
 who married her father's secretary, Sir John Lyon. 
 The Lyons cannot be traced far beyond this, and 
 speculation as to their origin is hkely to be aroused 
 by their arms (from which the name seems to be 
 taken) viz., arg. a hon rampant az. within a double 
 tressure, flory counter-flory, of the second. 
 
 There are, however, several families descended 
 from that of the High Stewards before their acces- 
 sion to the Crown. The earliest of these families is 
 that of the Earl of Erroll, hereditary High Con- 
 stable and Knight Marischal of Scotland. His 
 Lordship, but for the attainder of the Earl of 
 Kilmarnock who was beheaded on Tower Hill in 
 1746, would be Earl of Kilmarnock, and it is 
 somewhat singular that, instead of a reversal of 
 this attainder, which would give him this title, the 
 Crown has only bestowed upon him a brand-new 
 United Kingdom Barony of Kilmarnock in 1831. 
 The Boyds of Kilmarnock, famous for their position 
 chiefly in the reigns of James II. and III., are the 
 descendants of Simon Fitzalan, brother of Walter, 
 the first High Steward, whom he accompanied 
 to Scotland. His son Bobert was called Boyd 
 (Boidh) from his fair complexion. The Earldom 
 of Erroll, itself, however, belongs to the family of 
 Hay, who also seem, like the Fitzalans and so 
 many others, to have been among the followers of 
 William the Conqueror into England, and to have 
 entered Scotland under David I. They are repre- 
 sented by two other Peers besides the Earl of 
 Erroll — viz., the Marquess of Tweeddale and the 
 Earl of Kinnoull. 
 
THE SCOTTISH PEERAGE. 
 
 95 
 
 The other lawful representatives of the Stuarts 
 are all descended from Sir John Stuart, called the 
 ' Stout ' Stuart, who fell at Falkirk in command of 
 the men of Bute, in 1298. His son Alexander or 
 his grandson John was made Earl of Angus by 
 Robert the Bruce, ^ on account of the De Um- 
 fraville family having taken the English side, and 
 from him descends, through George, Earl of Angus, 
 son of Margaret, Countess of Angus, by James, 
 first Earl of Douglas, the Duke of Hamilton and 
 
 ^ A remarkable and most confounding feature is caused by the 
 existence at these early periods of territorial Earldoms — that is, 
 Earldoms in which the ownership of particular lands conveyed the 
 title also, just as the English Earldom of Arundel (held by the Duke 
 of Norfolk) is confessedly attached to the proprietorship of Arundel 
 Castle, and saleable or otherwise disposable along with that build- 
 ing. The original line of Earls of Angus is lost in the mists of time. 
 They are tirst heard of as already existing dignitaries in the tenth 
 century, and were continued by marriage in the De Umfravilles, 
 who became entirely English, \Nere forfeited by Robert I., and 
 whose representatives, the Talbois, do not seem to have claimed the 
 title. Next to them, the right would have hereditarily opened to 
 the descendants of Magnus of Angus, made Earl of Caithness by 
 Alexander II. in 1232, but these also seem never to have claimed it. 
 They ended in a set of heiresses, as to whose number, names, and 
 relationships there is still much obscurity. The rights of at least 
 one of these became invested by marriage in the Norman family of 
 St. Clair, represented by the present Earl of Caithness, and Thomas, 
 2d or 3d Stuart Earl of Angus, may possibly have intended to 
 strengthen his position by marrying, in or sO(Hi after 1353, his kins- 
 woman (as appears by the Papal dispensation) Margaret !St. Clair of 
 Rosiin, sister of Henry, recognised as Earl of Orkney by Hakon VJ. 
 King of Norway, in 1379. Their daughter Margaret, Countess of 
 Angus, in her own right, was mother, by William, Earl of Douglas, 
 of George Douglas, Earl of Angus, to whom the present Duke of 
 Hamilton succeeds as nineteenth Earl — although, without going into 
 a mass of disputes and details for which there is no room here — he 
 seems to have a much better right to be called at least the 23d, if 
 not the 34th or even an higher figure. 
 
9G 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 all the numerous representatives of this branch of 
 the Douglases, including, through women, the 
 Royal family itself, (which also represents, through 
 Darnley, the second son, Alan) the Earls of Home 
 and Orkney, and the Lords Forbes and Sempill. 
 The fourth son of the ' Stout ' John Fitzalan 
 (Stuart) of Bonkyl, who died at Falkirk, was 
 named after his father, John, and is represented in 
 the male line, by the Earl of Galloway, who also, 
 along with the Lord Blantyre, represents in the 
 female line, the third son, Walter. The fifth son, 
 James, is represented by the Duke of Athole and 
 the Earl of Buchan, and as regards Lorne, by 
 the Duke of Argyll also. The Duke of Athole, 
 however, is really a Murray, descended from the 
 famous Fleming Freskin, who appears in the 
 twelfth century, and his succession to the Stuarts, 
 Earls of Athole, is only female, and dates from the 
 seventeenth ; the really ancient Earldom of Athole 
 — a dignity of at least the time of Alexander 1. — 
 after a series of extraordinary changes and transi- 
 tions, (being held, among others, by the patriot 
 John, executed in London, November 7, 1306,) 
 fell into the gang of Edward Balliol's filibusters, 
 and disappeared in England by female heirs 
 marrying into the Percy family. New titles of 
 the same name were subsequently several times 
 granted, before that given to the Stuarts. The 
 case of the Earldom of Buchan is extremely 
 similar, and the history of the original title is 
 lost in antiquity, first appearing in the time of 
 William the Lion. This line boasts an illustrious 
 patriot in the person of the Countess Isabel 
 
THE SCOTTISH PEERAGE. 
 
 97 
 
 (daughter of the Earl of Fife) who set the crown 
 (the second time) on Robert Bruce's head, March 
 27, 1306, and was afterwards imprisoned with 
 such brutal indelicacy in the public cage con- 
 structed for her, by Edward I.'s orders, at Berwick. 
 The Peerage then fell among Edward Balliol's lot 
 of scoundrels, was attainted, and disappeared by 
 marriage with the Beaumonts in England. Then 
 there were fresh grants, ending by that to James 
 Stuart in 1469. The present Earl is, in the male 
 line, an Erskine — a. family which appears in the 
 time of Alexander II. and which is directly repre- 
 sented by the Earls of Mar and of Kellie ; the 
 Stuart succession comes by the marriage of Mary 
 Stuart, Countess of Buchan, with James Erskine, 
 of the Mar family, in 1617. Through a series of 
 women, the Duke of Argyll, quoad Lorne, also 
 represents this last mentioned James Fitzalan or 
 Stuart, or, as he would probably have called him- 
 self, Jacobus Jilius Ahmi, de Seneschal! is Scotice. 
 
 It thus appears that in the present Scottish 
 Peerage there are only three Peers — Moray, Gallo- 
 way, and Blantyre — who actually, as well as law- 
 fully, bear the name of Stuart, although a fourth 
 — Buchan — seems certainly to have more claim 
 to be called a Stuart than an Erskine, and the 
 descendants of the Fitzalan or Stuart race throusfh 
 
 o 
 
 females are numerous. 
 
 The word ' lawfully ' has been advisedly written 
 above. Some Radicals, when their imagination 
 has outrun either their knowledge or their truth- 
 fulness, have l)een fond of representing the House 
 of Lords as largely recruited from the class of 
 
98 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 Royal bastards. There is only one Scotch Peer 
 to whom as such this reproach fully applies. This 
 is the Duke of Lennox (D. Richmond, Lennox, 
 and Gordon). His ancestor, son of Charles II. 
 by Mdlle. de Querouaille, was created Duke of 
 Lennox by his father at three years of age. His 
 present Grace, however, is also the representative 
 in the female line, of the great house of Gordon. 
 The Gordons are themselves one of the early 
 mediaeval families, dating, in Scotland, from the 
 twelfth century, but of the class of David I.'s 
 Anglo-Norman immigrants. The male represen- 
 tative of the Gordon race, but by the collateral 
 line of Earls of Aboyne, is the Marquess of Huntly. 
 The Earl of Dumfries and Bute (M. Bute) descends 
 directly on the Bute side, from a natural son of 
 Robert II., but this has nothing to do with the 
 Peerage, which Avas given for political reasons. 
 betAveen three and four centuries afterwards ; as 
 Earl of Dumfries he is a Crichton, representing a 
 younger branch of this family, who first appear in 
 the thirteenth century, and were once represented 
 by the extinct Viscounts of Frendraught. Stuart 
 blood of this sort exists in two or three other cases. 
 We have spoken of the Earl of Moray. The most 
 remarkable case is certainly that of the Duke of 
 Buccleuch and Queensberry. His Grace is really 
 the head and representative of the Border clan of 
 Scott, and, as Duke of Queensberry, of an illegiti- 
 mate branch of the Douglases, but his ancestress 
 Mary Scott, head of the family in the time of 
 Charles II., Countess of Buccleuch by succession 
 and Duchess by creation, was the wife of the 
 
THE SCOTTISH PEERAGE. 
 
 99 
 
 unfortunate Duke of Monmouth (created D. of 
 Buccleuch), son of Charles II. by Lucy Waters^ ; 
 and the present Duke is the descendant of that 
 marriage. 
 
 There can be Httle question that the most re- 
 markable family in the Scotch Peerage is that of 
 Douglas. This race can indeed be hardly said to 
 draw distinction from its position in the aristo- 
 cracies of Europe ; Europe itself is rather rendered 
 remarkable by possessing it. As to Scotland, to 
 write an history of the Douglases, would be almost 
 the same thing as to write the history of the 
 country, and that, not so much because they 
 largely appear in it, as because they made it. To 
 chronicle their alliances and descents would be to 
 give a manual of nearly all the distinguished 
 families in it, including the Royal House itself ; 
 for instance, out of the six grown-up children of 
 Kobert III., no less than four married Douglases. 
 This family also possesses a remarkably clear, com- 
 pact, and close history, from the very assumption 
 of the territorial name by William of Douglas, son 
 of Theobald the Fleming, in the twelfth century. 
 His grandchildren, William and Andrew, divided 
 the race into the two well known branches of the 
 Black and the Red. Both alike have continued to 
 
 i It was, of course, veliemently asserted, especially at the time of 
 Argyll's and Monmouth's rebellion, that Monmouth was the fruit of 
 a lawful marriac^e between Charles II. and Lucy Waters ; and a 
 story went about a few years ago to the effect that the late Duke of 
 Buccleuch had come across a lot of papers proving the fact, and had 
 made a gift of them to Her present Majesty [Queen Victoria], but 
 the statement was (so far as we remember) contradicted officially, 
 on the Duke's authority. 
 
100 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 hold the highest places in history and in society, 
 both alike were allied with the most illustrious 
 persons whom our history names, both alike soaked 
 the sward of Flodden with their blood, but the 
 Red Douglases do not present such striking spec- 
 tacles both of splendour and of tragedy as the 
 Black. They are represented directly by the Earl 
 of Morton, and the Count Douglas, of Sweden. 
 On the other side, the descents are from William 
 Douglas, the friend of Wallace, who died a prisoner 
 in York Castle in 1302. His son James, when 
 he expired upon Bruce's heart at Theba, left no 
 lawful issue, but physiology and gratitude alike 
 demanded that a breed so heroic should be pre- 
 served anyhow to serve Scotland in high places, 
 and his son Archibald succeeded as third Earl of 
 Douglas, and was progenitor of that Ducal House 
 of Touraine in whom the glory of their tribe 
 reached its zenith, only to be eclipsed in blood 
 (not tears — they were not a crying race) ^ in a 
 series of tragedies which almost transcends the 
 imagination. This third Earl, Archibald, also had 
 an unlawful son, William, hut for the sake of his 
 origin he was deemed no unfit mate for the 
 daughter of a king ; by his wife the Princess 
 Egidia, daughter of Robert II., he is an ancestor 
 
 ^ It is a striking instance of their character, that when James, 
 ninth Earl of Douglas, was brought into the presence of James 11. , 
 in 1484, and could have had little but death, probably by torture, 
 staring him in the face, he simply manifested his contempt for the 
 crowned destroyer of his race and personal assassin of his brother, 
 by silently turning his back upon him. The king, probably awed by 
 his courage, allowed him to retire into the monastery of Lindores 
 for the rest of his days. 
 
THE SCOTTISH PEERAGE. 
 
 101 
 
 of the present Earls of Caithness. Archibald, 
 brother of the ' good ' James, (he who bore Bruce's 
 heart,) was Regent of Scotland, and fell at Halidon 
 Hill, leaving issue, William, first Earl of Douglas, 
 father of James, the second Earl. This second 
 Earl, James, married the Princess Isabel, daughter 
 of Robert II., without issue by her, and when he 
 was killed at Otterburn, the Earldom was passed 
 on to the third Earl as above, but the line of 
 blood was continued in his unlawful son, William, 
 who is the ancestor of the Duke of [Buccleuch 
 and] Queensberry, the Marquess of Queensberry, 
 and the Earl of Wemyss. The Regent Archibald 
 had divers other children besides the first Earl, 
 and from one of them (Eleanor) descends, among 
 others, the Lord Torphichen, of the family of 
 Sandilands. The Sandilands first appear in the 
 time of David II. One of them happened at the 
 time of the Reformation to be the Preceptor of the 
 Knights of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, 
 and found — like Lord Lothian's ancestor the Abbat 
 of Newbotle — that his conscientious scruples com- 
 pelled him not only to embrace the Reformed 
 doctrines, and pitch his monastic vows overboard, 
 but also to appropriate to his personal use the 
 property in his hands as trustee for those who 
 had given it for charitable and religious objects.^ 
 Hence the Barony of Torphichen. 
 
 The first Earl of Douglas was also father, by 
 
 ^ The Abbat of Newbotle is believed to have been only a com- 
 mendator, but the Preceptor of the Hospital had taken solemn 
 vows. 
 
102 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 Margaret Stuart, Countess of Angus/ of George, 
 called first Earl of Angus, who is directly repre- 
 sented by the present Duke of Hamilton, and is 
 also ancestor, through his daughter Elizabeth, of 
 the Lord Forbes, of the family of that name, who 
 appear early in the thirteenth century. Archi- 
 bald, sixth Earl of Angus, by his marriage with 
 Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry YII. of 
 England, sister of Henry YIII., and widow of 
 James IV., is ancestor, through the wretched 
 Darnley, of the Koyal Family itself William, 
 tenth Earl of Angus, is an ancestor of the Lord 
 Sempill, a Peerage now held by a Forbes, but 
 originally created for the Renfrewshire family of 
 Sempill, who seem to have been dependents of the 
 High Stewards, and first appear in the thirteenth 
 century. From the eleventh Earl came the family 
 of the Marquesses and Duke of Douglas, now 
 represented in the female line by the Earl of 
 Home, who obtained a United Kingdom Barony 
 of Douglas in 1872, in allusion to the fact. The 
 Homes themselves are a family of extreme anti- 
 quity, descending, through the Earls of Dunbar 
 
 ^ The legitimacy of George, Earl of Angus, has been questioned 
 on the gronnd that his father, William, Earl of Douglas, was un- 
 doubtedly survived by his first wife, Margaret, Countess of Mar, 
 but it seems very probable that the marriage had been declared null 
 on legal grounds, which would not have hindered the succession of 
 the son James, while it would have allowed the father to marry 
 again. George is called first Earl of Angus, because his mother — a 
 Stuart of the regular Fitzalan (of Bonkyl) stock, by a St. Clair of 
 Orkney and Caithness — resigned the Earldom, and it was immedi- 
 ately given to him. Why she did so, does not appear ; it was 
 possibly more convenient for territorial or similar reasons. 
 
THE SCOTTISH PEERAGE. 
 
 103 
 
 and March, from the Earls and Princes of North- 
 umberland, allied to the Royal family of England, 
 long before the Norman Conquest of that country. 
 From the eleventh Earl of Angus also come the 
 present Duke of Hamilton (nineteenth Earl) and 
 the Earl of Orkney. The limitation of the succes- 
 sion to the Earldom of Angus is to males, and it 
 consequently came into the family of the Dukes of 
 Hamilton only in 1761, when, upon the death of 
 Archibald, thirteenth Earl of Angus and first 
 and only Duke of Douglas, the right reverted to 
 the descendants of William, called third Duke 
 of Hamilton, son of William, first Marquess 
 of Douglas and eleventh Earl of Angus, by 
 his second wife. Thus, His present Grace of 
 Hamilton, though bearing the name of Douglas 
 only as a second surname, is, through George, 
 Earl of Angus, the direct representative, in the 
 male line, of William, the first Earl of Douglas, of 
 his father the Kegent of Scotland who died for 
 her on Halidon Hill, of ' the Hardy ' William 
 Douglas, the friend of William Wallace, and of 
 Theobald the Fleming, to whom the Abbey of 
 Kelso feued the lands of Douglas before a.d. 1160.^ 
 So much for this noble and illustrious race. As 
 far as the Scotch Peerage is concerned, there are 
 
 1 It follows, in consequence of the male limitation of the dignities 
 of the House of Hamilton, that the heirs presumptive, after the 
 brother of the present Duke, are the descendants, in male line, of 
 Lord Anne Hamilton (so named after his godmother, Queen Anne), 
 third son of James, fourth Duke of Hamilton. These descendants 
 are very numerous. The first in order of succession is Alfred 
 Douglas Douglas Hamilton, born in 1862, great-great-great-grandson 
 of Lord Anne ; and, after him^ his uncle and cousins, etc. 
 
104 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 only three families who bear the name, viz., the 
 Earl of Morton, the Marquess of Queensberry, and 
 the Earl of Wemyss. The first is of the Ked, or 
 cadet, branch ; the second and third are only from 
 a bastard of the young hero of Otterburn, and the 
 last does not quarter the arms — those arms which 
 it is difficult for a Scotchman to see without 
 a certain amount of emotion — the three mullets 
 which so often shone by the side of Wallace, and 
 the pictured image of that kingly heart which 
 throbbed with the excitement of victory upon the 
 field of Bannockburn. 
 
 The families above mentioned are not an unfair 
 specimen of those now represented in the present 
 Scotch Peerage. They nearly all appear for the 
 first time in the Middle Ages, subsequently to the 
 political and social changes effected by the acces- 
 sion and marriage of Malcolm III., the exodus 
 from England into Scotland caused by the Norman 
 Conquest of the former country, and the tastes 
 and polity encouraged by David I. Many, indeed 
 most if not nearly all, are either certainly or 
 possibly of foreign extraction, Norse, English, or 
 Norman. But, on the other hand, through women, 
 many can trace a descent from much earlier stocks. 
 Thus, the Stuarts and the Bruces really represent 
 the ancient Lords of Galloway and the Kings of 
 Alban. In the same way, there are three Peers 
 of the family of Erskine — the Earls of Mar, of 
 Buchan, and of Kellie. This family can only be 
 traced to the early part of the thirteenth century, 
 but through Helen, daughter of Christian Bruce 
 (sister of Bobert 1.) by Gartney, Earl of Mar, they 
 
THE SCOTTISH PEERAGE. 
 
 105 
 
 represent the old Earls of Mar, of whom our 
 earliest record is that the then Earl was killed at 
 the battle of Clontarf in a.d. 1014. There is no 
 indication that the family or the dignity were 
 then new, but we have no earlier record. 
 
 The Hamiltons are represented in six Peerages 
 — viz., the Duchy of Hamilton, the Earldoms of 
 Abercorn, (D. Abercorn,) Haddington, Aberdeen, 
 and Orkney, and the Barony of Belhaven. They 
 are a Norman family, who came into England with 
 the Conqueror, and had begun to settle in Scot- 
 land in the twelfth century. 
 
 There are five representatives of the family of 
 Murray, — viz. : the Duke of Athole, the Earl of 
 Dunmore, the Viscount Stormont (E. of Mans- 
 field), the Lord Elibank, and the Lady Nairne 
 (Dowager Marchioness of Lansdowne). This race, 
 so eminent in our history, are descended from 
 Freskin the Fleming, who settled in Scotland in 
 the twelfth century, under David 1. The Duke of 
 Athole would be King of Man (or in Man, as they 
 were sometimes called, since the right to use the 
 Boyal style outside their kingdom w^as disputed,) 
 had not his predecessors the Queen and King 
 (Duke and Duchess) Charlotte and James sold 
 the sovereignty to the British Crown for £70,000, 
 in 1765. The island, as is well known, enjoys 
 Home Bule under its own constitution, but many 
 besides the readers of the Chronica n Regum 
 Mannioe et Insularum must regret the disappear- 
 ance, by absorption among the Imperial titles, of 
 this venerable Kingship. The succession to the 
 Crown of Man did not, however, come to the 
 
 8 
 
106 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 family of Athole by descent from the Douglases, 
 to whom Robert I. had assigned it after his con- 
 quest of the island, but from the Stanleys, Earls of 
 Derby, who had it by grant from the English 
 Henry IV., after its re -subjection by England. 
 
 The Campbells are represented by three Peers, 
 viz. : the Duke of Argyll, and the Earls of 
 Loudoun and of Breadalbane. This family seem 
 to be of Anglo-Norman origin, as the name itself 
 would appear to imply — de Campo Bdlo, i.e., 
 Beauchamp or Fairfield. The Lorne side is de- 
 rived through the Fitzalans (Stuarts) of Pierston, 
 from Alexander, Fourth High Steward of Scot- 
 land, and the Celtic side from marriage with the 
 O'Dwins or O'Dwbins. It has been said that this 
 family of O'Dwin is a solitary instance of a Scotch 
 surname in 0'. This is incorrect ; they are really 
 Irish immigrants, teste Mac Firbis, ainid Peeves ^ 
 — ' Tuathal Maolgarbh, son of Cormac Caoch, 
 King of Ireland, had two sons, namely Garban, 
 
 Ui Duibhduin and Ui Duibhne.' It is the 
 same name as Downie and O'Dowd. The Earl 
 of Loudoun, as already heretofore remarked, is 
 almost entirely an Englishman. His name is 
 Abney Hastings, and he does not at present 
 carry the arms of Campbell. He possesses, how- 
 ever, collaterally and by females, a remote strain 
 of the same blood as William Wallace, whose 
 mother was a Crauford of Loudoun. 
 
 The Erasers have two Peerages, viz. : the 
 Baronies of Saltoun and Lovat. They first ap- 
 
 ^ Adamnan's Life, of Columha, p. 41. 
 
THE SCOTTISH PEERAGE. 
 
 107 
 
 pear in the time of David I., and the name 
 is French — from f raise, a strawberry, flowers of 
 which plant they bear in their arms. The most 
 distinguished man they have ever produced was 
 Wallace's personal friend, Simon Eraser, executed 
 in London, September 7, 1306, and the name of 
 Simon has remained hereditary, especially in the 
 Lovat branch. 
 
 The St. Clairs or Sinclairs — de Sancto Claro — 
 are again a typical case. They came into England 
 from Normandy with the Conqueror, and seem- 
 ingly into Scotland with David I. It is certain, 
 however, that by marriage they can trace their 
 blood at least to the Angus line of Earls of 
 Orkney, if not to the original Norse Earls, in 
 which case they would present one of the few 
 instances of the same family enjoying the dignity 
 of Earl for more than a millennium. They now 
 hold two Scotch Peerages, viz., the Earldom of 
 Caithness and the Barony of Sinclair. The Gor- 
 dons also seem to be Anglo-Norman immigrants 
 under David I., and are represented, in the male 
 and female lines respectively, by two Scotch Peers, 
 the Marquis of Huntly and the Duke of Lennox 
 (D. Richmond, Lennox and Gordon), and in a 
 younger branch by a third, the Earl of Aberdeen. 
 The family of Leslie are of Flemish origin. They 
 have been settled in Scotland since the time of 
 William the Lion, and are represented in the 
 present state of the Scotch Peerage by two 
 persons, the Countess of Pothes and the Earl of 
 Leven and Melville. The Kerrs also possess two 
 Peerages, viz., the Duchy of Poxburghe (created 
 
108 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 within a week of the Union, April 25, 1707, but 
 there is a Barony of 1600,) and the Marquess of 
 Lothian. The latter holds in descent from the 
 church -roUbing Abbat of Newbotle, at the time 
 of the Reformation. This family is again Anglo- 
 Norman, and appears in Scotland in the thirteenth 
 century. The twin Earldoms of Southesk and 
 North esk are both held by Carnegies, a family 
 whose real name is Balinhard, and who do not 
 seem to be traceable beyond the time of David II. 
 
 But the foreign family of all others, noM- hold- 
 ing two Scotch Peerages, which possesses the most 
 extraordinary descent, is that of Lindsay, repre- 
 sented by the Earls of Crawford and Balcarres, 
 and of Lindsay. They entered Scotland under 
 David I. and England under William the Con- 
 queror ; but Sir Bernard Burke says : — ' It has 
 been established, after long and patient investiga- 
 tion, that their first ancestor was a cadet of the 
 House of De Toeny, Knights of the Swan, 
 hereditary standard-bearers of Normandy, with 
 the Dukes of which they had a common male 
 origin. Randolph, Sire de Toeny, living in 1018, 
 great-grandson of Ivar, Jarl of the Uplanders, 
 descended of the race of Thor and Fornioter, in 
 remote ages legendary king of the north (male 
 ancestor of the Dukes of Normandy and of the 
 Clares, Cliffords, Staffords, Toenys, Lindsays, etc.) 
 had two sons (l) Roger de Toeny, (2) Hugo, who 
 adopted from a fief in Normandy the surname of 
 Limesay, etc., etc' 
 
 The family of Drummond is represented by two 
 Peers — the Earl of Perth and Melfort, and the 
 
THE SCOTTISH PEERAGE. 
 
 109 
 
 Viscount Strathallan. There is some doubt as 
 to whether they are of native origin, one account 
 assigning their ancestry to an Hungarian who 
 came to Scotland along with St. Margaret. They 
 first appear distinctly in the thirteenth century. 
 The history of the Drummonds is a noble though 
 sorrowful record of Jacobite loyalty and self- 
 sacrifice. 
 
 The race of Scott seems to be native, unless (as 
 indeed no antiquary will deem improbable) we 
 assume them to go back to the period when Scotia 
 meant Ireland, and that hence the name implies 
 an original derivation from that country. The 
 name is not uncommon in the twelfth century, 
 and the ancestor of the Duke of Buccleuch and 
 Queensberry can be traced to the thirteenth. 
 The Lord Polwarth is of the same clan, though 
 the Peerage was created by William and Mary 
 for the Humes of Polwarth. 
 
 An undoubtedly native family which is repre- 
 sented by two Peers— the Earls of Airlie and 
 Seafield — is that of the Ogilvies. This family is 
 of the most extraordinary antiquity, and descends 
 from the original Celtic Maormers of Angus, one 
 of whom is mentioned in a.d. 939, without any 
 indication that there was then anything new in 
 the dignity. They consented to describe their rank 
 by the term of Earl in the reign of Malcolm III., 
 and from them, through the Countess Matildis, 
 came the De Umfravilles, Earls of Angus, spoken 
 of already as dispossessed by Kobert I., afterwards 
 adherents of Edward Balliol, and ultimately merged 
 in the Talbois. Gilbert, third son of Gillabrighde 
 
110 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 (' servant -of- Brigid '), Earl of Angus, took the 
 name of Ogilvy from land in 1172, and from him 
 descend the present Peers. The Earl of Seafield 
 holds in the female line, and is paternally of the 
 clan of Grant. 
 
 The Grahams are represented by the Duke of 
 Montrose, and are another family settled in Scot- 
 land under David I. The Earls (D.) of Sutherland 
 used formerly to claim to have the most ancient 
 existing title in Britain, but this is certainly not 
 the case, as it was only created in 1228, and 
 the Earldom of Mar, although at present formally 
 ranked after them, is, as has been remarked, far 
 older. The Sutherlands are descended from Freskin 
 the Fleming, already mentioned, who settled in 
 Scotland, like so many others, under David L, and 
 are now represented through the late Duchess- 
 Countess Elizabeth, by the English family of 
 Leveson-Gower. The Montgomeries hold the united 
 Earldoms of Eglinton and Winton. Both as Seton 
 and as Montgomery they first appear in Scotland 
 under David L, but the Montgomeries are an 
 ancient and noble Norman family, allied to that of 
 the Conqueror, with whom they came over to 
 England ; Boger de Montgomerie commanded the 
 first body of the Norman army at the battle of 
 Hastings. The Kennedies, who possess the Earl- 
 dom of Cassillis (M. Ailsa) are likewise of David I.'s 
 time. The family of Maitland — a name which 
 occupies in the history of Scotland several positions 
 rather prominent than glorious — can be traced to 
 the time of Alexander III., and hold the Earldom 
 of Lauderdale. Another family of the settlers 
 
THE SCOTTISH PEERAGE. 
 
 Ill 
 
 under David I. are the Ramsays, now Earls of 
 Dalhousie. A much more modern race — as far as 
 existing records go — are the Cochranes, Earls of 
 Dundonald, whose line it seems difficult to trace 
 (although there are isolated persons of the name 
 as early as the time of Alexander III.) before the 
 seventeenth century. An interesting historical 
 spectacle is presented by the family of the Keith - 
 Falconers, Earls of Kintore and Lords Falconer. 
 As Falconers, they derive their pedigree and their 
 name from the chief falconer of William the Lion ; 
 as Keiths they date (putting aside a clearly fabu- 
 lous legend) from the usual period of David L, and 
 are the representatives of the old Earls Marischals 
 of Scotland. Supposing this title and office to be 
 transmissible through women, and the attainder of 
 the tenth Earl (for rising in the '15) to be removed, 
 Lord Kintore would be entitled to it. In any 
 case, if barred by the female descent, there appears 
 to be male heirs of earlier Earls, and it certainly 
 seems a pity that this venerable historical honour 
 should objectively exist no more. 
 
 The family of Dalrymple, who possess the Earl- 
 dom of Stair, ^ seem to have been originally a 
 branch of the Kennedies. Isolated members of 
 
 1 It would appear tliat the name of ' the curse of Scotland ' given 
 to the nine-of-diaiiionds in a pack of playing-capds, is not really to 
 be attributed to the Butcher Duke of Cuuiberland's having written 
 the words ' No quarter ' on it, as a general order, on the night 
 before the battle of Culloden, but to the arms of this family, viz., 
 or, on a saltier az., nine lozenges of the field. It seems to have been 
 aimed at the first Earl, the eminent Whig statesman, chiefly famous 
 for getting up the massacre of Glencoe. 
 
112 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 the family appear subsequently to 1371, when they 
 entered into possession of half of the Barony of 
 Dalrymple, from which they take their name, but 
 the actual progenitors of the present Earl do not 
 appear to be clearly traceable beyond William 
 Dalrymple who had a Papal dispensation for 
 marrying a kinswoman in 1450. 
 
 The Boyles, now Earls of Glasgow, seem to have 
 been already owners of Kelburn in the time of 
 Alexander III., but the two remaining Scotch 
 Earls, Primrose, Earl of Rosebery, and Hope, Earl 
 of Hopetoun, cannot trace their ancestry beyond 
 the time of Queen Mary, although isolated Hopes 
 are found in Scotland as far back as the thirteenth 
 century. 
 
 The only Viscounty not already mentioned is 
 that of Arbuthnott, held by the family of the same 
 name, but originally Olifards, on whom it was 
 bestowed by William the Lion, and who have 
 dwelt there ever since. 
 
 The family of Elphinstone, Lords Elphinstone, 
 cannot be traced before the early part of the four- 
 teenth century ; they are said to be descended 
 from a daughter of Bobert I.'s brother-in-law, 
 Christopher Seton, who suffered at Dumfries. The 
 family of Borthwick, Lord Borthwick, first appears 
 in the first half of the fifteenth century, and that 
 of the Napiers, Barons Napier, as merchants of 
 Edinburgh, at the commencement of the same 
 century. The Polios, Lords Polio, descend from a 
 secretary of David, Earl of Stratherne, son of 
 Pobert 11. The extremely historic race of the 
 Ruthvens, Lords Puthven — of whom were the 
 
THE SCOTTISH PEERAGE. 
 
 113 
 
 Earls of Gowrie — returns once more to the time of 
 David I. ; their ancestor seems to have been an 
 immigrant of Saxon or Danish origin. 
 
 In considering the general result of these obser- 
 vations it may be as well first to take the Royal 
 family, represented by the Duke of Rothesay 
 (P. Wales), both on account of their special 
 position and because they are to a great extent 
 typical. The pedigree is of enormous length. It 
 certainly takes them to Kenneth M' Alpine, and 
 so shows them to have reigned for more than a 
 millennium. If Kenneth's kingship with the antient 
 Kings of Dalriada be acknowledged, the present 
 Royal family go to the very origin of Scottish 
 monarchy, some three centuries and a half earlier, 
 and then disappear from sight, still reigning, in 
 the vistas of antient Irish royalty. Again, they 
 descend from and represent the antient Lords of 
 Galloway. But these descents are through a 
 series of women, not only Her present Majesty,^ 
 but Sophia, Electress of Hanover, Elizabeth, 
 Queen of Bohemia, Mary, Queen of Scots, the 
 Princess Marjory Bruce, wife of Walter Fitzalan, 
 Sixth High Steward of Scotland, Margaret, 
 Countess of Carrick, and Isobel of Huntingdon, 
 great-granddaughter of David I. As Stuarts 
 (Fitzalans) or Bruces, they belong to the feudal 
 and Norman aristocracy of David I.'s time. 
 Finally, His Royal Highness holds his titles of 
 High Steward of Scotland, Duke of Rothesay, 
 Earl of Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, and Lord 
 
 1 [This was written in ISSQ.—Ed.] 
 
114 
 
 ESSAYS OX HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 of the Isles, pursuant to an Act of Parliament 
 of 1469. 
 
 Of the other Peers, the Duke of Argyll may 
 claim an extreme antiquity of race through the 
 Ui Duibhne, but in male descent, as regards 
 actual length of pedigree, the Lindsays, if Burke's 
 statement be correct, can hardly admit a com- 
 petitor, and the same may be said of the Ogilvies, 
 with regard to male descent in residence in Scot- 
 land. For antiquity of title, the Earl of Mar, 
 with his Peerage of at least the eleventh century, 
 may be said to stand alone next after the Crown 
 itself The Earl of Mar. however, descends in the 
 female line, and is an Erskine, and this brings 
 the enquirer at once to the main group from 
 whom most of the members of the present 
 Scotch Peerage are descended. These are the 
 races which first appear under the feudal polity 
 favoured bv David I., and manv of whom were 
 of fbreioii orioin, and brouo;ht into the countrv. 
 After them come scattered mediaeval families, until 
 we reach two of the time of Mary — the Primroses 
 of Kosebery and the Hopes of Hopetoun — and one 
 completely post -Reformation, if indeed it be so, 
 viz. : the Cochranes of Dundonald. 
 
 If, however, such be the antiquity of these 
 families, the antiquity of their Peerages is a very 
 different thino\ In analvsino- these, it is neces- 
 sary to regard the existing Peers, not by that 
 Peerage by which they may be known, but by 
 the earliest which they may happen to possess ; 
 for instance, the Duchy of Argyll dates only from 
 1701, but His Grace holds the Barony of Campbell 
 
THE SCOTTISH PEERAGE. 
 
 115 
 
 from 1445. From this point of view, the Earl of 
 Mar, as already remarked, stands alone with a 
 Peerage of at least the eleventh century, before, 
 it might ahiiost be said, such things as Peerages 
 existed. There are none of the twelfth century, 
 and only one of the thirteenth, viz., the Earldom 
 of Sutherland. There are two of the fourteenth, 
 viz., the Earldom of Crawford, and the Earldom of 
 Angus held by the Duke of Hamilton, as already 
 mentioned. Of Peers of the fifteenth century, 
 there are twenty-seven. Of these twenty-seven, 
 six are Earls, of whom one has been made a Duke 
 (Athole) and one a Marquess (Huntly). The 
 others are all Baronies, but one is held by a 
 Duke (Argyll) one by a Marquess (Tweeddale) 
 and eleven by Earls. Five Peers only owe their 
 earliest title to the sixteentli century. These are 
 all Baronies, but one is held by a Marquess 
 (Lothian) and two by Earls (Abercorn and 
 Lauderdale). After the year 1700, only three 
 families still independently existing— Ogilvie of 
 Seafield, Primrose of Posebery, and Hope of Hope- 
 toun — were ennobled de novo, though eight higher 
 such degrees were given, including four out of the 
 seven Duchies. It may be remarked that two of 
 these, — Montrose, April 24, and Poxburghe, April 
 25, 1707, within a week of the Union, — were 
 the last Scotch Peerages ever created. Of the 
 existing eighty- one Peers, therefore, no less than 
 forty-two, or more than half, owe the original 
 ennoblement of their blood to the seventeenth 
 century, and no less than fifty-five, or more than 
 
116 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 five -eighths — including the three remaining Dukes ^ 
 — owe to the same century the title by which 
 they are known in the Scotch Peerage. 
 
 In the above pages no notice has been taken, 
 except very slightly and incidentally, of Peerages 
 which are either extinct or dormant, the object 
 being, not to write an essay upon things which 
 are altogether of the past, but to comment upon 
 the amount of historical interest which attaches 
 itself to a group of people still existent. The 
 Peerages which are merged with others have 
 been alluded to as far as needful ; if of the 
 same degree, they are necessarily all more recent 
 than those with which they have coalesced, and 
 were often merely different honours conferred on 
 kinsmen of the same family. Their number is not 
 large — the Duchy of Queensberry has been joined 
 to that of Buccleuch ; the Earldoms of Winton 
 to Eglinton, Ancrum to the Marquessate of 
 Lothian, Kincardine to Elgin, Balcarres to Craw- 
 ford, Aboyne to the Marquessate of Huntly, 
 Melfort to Perth, Melville to Leven, March to 
 Wemyss, and Bute to Dumfries ; the Viscounty 
 of Dupplin to the Earldom of Kinnoul ; the 
 Baronies of Gray to the Earldom of Moray, 
 Cardross to that of Buchan, Jedburgh to the 
 Marquessate of Lothian, Madderty to the Vis- 
 county of Strathallan, and Halkerton to the 
 Earldom of Kintore. 
 
 The Peerage of Scotland is interesting, like 
 some other objects, as a reminder of the things 
 
 ^ Excluding Rothesay. 
 
THE SCOTTISH PEERAGE. 
 
 117 
 
 which were until 1707. It is interesting also, as 
 far as it goes, in preserving and marking at least 
 some of the historic races who have made, or been 
 themselves made by, the History of Scotland. As 
 a Peerage, however, it is very much a crumbling 
 monument of the period subsequent to the de- 
 parture of our Kings for the South. Fortunately, 
 it is exactly those other ingredients in it, which 
 are the most valuable and the most interesting, 
 which are also the most likely the longest to 
 resist the destroying power of time. 
 
PARLIAMENT IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 aOME time ago, Mr. Mitchell, the Treasurer of 
 ^ the Scottish Home Rule Association, wrote to 
 me with regard to the publication of certain pam- 
 phlets. These pamphlets all related more or less 
 to the general subject of Home Rule, and they 
 certainly embodied the personal opinions of divers 
 members of the Association, although it could not 
 be said that any or all of them expressed the 
 official opinion of the Association, as such. My 
 reply was to ask him to excuse me, not only be- 
 cause I was not a member of the Association, but 
 also because some of the pamphlets in question 
 dealt with Irish politics, upon which I did not feel 
 called upon to express an opinion, and others 
 advocated ideas from which I told him frankly 
 that I diifered. My letter — as is indeed suffi- 
 ciently evident from its gossipy style — was not 
 written for publication. As, however, Mr. Mitchell 
 thought it worth while to publish the latter part 
 of it, and as, moreover, this was reproduced by 
 some newspapers in a very inaccurate and muti- 
 lated form, I am glad to take the present oppor- 
 tunity of dealing at greater length with the 
 points referred to in it. 
 
 The ignorance which prevails in England with 
 regard to Scotland is sometimes amusing, and 
 
120 
 
 ESSAYS OX HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 occasionally irritating. It is often astonishing. 
 This is the case with the notion that the desire 
 for a National Parliament is limited to the actual 
 members of the Scottish Home Rule Association. 
 As a matter of fact, there is a very wide-spread 
 and increasing consciousness that whatever may 
 have been the merits of the Union of 1707 when 
 it took place, it is an arrangement which time has 
 now outgrown. The Union was brought about 
 under peculiar financial circumstances, in which a 
 large share must be attributed to the great skill 
 and success with which William III. had striven 
 to use the Darien scheme as a means of reducing 
 Scotland as nearly as possible to a condition of 
 national bankruptcy ; and it was immediately 
 based upon the dynastic questions connected with 
 the Act of Security. The degree of national 
 prosperity which the country has now succeeded 
 in attaining in spite of the Union is great, and 
 perhaps as remarkable under the circumstances as 
 it is gratifying, while the dynastic question which 
 was the Union's very reason of existence, is 
 absolutely dead. Whether the Union Avas or was 
 not desirable in 1707 is a question of antient 
 history, almost as useless for any practical purpose 
 as those of the identity of the Mons Grampus or 
 Graupus, or of the moral character of Mary, Queen 
 of Scots. History is almost pricelessly valuable in 
 its own sphere. Things which are good in them- 
 selves are all the more venerable upon account of 
 antiquity. But it is absurd that the living present 
 and the future should continue to be injuriously 
 bound and hampered in deference to a set of cir- 
 
PARLIAMENT IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 121 
 
 ciimstances belonging to a long dead and buried 
 past. 
 
 The subjects upon which popular discontent 
 with the Union is most often expressed are pro- 
 bably two. One of these is the habitual neglect 
 of Scottish legislation in Parliament. The session 
 of the present year [1889] is one of those excep- 
 tions which prove the rule. It will indeed certainly 
 be followed by a re-action. The Scottish people 
 are moreover represented in the House of Com- 
 mons upon a different and smaller scale than those 
 of either of the two other Kingdoms, whether 
 regard be had to number of population or to 
 wealth and amount of contribution to the Imperial 
 revenue — a fact which they pretty generally 
 realize. Akin to this are the complaints as to 
 the manner in which proposed legislation of a 
 purely Scottish character is first shaped under 
 English auspices and after English models, and 
 then subjected to the w^ill and judgment of a 
 majority of English and Irish representatives. 
 The second most common complaint is that of the 
 inconvenience and expense to which the parties 
 concerned in Private Bills are subjected, by the 
 transaction of that legislation in London, and the 
 similar burdens laid upon litigants in the resort to 
 the last Court of Appeal. Cognate to the latter 
 hardship is the fact that when the House of 
 Lords is at length reached, either the whole or 
 the majority of the learned Lords who compose the 
 tribunal are men confessedly without knowledge of 
 the Scottish Law as to whose doctrines they are 
 called upon to decide. And here also may be 
 
 9 
 
122 
 
 ESSAYS OX HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 mentioned another and similar. thouo;h still more 
 exasperating complaint. This is the jurisdiction 
 claimed by the English Courts over Scotsmen in 
 the province of common law. — a subject which was 
 discussed in a very able and very moderate, per- 
 haps too moderate, article in the Scottish Re vie v: 
 for January, 1887. 
 
 Wliat may be generically called the social effects 
 of the Union form an entire class of phenomena by 
 themselves. One of these is a sort of brain -tax 
 fi'om which Scotland suffers, in the fact that so 
 many able men are induced to leave the country, 
 bv the gTeater attractions offered to ambition in 
 England. This movement is constantly stimulated 
 bv the steady action taken in the way of cutting- 
 down the number of honourable and lucrative 
 offices in Scotland itself Other facts more par- 
 ticularlv affect the labourino- classes. Amonor 
 these is the absence of expenditure of public or 
 Crown monev upon public works. Comparatively 
 unimportant in this respect is the neglect of the 
 public buildings, of which the condition of the 
 Palaces of Stirling, Linlithgow or Dunfermline, 
 the Chapel Royal of Holp'ood. and of nearly every 
 ancient Catliech-al in the country, forms a striking 
 example. There would indeed sometimes seem to 
 be a sort of wish that such historical and artistic 
 monuments of the past, the sight of which is cal- 
 culated to quicken national feeling in the present 
 and the future, should perish. They are neglected 
 and mostly allowed to fall into ruins, while their 
 restoration and upkeep would be not only a source 
 of pride and pleasure and of historical and artistic 
 
PARLIAMENT IX SCOTLAND. 
 
 123 
 
 education to the whole community, but would also 
 ensure the expenditure of very large sums among 
 workmen, especially those who live by skilled 
 labour. More serious are the scantiness of 
 Government orders, and the absence of Govern- 
 ment works, such as arsenals. Far more serious 
 still is the absence of works such as harbours, 
 which would at once aid the industries of the 
 country, and at the same time be a protection to 
 the lives of those who are eno;ao;ed in them. 
 Lastly, may well he considered another result of 
 the Union, which deprives the country at once of 
 men and of money. This is the manner in which 
 the wealthier classes are obliged or induced to 
 pass nearly always a great part, often the greater 
 part, and sometimes nearly the whole of their time 
 in England. This is not to be regretted only for 
 the sake of the humbler classes who would profit 
 by the expenditure among them of the incomes of 
 the richer, largely drawn from their labour. The 
 landowners become estranged from the dwellers 
 upon their own estates ; and the fact engenders 
 discontent among the latter ; although it must 
 be confessed that it does so in a less degree than 
 that in which it destroys the sentiments alike of 
 patriotism and of kindliness in the former. Such 
 proceedings as the ' Sutherland Clearings ' are now 
 happily a moral impossibility. But the conditions 
 which the Union has produced and which rendered 
 them once possible, exist more fully than ever. 
 Absenteeism creates alienation of sympathies, an 
 exacerbation of class distinctions, mutual imor- 
 ance, and finally the want of consideration, the 
 
124 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 hardships and the ill-feehng which are now so 
 unfortunately to be found in many parts of the 
 Highlands and Islands, and which the Crofter 
 Commission is a mechanical device to cure. 
 
 Several of the results of the Union of 1707, 
 already enumerated, have a bearing upon yet 
 another point, namely, the effect which the Union 
 exercises upon the material prosperity of the coun- 
 try. This question was very clearly, ably, and 
 moderately discussed in the article upon The 
 Union of 1707 Viewed Financially, which ap- 
 peared in the Scottish Review for October, 1887. 
 That article, as far as it goes, is unanswered and 
 unanswerable. Those whom it did not please, 
 were driven at once to resort to the last refuge of 
 impotence, viz., personal abuse of the anonymous 
 author. It was a striking instance of ' No case : 
 abuse the defendant's solicitor.' Argument against 
 it there could be none. It is impossible by cursing, 
 to delete the printed figures from pages of Blue 
 Books. But there was certainly one thing in 
 which the well-known financier who wrote that 
 article was wrong. He greatly under-stated his 
 own case. With regard to a particular item, 
 for instance, such a phrase occurs as ' probably 
 £500,000 w^ould not overstate it, but to keep well 
 within the mark, we shall place it at £300,000.' 
 His weakest statement was probably that in which, 
 the annual value of land in Scotland assessed to 
 income-tax being about 7^ millions sterling, of 
 which about three-sevenths belong to Peers or 
 Baronets, he proposed to name two millions as re- 
 presenting the amount of income spent in London 
 
PARLIAMENT IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 125 
 
 and elsewhere In England. He left out of calcu- 
 lation any incomes not derived from land, the fact 
 that to a very large number of Scottish proprietors 
 their annual sojourn in London occupies the greater 
 and certainly constitutes by far the most costly 
 portion of their year, and that the two classes 
 whom he names certainly do not form the half of 
 those whose incomes are thus applied. From the 
 figures upon which he himself went, it is clear that 
 he ought to have set down the annual dead loss 
 in money which is entailed upon Scotland by the 
 Union of 1707 at a sum of eight or ten millions 
 rather than of four. 
 
 The wonder is that all these causes do not pro- 
 duce in Scotland a more active agitation for a 
 revision of the Treaty in question. To account for 
 this, it is perhaps first necessary to remember the 
 remarkable patience and quietness w^hich are so 
 characteristic of our race. But there are other 
 reasons as well. The historical aspect of the 
 Union, as well as of many other epochs of the 
 national history, is not nearly as well known as it 
 ought to be, and as, indeed, it might naturally be 
 expected to be. The history of Scotland is usually 
 to be found only in the form of jejune summaries 
 of the most repellant dryness, or in costly and 
 voluminous works by scholars, generally treating 
 of special epochs, and both alike often written 
 under the influence of violent prepossessions, and 
 sometimes inflamed with the most furious polemics 
 inspired by religious, political, or historical sym- 
 pathies. There has been and is a gradual if not a 
 systematic tendency to supplant the study of the 
 
126 
 
 ESSAYS OX HOME SURJECTS. 
 
 Xatioiial History, even in the hicrher seats of 
 learnino^. bv that of the Historv of Eno-land. It 
 is more tlian probable that these hnes will be read 
 by many who do not know what is meant bv the 
 Darien Scheme or by the Act of Secm^itv. and 
 who have never heard that the disastrous conse- 
 quences of the Union were so immediately and 
 so appallingly evident that its own authors en- 
 deavoured to undo their work onlv six vears later. 
 Then, the social consequences of the Union are 
 widely accepted as a matter of habit. People are 
 accustomed to see the clever and asph^ing go to 
 seek a career in England. The neglect of public 
 works is looked upon as the normal state of affairs, 
 except from time to time when some terrible 
 disaster such as the loss of fishermens lives causes 
 a spasmodic demand for some preventive. That 
 wealthy lando^^iiers, the representatives perhaps 
 of great historical races, and the proprietors of 
 vast tracts of the countrv. should never visit their 
 properties, except for a few weeks during the 
 shootino'-season. or that thev should abandon them 
 alto^j-ether and let them to alien strano^ers. is ac- 
 cepted as a matter of course. These things are 
 not infrequently bewailed, or at least regretted, 
 but it is not nearlv so often known or realized 
 that it is the Union of 1707 which is their cause, 
 and that its repeal would be their immediate and 
 almost entire cure. Lastlv. with reo:ard to the 
 purely monetary question, it is a singular fact that 
 an idea or belief does actually still extensively 
 prevail that the Union has been beneficial to the 
 material interests of the coimtry. Even the pages 
 
PARLIAMENT IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 127 
 
 of the financial writer just cited are not free from 
 some lingering traces of this superstition, although 
 with the figures before him he is obliged to trans- 
 fer the benefits of the Union to some vague and 
 undefined sphere. It is curious to conjecture how 
 a delusion so entirely opposed to facts ever arose. 
 It was one of the false prophecies of the advocates 
 of the Union at the time, and their reputations 
 became of course involved in the success of their 
 prediction. On the other hand, while the Union 
 was regarded as irrevocable, the notion that there 
 was at least some compensation of a material 
 character, offered a last consolation to despairing 
 patriotism. The wish was father to the thought 
 on all sides. Hence comes all the nonsense of this 
 sort which Sir Walter Scott — although, evidently, 
 much against the grain— thought it necessary to 
 write. Perhaps the popularity of his works has 
 something to do with the survival of a mistake so 
 extraordinary. Anyhow, strange as it may seem 
 in the face of the inexorable logic of facts, it is 
 not an uncommon belief in Scotland even at the 
 present day that the Union has conferred great 
 benefits upon the country from a financial point of 
 view. People do not know that as a matter of 
 fact the Union nearly beggared the population for 
 several generations, and that the country is still 
 bled annually at the rate of about £2 per head of 
 the population in deference to a totally extinct 
 dynastic question which happened to exist in the 
 year 1704. 
 
 There is still another cause which has operated 
 hitherto to prevent as strong an expression of 
 
128 
 
 ESSAYS OX HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 national impatience under the existing state of 
 thino^s as micrht otherwise have been the case. 
 This cause acts upon the membership of the par- 
 ticular Association of which Mr. Mitchell is the 
 Treasurer, as well as other reasons of different 
 sorts and of a special kind into which it is un- 
 necessary here to enter. The cause in question is 
 the desire of most men individually not to loosen 
 in any way their adhesion to that one of the two 
 great political parties, into which the country is 
 generally divided, to which each man may chance 
 to belonof. The Tories are indeed the historical 
 heirs of that great national party, if party it could 
 be called which embraced nearly the whole nation, 
 which was opposed to the Union at the time when 
 it took place, and which would in all probability 
 have averted it, had it not been for the vacillation 
 (or the treachery ?) of the Duke of Hamilton. But 
 the English Conservative party to Avhich these 
 gentlemen adhere has hitherto given them no en- 
 couragement to act upon the principles of their 
 ancestors, and has indeed sometimes brought them 
 into such strange company that they can hardly 
 be distinguished from Liberal Unionists. It would 
 sometimes be amusing if it were not pitiful to see 
 Scottish Tories indulging in private or even in 
 public in the glorification (mostly, it must be con- 
 fessed, in the form of literary effusions), of their 
 political ancestors, and then proceeding to the 
 enunciation and support of political doctrines to 
 oppose which the ancestors in question cheerfully 
 laid down their lives. The followers of Mr. Glad- 
 stone, upon the other hand, represent historically 
 
PARLIAMENT IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 129 
 
 the group of Whig and Hanoverian statesmen by 
 whose singular labours the Act of 1707 was passed 
 and upheld, and, although they have of very 
 recent years, accepted certain principles of an 
 Home Rule character when applied to Ireland, 
 they have received from the head- quarters of their 
 party just as little encouragement as their Tory 
 opponents have towards any movement for the 
 establishment of a Scottish Legislature. There is 
 widely prevalent among them the avowed doctrine 
 that even if a thing be right in itself, it is wrong 
 to take it up unless at the desire of Mr. Gladstone. 
 To such a length is this carried that the Scottish 
 Home Rule Association has actually been termed 
 anti-Gladstonian, merely because its members have 
 associated themselves without Mr. Gladstones 
 initiative, and regardless of the fact that it has 
 been the aim of the Association from its very 
 inception, to keep itself clear from being identified 
 with either of the great political parties in the 
 State (from both of which its members are, as a 
 matter of fact, drawn), and to rest solely upon 
 the l)asis of pure patriotism. 
 
 It would indeed be deeply to be bewailed if the 
 movement, which demands the re -constitution of a 
 Parliament in Scotland, were to become identified 
 with either the Toryism or the Liberalism of the 
 present day. The sentiment which inspires it is 
 elevated in a sphere far above the wranglings of 
 political partizanship, and has its life in affection 
 for country and countrymen. It ought to be 
 carried on in the same remarkable spirit of common 
 devotion to the good of the common Fatherland 
 
130 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 which animated the meeting held in Edinburgh, 
 but a few years ago, to demand the resuscitation 
 of the office of Home Minister for Scotland, where 
 the Tory Lord Lothian presided over a gathering 
 composed mainly of Liberals, and where no voice 
 of partizan division marred the patriotic unanimity 
 of the assembly. In the presence of the great 
 object to be attained to-day, historical recrimina- 
 tions must be silent. It would be especially to be 
 deplored if the Scottish National movement should 
 in any way be mixed up with the discussion of the 
 Irish question. The nature of the cases and of 
 the arguments Avhich affect them are entirely 
 different. A single remark is hardly necessary in 
 order to show this. If an opponent of Irish Home 
 Rule be asked why he objects to such a measure, 
 the reply, in ninety-nine cases out of an hundred, 
 will be that, in his belief, Home Rule in that coun- 
 try would be followed by civil war, by anarchy, by 
 oppression, by insecurity to life and property, by 
 the withdrawal of capital, that it would mean an 
 Irish Government acting under an overwhelming 
 clerical influence of a particular character, that it 
 would put power into the hands of men hostile to 
 the Monarchy, who might even, in the contingency 
 of war, place Ireland as a point of vantage at the 
 disposal of a foreign enemy. No one in their 
 senses would predict such consequences as con- 
 tingent upon the sitting of a National Parliament 
 in Edinburgh, occupied upon such legislation as 
 may be necessary for the internal well-being of 
 Scotland. Moreover, the Irish themselves have 
 no wish for any association, far less fusion, of the 
 
PARLIAMENT IN SCOTLAND. 131 
 
 questions. It was Mr. Parnell who thought it 
 best to say : ' Scotland has ceased to be a nation.' 
 The Irish colony in Scotland have never shown 
 any inclination to identify themselves with the 
 land of their birth or adoption. On the contrary, 
 they sometimes manifest an unprovoked hostility. 
 Finally, it is enough to remark that there are 
 plenty of persons who associate themselves with 
 Irish Nationalist ideas, regarding whom every 
 Scotchman would exclaim, as so many of the lead- 
 ing men of Ireland are fain to exclaim — Non tali 
 auxiUoJ 
 
 If it would be insanity to suggest that the re- 
 sult of a Parliament sitting in Edinburgh would 
 be any of those evil consequences which have been 
 and are constantly suggested as the prohibitory 
 objection to a Parliament sitting in Dublin, it is 
 worth while to consider for a moment what the 
 consequences of the Edinburgh Parliament would 
 be. The first benefits would probably be felt at 
 Westminster, and by the English Conservative 
 party, for the House of Commons would be re- 
 lieved and the English would be free to manage 
 their own national concerns in their own way. 
 In Scotland itself there would be an intensified 
 sentiment (if that be possible) of loyalty towards 
 the Throne, a quickening of all social life, of which 
 the benefits would chiefly fall upon the working 
 classes, and an increased diffusion of wealth, of 
 which the results would be immediately apparent. 
 The National Parliament would not sit for a pre- 
 posterous period of the year. It would not be 
 noisy and dilatory. Its proceedings in the way of 
 
132 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 debate would consist of a limited number of grave 
 and careful speeches, probably little more extended 
 as regards length and number than are the pro- 
 ceedings of the House of Lords. Some have feared 
 that a Scottish Legislature would lend itself to 
 measures of an extremely Radical or, as they 
 would be termed, Socialistic nature. That im- 
 munity from such measures is a merit of the 
 present system cannot be asserted in view of the 
 recent attempt of the present Conservative Govern- 
 ment to abolish primogeniture. But leaving such 
 a consideration upon one side, and leaving out of 
 the question the power of the Crown in giving or 
 withholding the Royal assent, it may be confi- 
 dently anticipated that such fears are groundless. 
 Measures of this sort are generated by the em- 
 bitterment of class feeling. Whatever embitter- 
 ment of class feeling there may unfortunately be in 
 Scotland (and it is almost, if not entirely, confined 
 to the Highlands and Islands), is the direct and 
 undoubted result of the Union of 1707. With 
 the cause, the efiect would die. So far from there 
 being any natural animosity between the different 
 classes of the Scottish people, it is remarkable to 
 what an extent the old families are regarded by 
 those to whom they are near with a kind of 
 historic pride, and it is sometimes touching as well 
 as wonderful to see how the feeling of affection 
 survives in such cases, even when absenteeism, 
 alienation, or other like fruits of the Union of 
 1707, have made it necessary to transfer — let us 
 say, pride — to an abstraction. A National Par- 
 liament would probably begin by separating into 
 
PARLIAMENT IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 133 
 
 parties over some such question as Disestablish- 
 ment, and it would go on to concern itself with 
 matters like Compensation for Unexhausted Im- 
 provements, Education, Public Works, and similar 
 topics. 
 
 The composition of a Scottish National Parlia- 
 ment is of course a question which naturally falls 
 to be discussed, at any rate to some extent, in the 
 present paper. An anonymous article upon the 
 subject appeared in the Scottish Review for July, 
 1886, and another, by Mr. Mitchell himself, in 
 April, 1888 — the latter, at least, of which was to 
 form the contents of one of those pamphlets of 
 which the proposed publication has been the in- 
 direct cause of the writing of these pages. The 
 silence in which the greater part of the articles 
 in question will be here passed over must not be 
 understood as implying either assent to or dissent 
 from the propositions which they contain. But 
 they contain two proposals in particular to which 
 exception will here be taken. 
 
 It is suggested that the Scottish constituencies 
 should return two sets of representatives, one to 
 the Imperial and the other to the National Parlia- 
 ment, although it should be possible to return the 
 same person to both. Whether it is in itself de- 
 sirable, from a purely Scottish point of view, that 
 Scottish representatives should regularly attend a 
 Parliament in England, is a question which is not 
 here discussed. The affirmative has generally 
 been enunciated and accepted, and is assumed 
 here. It will at the same time be remembered 
 that the notion of returning members from Ireland 
 
134 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 to the Imperial Parliament at Westminster is one 
 which has been viewed with very great dislike in 
 Ireland itself. One of the great merits, perhaps 
 the chief merit, of Mr. Gladstone's scheme was 
 that it excluded them. The Irish argument is 
 that if they have to return members both to 
 Westminster and to Dublin, they will only get an 
 inferior class of candidates for the seats at Dublin. 
 It would be idle to pretend that the same argu- 
 ment does not hold good in Scotland. Many able 
 men, from ambition, family connection, taste, or 
 other causes, would compete only for the member- 
 ship of the Imperial Parliament. The National 
 Parliament, for which nothing that the country 
 could yield ought to be too good, would be de- 
 prived of their services, and left to those of an 
 inferior class of members. There would be a dis- 
 tinct liability to an habit of creating 1st Class, 
 2nd Class, and 3rd Class Members, according to 
 the body or bodies to which they were returned ; 
 and it is quite possible that the 1st Class would 
 be the members returned to Westminster alone, 
 and more than probable that the 3rd Class would 
 consist of those specially returned to Edinburgh. 
 There would be encouraged the growth of a parti- 
 cular type of member, to which it is said that the 
 popular language of America has affixed the ex- 
 pressive if inelegant epithet of ' Carpetbagger.' 
 These would be a species of professional candidate, 
 selected and sent down to Scotland by London 
 political clubs, by them, as it were, warranted 
 sound, and elected upon that warranty, who would 
 have no intention of settling in Scotland, and 
 
PARLIAMENT IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 135 
 
 would only pay an occasional visit for the purpose 
 of addressing their constituents, while they them- 
 selves lived in England and especially in London, 
 "and, even if they happened to belong to the 2nd 
 Class, or members of both Legislatures, would look 
 upon the Scottish Parliament as a kind of inferior 
 local committee, where they might or might not 
 occasionally condescend to appear, and for the 
 reversal of whose decisions they could always use 
 their votes at Westminster. Such a system, 
 instead of curing the evils of the Union, would 
 both perpetuate and aggravate them. Moreover, 
 such an arrangement is open to the obvious and 
 insurmountable objection that the country might 
 possibly send men to represent one set of opinions 
 in London and another in Edinburgh. There 
 seems to be only one way in which such a possi- 
 bility can be avoided, and the best legislative 
 talent which Scotland could produce, secured for 
 the National Parliament in Edinburgh at the 
 same time as representation in the Imperial Par- 
 liament in London. This is simply by adopting 
 the plan which was already in use in the time of 
 Charles I., after the beginning of the Troubles. 
 Let there be no entrance into the Imperial Par- 
 liament except for a member of the National 
 Parliament, and let such members of the Imperial 
 Parliament be chosen by the National Parliament 
 from its own body, under the name of Commis- 
 sioners. The representation of any respectable 
 minority is a mere matter of mathematical 
 arrangement as regards the manner of voting. 
 It is here assumed that the number of members 
 
136 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 of the National Parliament would be much larger 
 than that of the Scottish members of the House 
 of Commons. That such should be the case, would 
 not only entail the advantage of a fuller represen- 
 tation of the Scottish population to legislate upon 
 home questions and to serve upon Committees, but 
 would also secure the services of men who for any 
 cause (and it is very easy to imagine several) 
 might be willing enough to attend the Parliament 
 in Edinburgh, but would shrink from the addi- 
 tional bondage in London. 
 
 The other proposal of the writers above men- 
 tioned to which exception is here taken, is the 
 suggestion that a National Parliament in Edin- 
 burgh should be composed of two Chambers, an 
 House of Lords and an House of Commons. No 
 such thing as an House of Lords was ever heard 
 of in Scotland. It is not, however, upon a merely 
 antiquarian ground that it would seem undesirable 
 now to invent one, nor is it intended here to say 
 anything as to the possibility of any improvement 
 in the constitution of the present House of Lords 
 at Westminster. Surely a little reflection will 
 show to anybody the numerous objections to now 
 importing or introducing such a novelty into 
 Scotland for the first time. Even, however, if it 
 were otherwise desirable to invent an House of 
 Lords in Edinburgh, the Scottish Peerage does not 
 afford the materials out of which to form such a 
 Chamber. The creation of a Scottish Peer ceased 
 to be possible in 1707, and even if a set of new 
 Peers were to be made, the new Peers would 
 always represent a second and markedly inferior 
 
PARLIAMENT IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 137 
 
 class in regard to a dignity as to which antiquity 
 is one of the most esteemed features. The Scottish 
 Peerage consists of barely eighty persons, of whom 
 a certain number would always be disqualified by 
 sex, age, or infirmity. Some are absolute foreigners, 
 such as Lord Newburgh (the Roman Prince Gius- 
 tiniani-Bandini), others are completely Englishmen; 
 some do not possess a square inch of land in Scot- 
 land, others never or very rarely come there. In- 
 deed, if aliens were to be excluded, more than a 
 fourth part of the whole body would probably find 
 themselves disqualified. Even historically, the 
 Scottish Peerage, considered as such, is not a par- 
 ticularly venerable body. The families, it is true, 
 are nearly all antient, most going back to the 
 Thirteenth Century or earlier ; but more than half 
 owe their orio^inal titles to the Seventeenth. 
 There is perhaps no one who would wish to see 
 the Scottish Peers deprived of their titles and 
 precedence, which form an interesting and indeed 
 picturesque historical monument, but it is a monu- 
 ment which is crumbling down under the hand of 
 time (more than half the Peerages which existed 
 in 1707 have disappeared), and it certainly does 
 not afford all the materials necessary for the con- 
 stitution of a separate legislative Chamber. 
 
 The old Parliament of Scotland consisted of a 
 single Chamber, in which sat representatives of 
 Four Estates, viz., the Clergy, the Peerage, the 
 Counties, and the Burghs. The Estate of the 
 Clergy was abolished in the reign of Charles I., 
 restored under Charles 11. , and abolished again 
 under William and Mary. No doubt it had been 
 
 10 
 
138 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 of most use in the early Middle Ages, before the 
 foundation of the Universities and the develop- 
 ment of Grammar Schools, and before the Church 
 of Scotland had been ravaged by the later abuses 
 of the right of Patronage. At that time the 
 Bishops, Abbots, and Priors served to represent 
 the interests not only of religion and of landed 
 property considerable in character rather than in 
 extent, but also, in a great measure, those of 
 agriculture, jurisprudence, education, learning, and 
 science. It is to be presumed that no one would 
 now propose to restore it again. At the same 
 time, it would certainly be just to abolish the 
 political disabilities of the Clergy. A Catholic or 
 Anglican Priest or an ordained minister of the 
 Established Church of Scotland cannot be a mem- 
 ber of the House of Commons. Any other 
 minister of religion may. The distinction drawn 
 between an Established Church minister and a 
 Free Church minister is senseless. Clergymen sit 
 freely in the House of Lords, and the fact causes 
 no inconvenience. Several are frequent, and one, 
 at least, a remarkably powerful and brilliant 
 speaker. If a constituency wishes to return a 
 clergyman as a member, it is hard to see why it 
 should not. The same remark applies to Peers. 
 The Scottish Peers, however otherwise qualified, 
 are not allowed to vote in Parliamentary elections 
 or to be themselves elected, because they are 
 Peers, and they are not allowed to sit in the 
 House of Lords, because they are Scotch. In the 
 case of a Scottish National Parliament, they ought 
 
PARLIAMENT IX SCOTLAND. 
 
 139 
 
 to have the same rights of voting and being 
 elected as are enjoyed by Commoners. 
 
 The fact that both the entire and unbroken 
 historical tradition, and the present conditions of 
 Scotland, are opposed to the invention and intro- 
 duction for the first time in all Scottish history of 
 an House of Lords, and that, even if they were 
 not, the Scottish Peerage does not supply the 
 material out of which such an House could be 
 formed, need not deny to a Scottish National 
 Leo^islature the advantages which the House of 
 Lords in London affords to the Imperial Parlia- 
 ment, and which the representation of the estate 
 of the Peerage in the old Scots Parliament afforded 
 to Scotland before the Union. The House of 
 Lords represents less exclusively than it did in the 
 Middle Ages the interests of landed property, of 
 the agricultural districts, and of mental culture, 
 because these things are now more widely diffused, 
 and the hereditary Peerage, as it now exists, is 
 not as strong a guarantee of them as it was then. 
 But it does continue to afford to the country a 
 protection, if it choose to accept it, against the 
 vagaries of representatives who may no longer 
 reflect the sense of their constituencies, and the 
 advice of a body of men mostly of mature years, of 
 experience in business, and of the highest educa- 
 tion which the discipline of school and college and 
 the practical knowledge of life affords, and who 
 are, moreover, raised above the temptation of 
 being corrupted by the dread of ofiending electors. 
 The same end could be attained in a Scottish 
 Parliament by a body of Life Peers, who, forming. 
 
140 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 like the Estate of the Peerage in the old Scots 
 Parliament, a fourth part of an assembly of some 
 200, of whom the rest were the representatives of 
 counties and burghs in proportion to population, 
 would give all these advantages, while avoiding 
 the danger inherent in the possibility that a wise 
 and good man may be the ancestor of a fool or a 
 knave. Such a body would be large enough to 
 embrace those of the hereditary Peers whom the 
 Government might deem it desirable to see mem- 
 bers of the legislative assembly, and men whose 
 advice might be valuable but whose temperament, 
 whose means, or whose work would lead them to 
 shrink from the repellant turmoil of contested 
 elections at frequent though irregular intervals. 
 The fact of a fixed number would preserve the 
 Chamber against liability to be arbitrarily flooded 
 by a batch of new creations, which is one of the 
 stock menaces employed towards the House of 
 Lords. At the same time, as Life Peers would 
 be created upon the advice of the ministers of the 
 day, the group so formed would always repre- 
 sent the steady current of national opinion, safe, 
 upon the one hand, from being carried away by 
 transient whims of popular excitement, and, upon 
 the other, from the danger of ceasing to live in 
 accord with the developments of national life. 
 
 There remains one other element whose repre- 
 sentation in a National Parliament ought to be a 
 matter of consideration. It may be roughly called 
 the Official. In the present state of things, seats 
 have to be found for ministers, which gives a great 
 deal of needless trouble. The House of Lords con- 
 
PARLIAMENT IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 141 
 
 tains a class of members who may be strictly 
 called official. And Parliament has the right of 
 summoning the judges to give their opinion upon 
 questions of law. In a Scottish Parliament it 
 would surely be better at once to give seats ex 
 officio to all the ministers and great officers of 
 the Crown, and to all or a large section of the 
 Senators of the College of Justice. To these it 
 would be natural to add some representative of 
 military matters, such as the Commander-in- 
 Chief, and possibly some other persons. Thus, 
 for instance, the Chancellors or Principals of the 
 Universities might represent the interests of the 
 higher education and learning, and the chief 
 magistrates of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen 
 and Dundee, the municipal authority of the 
 great centres of population. But these are de- 
 tails, into which it is quite needless here to 
 enter. One remark only may be added. There 
 are certain officials of the Crown whom it might 
 be held very desirable to admit, such as the Dean 
 of the Chapel Royal, as representing the relation 
 of the State towards the Church, the Lyon King, 
 as the official guardian of the National History, 
 and the High Constable, as head of the Royal 
 Household. Some of these, like the last named, 
 might be hereditary. And it might well be that 
 as the hereditary principle rules in the Crown 
 itself, it should be recognised, in a Scottish Par- 
 liament, in the case of the Dukes, whose rank as 
 Princes separates them from all other subjects. 
 The matter would be of but little importance 
 numerically, as the Duchies are only eight in 
 
142 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 number, and of these one belongs to the Heir 
 Apparent, one to the first subject next to the 
 Blood Royal, and two more are the Duchies of 
 Buccleuch and Argyll, the holders of which no 
 one would be likely to wish to exclude. The 
 other four are the hereditary representatives of 
 the great races of the Gordons (Lennox, Rich- 
 mond and Gordon), the Murrays (Athole), the 
 Grahams (Montrose), and the Kerrs (Roxburghe). 
 One thing may be said with certainty. Should 
 it ever unfortunately be the case that any of 
 these dignities were held by a man whose voice 
 was not worth having, he would be a man who 
 would not put himself to the trouble of giving it. 
 
 Such a National Parliament for Scotland as is 
 here tentatively sketched would therefore consist 
 of a group of official persons, possibly about 30 
 or more in number, and then of a body of some 
 such number as 200, of whom one quarter would 
 be Life Peers, and the rest the representatives of 
 the Counties and Burghs in proportion to popula- 
 tion. This Parliament, as an whole, would send 
 up to the Imperial House of Commons, under the 
 name of Commissioners, a body of representatives, 
 whose number should either be the same as at 
 present or one corresponding to the wealth and 
 population of Scotland as compared with those 
 of the two other Kingdoms. The right of the 
 hereditary Peers to send representatives to the 
 House of Lords would remain undisturbed. 
 
 The crucial difficulty in all Home Rule schemes 
 in themselves is that of finding a solution to the 
 question of what is to be done in case the National 
 
PARLIAMENT IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 143 
 
 Parliament disagrees with the Imperial Parliament. 
 The answer in this case seems to be, The Power of 
 the Crown. If there is to be a Scotch National 
 Parliament in Edinburgh, the Scottish people must 
 be prepared to accept a very much freer exercise of 
 the Royal Perogative of refusing assent to Bills 
 which have passed, than has been the case for 
 many a generation. The Crown would naturally 
 be guided by the opinion of the Imperial Parlia- 
 ment. The National Parliament would therefore 
 in practice be liable to have its will thwarted by 
 that of the Imperial Parliament. This is exactly 
 what is the case at present. The majority in the 
 Imperial Parliament is often not in agreement with 
 the majority of the Scottish members, and neces- 
 sarily overpowers them. Moreover, it is to be 
 observed that the occasions upon which the Royal 
 veto would be exercised would probably be few in 
 comparison with those when the wishes of the 
 Scottish people are now out-voted or put aside, 
 and that the antient and undisputed prerogative 
 of the national Crown would be less vexing than 
 silence imposed by an Assembly of English and 
 Irish subjects. Upon the other hand, with a 
 Scottish Legislature, Scottish legislation would 
 not be impeded and neglected owing to the 
 plethora of business which overwhelms the House 
 of Commons at Westminster ; Scottish Private 
 Bill legislation would be transacted upon the 
 spot ; and it is to be hoped that in litigation 
 the Scottish tribunal would be again the Supreme 
 Court in reality as well as in name. A fresh 
 number of honourable and lucrative careers would 
 
144 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 be opened at home, in which the able and aspiring 
 might rise ; the public money would flow in public 
 works for the benefit of all, and especially of the 
 working classes ; and the duties, the occupations, 
 and the inducements which would keep the rich 
 much more in their own country would encourage 
 mutual sympathies, and do away with much hard- 
 ship and ill-feeling, while it would pour upon 
 Scotland herself the bulk of that wealth which 
 she yields, but which is now annually taken from 
 her to swell the abundance of England. 
 
 There is one factor which has not been taken 
 into consideration in the preceding pages, but 
 which makes for the re-establishment of a Parlia- 
 ment in Scotland. That factor is the sentiment 
 of pure patriotism. The emotion of Scottish 
 patriotism is none the weaker because it is sub- 
 dued and rather shy in expression. It is very 
 strong. It is to be hoped that it is growing 
 stronger. It is that sentiment which, among 
 other things, will make men otherwise of differing 
 political parties to be of one mind in this. It is 
 that sentiment which will make men ready, as 
 the present writer is ready, to yield their own 
 opinion in matters of detail, and loyally to accept 
 such as the Scottish people shall, when the time 
 comes, regard as offering the best security for the 
 prosperity and happiness of our country. 
 
DAVID, DFKE OF ROTHESAY. 
 
 [The following paper is the substance of a lecture delivered on 
 January 22, 1892, before the Associated Societies of the University 
 of Edinburgh, by the author, in his capacity of their honorary 
 President.] 
 
 nPHE mysterious death of David, Duke of Rothe- 
 say, at Falkland, is probably the circumstance 
 with which the name of that place is most closely 
 associated in the greater number of minds. This 
 fact is, no doubt, owing in great measure to the 
 manner in which the event has been treated by 
 Sir Walter Scott in the Fair Maid of Perth. 
 Very little attempt has been made, as far as I am 
 aware, to treat the life of this Prince from the 
 point of view of historical criticism. On the other 
 hand. Sir Walter Scott has used it as a subject for 
 the use of his powerful and pathetic genius. The 
 Fair Maid of Perth presents, especially in the 
 characters of Robert III. and his son, a remarkable 
 instance of the great novelist's power of making 
 his characters live before the reader. Indeed, this 
 is so to such an extent that I am conscious that 
 the image which I form of the Duke is even now 
 very much affected by the creation of Sir Walter's 
 imagination. But on the other hand. Sir Walter 
 has unhappily allowed himself in that famous 
 romance all the licence in altering and re-arranging 
 
 145 
 
146 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 the facts of history, to which he was only too 
 prone ; his history, such as it is, is based upon the 
 statements of Bower and possibly coloured by the 
 fictions of Boece ; and, even if he would have used 
 them, he had not at his disposal a large portion of 
 the scanty historical material which has been dis- 
 covered or printed since his day. 
 
 The sources of knowledge as regards the few 
 years of David, Duke of Rothesay's public career 
 are indeed remarkably scanty, even more so than 
 is usually the case with the historical matter 
 relating to Scotland, as opposed to the abundant, 
 interesting, and varied documents which sup23ly 
 the matter for the history of England. There is 
 only one strictly contemporary Scottish historian, 
 namely Wyntoun, the Prior of St. Serf's Inch, in 
 Lochleven, but his history is very sketchy and 
 slight, and moreover, doubtless in order to popu- 
 larize his work, he wrote not in Latin prose but in 
 Scottish verse, and it is very difficult to express a 
 date in poetry. Bower wrote some forty years 
 later, and may very probably, v/hen he cannot be 
 verified, be retailing idle gossip, which at its very 
 best can only have existed when he was in his 
 'teens. As to actual documents, the very founda- 
 tions of historical truth, I have hardly ever seen 
 any of the Duke's own, including only one letter, 
 although they are referred to abundantly in the 
 monetary accounts of the time ; the Register of 
 the Great Seal is lost about the third year of 
 Robert III. ; and in the Exchequer Rolls the 
 entries are made only under the head of the year, 
 without any nearer specification. Hence we are 
 
DAVID, DUKE OF ROTHESAY. 
 
 147 
 
 driven back upon casual charters, diplomatic cor- 
 respondence, and the like, to be found scattered in 
 all sorts of different directions. I have made a 
 great number of notes of these, and, although I 
 feel sure that there must be more information to 
 be had than I have obtained, I do not think 
 that any very abundant source of knowledge has 
 escaped me. 
 
 The Prince was born, according to Bower, upon 
 October 24, 1378. The place was probably either 
 Scone or Perth, as Parliament was sitting at Scone 
 at the time, and his father witnessed a Royal 
 Charter there upon the very day. I made some 
 attempt to ascertain where he passed his child- 
 hood, by noticing the places where his father, then 
 Earl of Carrick, witnessed charters, but he seems 
 to have constantly accompanied the King, and the 
 movements of Pobert II. are so erratic and his 
 journeys so long and frequent, that it seems 
 practically impossible that he could have been 
 followed by an infant. The Prince David was 
 eleven and a half years of age when his grand- 
 father Robert II. died at Dundonald (April 19, 
 1390) and his father John, Earl of Carrick, 
 ascended the throne under the name of Robert III. 
 Robert III., as is well known, had been crippled 
 by an accident. He suffered from extremely weak 
 health, and although his mild virtues combined 
 with his prepossessing and dignified appearance to 
 make him beloved by those with whom he came in 
 contact, there are no evidences of his having 
 possessed any unusual mental force, whereby to 
 counteract the results of his physical misfortunes. 
 
148 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 It may be gathered from some indications, such as 
 the Queen corresponding on international matters 
 with Richard II. in 1394, and giving a tournament 
 in 1398, that he was sometimes incapable even of 
 transacting business and taking a part in social 
 amusements. On the other hand, the scanty 
 materials for his personal history show that his 
 journeys were sometimes very frequent, and his 
 changes from place to place almost restless. He 
 was particularly fond of the Firth of Clyde, and of 
 sailing about from one place to another on its 
 shores. When he was in the interior his chief 
 residence seems to have been Perth. The state of 
 his kingdom was often deplorable. For nearly the 
 whole of his reign a Hegency was established, first 
 under his brother Robert, Duke of Albany, then 
 under his eldest son, David, and then again under 
 Robert of Albany. He appears to have been con- 
 stantly surrounded by one small group of ministers, 
 of whom his brother, the Duke of Albany in 
 particular, seems rarely to have left his side. 
 
 The witnessing of the Charters of Robert II., as 
 I have remarked, shows that during the early 
 years of David, his father lived constantly with 
 the old King, and as the Prince grew older, 
 probably implies his own presence to an increasing 
 extent. As I have already said, they changed 
 their residence from place to place a good deal, but 
 showed a decided fondness for the shores of the 
 Clyde, the hereditary seat of their race. At the 
 beginning of the year, 1390, Robert II. had been 
 up at Dundee and Aberdeen. Thence he came to 
 Perth, and was afterwards at Linlithgow in the 
 
DAVID, DUKE OF ROTHESAY. 149 
 
 latter half of March. It may be conjectured that 
 he then felt the need of seeking the milder climate 
 of the West. He was at Portincross (Arnele) at 
 the end of March, and died, as I have remarked, 
 at Dmidonald on April 19, when his grandson 
 David was aged nearly eleven and a half His 
 sons, John and Robert, were with him all the time. 
 His body must have been embalmed, as he was 
 not buried till nearly four months after. One 
 object of this delay may have been to obtain fine 
 weather for the proceedings of the funeral and of 
 the subsequent Coronation, and for the journeys of 
 those who had to take part in them. In the 
 meanwhile, upon June 17, the disreputable Prince 
 Alexander, Earl of Buchan, commonly called the 
 Wolf of Badenoch, burnt the town and Cathedral 
 of Elgin, with its library and documents. 
 
 Robert II., about thirteen years previously, had 
 prepared a sumptuous tomb for his own burial. 
 It was kept in St. John's Church at Perth, and 
 was now taken thence and erected in its place at 
 Scone. The Royal Family, doubtless accompany- 
 ing the body, arrived at Perth before July 18. 
 I conjecture that it must have been now that the 
 Wolf of Badenoch, upon public penance and 
 promise of reparation, etc., was conditionally re- 
 laxed from excommunication, at the Black Friars 
 Church of Perth, in presence of the whole Court, 
 etc., to enable him to attend his own father's 
 funeral. The burial and the Coronation took place 
 at Scone with the greatest possible pomp, and at 
 an immense expense. On Saturday, August 13, 
 the interment was performed, the Bishop of Glas- 
 
150 
 
 ESSAYS OX HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 gow ojSiciating and the Bishop of St. Andrews 
 preachmg. The following day, Sunday, the King- 
 was crowned and anointed by the Bishop of St. 
 Andrews, this being only the third occasion on 
 which this ceremony had taken place in Scotland. 
 The Bishop of Glasgow preached. On Monday, 
 which was the Festival of the Assumption, the 
 Queen Annabella Drummond was crowned, the 
 Bishop of Dunkeld officiating and preaching. The 
 homage of the Barons, a ceremony usually associ- 
 ated with the Coronation, but which had been 
 omitted, perhaps not to over-fatigue the King 
 (which may also have been the reason for deferring 
 the Queen "s Coronation) was performed upon the 
 Tuesday, with a sermon by the Bishop of Galloway. 
 Within the next month the Court moved to 
 Edinburo'h. 
 
 Prince David must at this time have been with 
 his father and mother, and the solemnities of the 
 Eoyal funeral, the coronations of his parents, and 
 the homao'e of the lieo'es to his father, must have 
 been amono- the earliest thino-s which strono^lv 
 impressed him, unless indeed we should assign 
 such a position rather to the marriage of his 
 eldest sister, Margaret, with Archibald. Master of 
 Douglas, vrhich is conjectured to have already 
 taken place before his father's accession. His 
 changes of abode can be mainly followed by those 
 of his father, since in his earlier years he must 
 necessarily have been with his parents, and as 
 soon as he becomes a little older we find him so 
 constantly attesting the few charters of his father 
 which are accessible as to lead to the inevitable 
 
DAVID, DUKE OF ROTHESAY. 
 
 151 
 
 conclusion that his habitual residence was at 
 Court. 
 
 The title of Earl of Carrick, hereditary in his 
 family, was immediately bestowed upon him, and 
 not long after, perhaps in the Parliament held at 
 Perth, in March, 1392, an income of £640, the 
 payment of which was apportioned between the 
 customs of nine different burghs, was settled upon 
 him. This sum, even making a very full allowance 
 for the greater value of money at that period, can 
 hardly be reckoned to amount to the £15,000 
 which it is now the custom to allow even to the 
 younger sons of the sovereign while still unmarried. 
 It might have sufficed very well for the expenses 
 of a little child, but when we regard the enormous 
 burdens and labour which were imposed upon 
 Prince David only a few years later, it seems, even 
 when eked out by occasional special grants, to be 
 altogether inadequate. And the consequences of 
 this scanty provision appeared later. 
 
 With regard to the persons by whom he was 
 surrounded, they were of course for the main part 
 simply those who composed his father's court. The 
 chamberlain of his household first appears in 1393 
 in connection with the Prince's first year's income. 
 He was William Drummond. In the next year 
 there is a new one, John Logy, who continued 
 more than a year, and was then succeeded by 
 John Stuart of Craigie. For the financial year 
 ending in April, 1396, the receipts are partly by 
 this John Stuart, partly by Patrick Hepburn, and 
 partly by John Niddry. The prince was then 
 seventeen. John Niddry, an able man of business 
 
152 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 who had been in the employment of the Crown 
 since before the Prince was born, appears to have 
 been a faithful and attached servant to him, and 
 remained in his service, with one short interval, 
 until the end of his life. As to his actual education 
 nothing appears, but I conjecture that it was pro- 
 bably conducted with the advice of Walter Trail, 
 Bishop of St. Andrews, a man who was constantly 
 at Court, and who seems thoroughly to have 
 merited the confidence placed in him by the King, 
 unless indeed you desire to blame him for the part 
 he took in the Great Schism in the Papacy by 
 adhering, and doubtless urging the Scottish 
 Government to adhere, to the person variously 
 called Robert of Geneva and Clement VIL, an 
 old personal friend of his own, by whom he had 
 been nominated to his See, and to his successor, an 
 adherence which can hardly have been weakened 
 when Boniface IX., in 1397, did his best to confer 
 St. Andrews upon the exiled Archbishop of Can- 
 terbury, Thomas Fitzalan. However, and by 
 whomever, the Prince's education was carried on, 
 it was certainly careful and it was successful, for 
 Wyntoun mentions the fact of his wide knowledge 
 of literature, a fact which, especially under the 
 circumstances of his constant changes and occu- 
 pations, proves not only the ability of his teachers, 
 but his own industry, capacity, and taste. 
 
 In order to follow the scenes of his boyhood, it 
 may be worth while roughly to sketch the move- 
 ments of the Court, as far as the very scanty 
 materials I have been able to find enable me to 
 do so. Soon after the Coronation, as I have re- 
 
DAVID, DUKE OF ROTHESAY. 
 
 153 
 
 marked, the King went to Edinburgh, and stayed 
 there, although not continuously, till about the 
 beginning of February, 1391, when he returned to 
 Perth. In March he held a Parliament at Scone, 
 and then, after a few days at Dunfermline, went 
 back to Edinburgh, but from this he went almost 
 immediately to the Clyde. His habit seems to 
 have been to go about by sea from one place to 
 another, yachting, in fact. He stayed in the 
 West, although not quite continuously, till near 
 the end of the year, when he went to Edinburgh 
 once more. After another short journey to the 
 West in February, 1392, he went to Perth, where 
 he held a Parliament in March, and stayed in the 
 East till towards the beginning of July, when he 
 again returned to the Clyde. He made a journey 
 including Linlithgow and Dunfermline in October 
 and November, but seems to have gone back to 
 Rothesay for Christmas. This year is remarkable 
 in the history of the Prince — only fourteen in 
 October — for the very early age at which he was 
 introduced to public business. At some time 
 during it he was sent to be present at a great 
 justice aire held at Lanark. In the middle of 
 January, 1393, the King had to go back to Perth, 
 and stayed there at least a month. He was in 
 Edinburgh and Linlithgow in March, and I then 
 lose all trace of him till October, when he was at 
 Glasgow. I conjecture that he passed the summer 
 on the Clyde. From Glasgow he went to Perth, 
 where he held a Parliament at the end of October, 
 and then went again to Edinburgh. He passed 
 Christmas there or at Linlithgow, but held another 
 
 11 
 
154 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 Parliament at Scone, in March, 1394, and after 
 some stay at Perth, returned to the Clyde. 
 
 The young Prince was now fifteen, and discus- 
 sions on his marriage already began. We have 
 the following letter from the Queen to Richard 
 11. , dated at Dunfermline, August 1. ^ 
 
 ' To a most high and mighty Prince P., by the 
 grace of God King of England, our dearest cousin, 
 A., by the same grace Queen of Scotland, greeting 
 and affection. For your friendly letters to us pre- 
 sented by our well-beloved Douglas, the Herald of 
 Arms, we thank you entirely and from the heart, 
 by the which we have understood your good estate 
 and health, to our great pleasure and comfort. 
 And, dearest cousin, as to the treaty touching the 
 marriage to be made between some kindred of 
 your blood and one of the children of the King 
 my Lord and me, please you to know that it is 
 agreeable to the King my said Lord and to us as 
 he has signified by his letters. And in particular 
 that, inasmuch as the said treaty could not hold 
 the third day of July last past, for certain and 
 reasonable causes contained in your letters sent to 
 the King my Lord above said, you have agreed 
 that another day of the same treaty shall be kept 
 the first day of October next coming, the which is 
 agreeable to the King my Lord aforesaid and to 
 us, and we thank you with all our will and heart 
 and we pray you dearly that you would continue 
 the said treaty and make to be kept the said day, 
 because it is the will of the King my Lord above 
 
 ^ The original is in French. 
 
DAVID, DUKE OF ROTHESAY. 
 
 155 
 
 said and of us, as much as in us lies, that the said 
 day be held without fail. And, dearest cousin, we 
 request and pray dearly that it give no displeasure 
 to your Highness that we have not sooner written 
 to you, seeing that we were lying in childbirth of 
 a male child who is named James, and we have 
 been well and graciously delivered by the grace of 
 God and of our Lady ; and also because that the 
 King my said Lord was, at the coming of your 
 letters, at a great distance in the Isles of his king- 
 dom, we did not receive these letters sent to us 
 on this matter till the last day of July last past. 
 Most high and mighty Prince may the Holy Spirit 
 always keep you. Given under our seal, at the 
 Abbey of Dunfermelyn, the first day of August.' 
 
 By the ' Isles of his kingdom,' I doubt not that 
 the County of Bute is meant. On getting this 
 letter Bichard 11. empowered certain Commis- 
 sioners, of whom the chief were the Bishop of 
 Durham and the Earl of Northumberland, to meet 
 at Kelso with the Scottish Commissioners, of whom 
 the principal were the young Prince himself, the 
 Bishops of St. Andrews and Glasgow, and the 
 Earls of Douglas and March. It was hoped that 
 this marriage might be the means of effecting a 
 lasting peace between England and Scotland, in- 
 stead of the constant bickerings and short truces, 
 the documents concerning which form the staple of 
 the international historical matter at this period. 
 But no more is heard of it. It must have fallen 
 through. 
 
 The Court seems to have passed the winter at 
 Perth, but from this time till several years after- 
 
156 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 wards the documents which I have seen are so 
 excessively scanty that it is impossible to form 
 from them even a general idea of the movements 
 of the King or of the Heir-apparent. In the 
 accounts for the year ending in April, 1396, given 
 in at Perth, it is mentioned that the Prince had 
 been to the .North upon the King's business, and 
 in a charter granted by Robert III. at Perth upon 
 the last day of the month, in favour of John Logy, 
 who had been recently the chamberlain of the 
 Prince's household, we find, so far as I have ob- 
 served, for the first time, the name of ' our first- 
 begotten, David of Carrick,' as that of one of the 
 attesting witnesses. In the next accounts, for the 
 year ending May, 1397, we get for the first time 
 a peculiar entry of a sort very indicative of the 
 position in which the Prince was placed by the 
 unwise parsimony of the Government on the one 
 hand and the duties which he was expected to 
 fulfil upon the other. The tax-collectors of Edin- 
 burgh admit a responsibility for £79 17s. 9d. (say, 
 about £1500 of our money) given to the Prince in 
 the year before that of the account, viz., that in 
 which he had first been sent to the North on the 
 King's business. The Commissioners refused to 
 pass the item except by the King's own command. 
 
 In this year, 1396-1397, the Prince had again 
 been sent to the North upon the King's business, 
 and it is natural to suppose that he had had some 
 hand in arranging the famous Battle of the Clans, 
 which took place in the King's presence upon the 
 Inch of Perth (not, as stated by Sir Walter Scott, 
 upon Palm Sunday, but) upon September 28, 1396. 
 
DAYID, DUKE OF ROTHESAY. 
 
 157 
 
 Upon the morality of this proceeding I do not 
 wish to say anything. It was the very age of 
 judicial combats. I will only remark that if war 
 is inevitable — and here the alternative was a war 
 of indefinite duration waged with all the horrors 
 of savagery — it is better that it should take place 
 under absolutely fair conditions, with every facility 
 for medical and religious help for the wounded, 
 without danger to women and children, and be 
 limited to as small a number as possible, and these 
 the most turbulent and dangerous enemies of the 
 public peace. It is, however, difficult to escape the 
 conclusion that Prince David was present along 
 with his father at the disgusting spectacle. It is 
 one thing to give a sorrowful and reluctant assent 
 to the necessity of capital punishment, and another 
 to go deliberately to see an execution. This battle 
 seems to have been made a sort of gladiatorial 
 show, as the cost of the arena prepared for it was 
 £14 2s. lid., which I take it would be represented 
 by some £300 of our money. At some time in the 
 ensuing year, i.e., before April, 1398, the Prince 
 was again sent to the North, but this time very 
 probably to try to put a stop to the sort of war 
 which his uncle, the Wolf of Badenoch, was carry- 
 ing on against the See of Moray, to which a new 
 Bishop was appointed in September, 1397, and was 
 invested in the temporalities in January, 1398. 
 
 In the May of 1397, Robert III., as though 
 acting on a kind of general principle of marrying 
 as many Douglases as possible, entered into a 
 contract, dated in Edinburgh, with the famous 
 Isabel, Countess of Marr and Angus, to marry 
 
158 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 some one of his daughters to her son George, Earl 
 of Angus. 
 
 In October, 1397, the Prince completed his 
 nineteenth year, and at the beginning of the 
 month, his father, who was then at Dunfermline, 
 appears bringing him forward in the conduct of 
 the most important public affairs. It was there 
 arranged that on Monday, March 11 next ensuing, 
 he should, accompanied by other Commissioners, 
 meet John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, accom- 
 panied by English Commissioners, with a view to 
 the renewal of the truce. The Court then seems 
 to have gone to Linlithgow for the winter. There, 
 upon November 9, were executed by the King, in 
 presence of his son and brother, a batch of deeds 
 relating to the arrangements made as to the pro- 
 perty of George, Earl of Angus, and the Princess 
 Mary is in them called his spouse. Hence I 
 conjecture that her marriage with him may not 
 improbably have just taken place there and then, 
 if not while the King was still at Dunfermline. 
 The political international meeting took place in 
 the early spring according to arrangement, the 
 Prince being accompanied among others by his 
 uncle, afterwards Duke of Albany and then Earl 
 of Fife. The indenture for the continuance of the 
 truce was executed upon Saturday, March 16, at a 
 place called Hawdenestanke, or Haddensdank, 
 which seems to have been rather a favourite one 
 for such meetings. Mr. De Gray Birch, of the 
 British Museum, has favoured me with a note upon 
 it. It seems to have been adjacent to Hadden-rig, 
 in the parish of Sprouston, in the extreme North- 
 
DAVID, DUKE OF ROTHESAY. 
 
 159 
 
 East of Roxburghshire, and close to the Border. 
 There seems to be no remams of any building 
 which could have accommodated the Commissioners, 
 and perhaps they were encamped in tents. The 
 transaction of business appears to have been com- 
 pleted early in the day, as upon the following day, 
 Sunday, March 17, the Prince wrote from Melrose 
 to John of Gaunt ^ the only private letter of his 
 which it has been my fortune to meet with. The 
 text is in the same handwriting as the signature, 
 but at first I felt much doubt whether it were the 
 Prince's own, as the small and crabbed though 
 neat text seemed to me almost too formed a hand 
 for so young a lad. However, I consulted Sir 
 William Fraser, and he showed me very fully- 
 formed handwritings by lads early trained to busi- 
 ness, and he was moreover of opinion that no clerk 
 would have been permitted to attach the Prince's 
 signature. The letter is in French, and I venture 
 to remark that it contains two mistakes, which 
 seems to argue colloquial facility rather than 
 scientific study. 
 
 ' High and Mighty Prince, my most dear and 
 loved cousin, as to the matter of which you and 
 the Bishop of St. Andrews have spoken, I have 
 heard and seen that which you have advised in 
 that matter, and will report it to the King, my 
 Lord, and, according to what shall seem good to 
 
 1 The printed Historical MSS. of Scotland unfortunately publish 
 this letter as written to Richard II., but the address upon the back 
 to ' hault et puissant prince mon tres cher et aim© cousin le Due de 
 Guyenne et de Lan — " is perfectly distinct. 
 
160 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 him, will proceed in the advancement of the busi- 
 ness by the help of God, in the manner you have 
 proposed or otherwise, at the time contained in 
 your writing, or sooner if it can well ])e. High 
 and Mighty Prince, if there be anything for your 
 pleasure that I can do, courteously be pleased to 
 tell me, and may the Almighty God have you in 
 His most holy keeping. Written at Melross the 
 seventeenth day of March. 
 
 ' David, eldest son of the King of Scotland, 
 
 ' Earl of Carryk.' 
 
 What the subject matter was which John of 
 Gaunt had discussed with the Bishop of St. 
 Andrews, does not appear. It is not, I think, 
 improbable that it may have been some renewal of 
 the scheme for the marriage of the Prince with a 
 member of the Royal Family of England, or it 
 may have been connected with the political in- 
 trigues which ultimately culminated in the fall of 
 Richard 11. 
 
 From Melrose the Prince must have immediately 
 proceeded to rejoin his father, and they were at 
 Perth after the middle of April. A fragmentary 
 record of the Parliament which opened there upon 
 the 22nd, speaks of the Earl of Moray being 
 associated with the Duke of Albany in command- 
 ing the army, if the Duke of Rothesay will not do 
 it. This is the first occasion upon which I have 
 noticed that the two Princes are called by this 
 title, which was an entire novelty in Scotland, but 
 which the King had determined to introduce. 
 David Lindsay had been created Earl of Crawford 
 
DAVID, DUKE OF ROTHESAY. 
 
 161 
 
 the day before, and perhaps their creation was on 
 the same day. The Earl of Douglas is said to 
 have refused the title of Duke, preferring to retain 
 his great historic designation. The business of 
 the Exchequer Court went on until Friday, 26th, 
 on the Saturday the Court seems to have moved 
 to Scone, and on the Sunday the two Koyal Dukes 
 went through a solemn ceremony somewhat of the 
 nature of a Coronation. This seems strange to us 
 among whom a Duchy has become a mere title, 
 but it would be natural enough in the case of a 
 reigning Duke, and it was evidently from this 
 that the idea was taken. The description in the 
 Register of Moray is as follows : — ' Upon the 
 Lord's Day, April 28th, 1398, our foresaid Lord, 
 Robert, King of Scotland, in the Church of the 
 monastery of St. Michael of Scone, created and 
 raised the Lord David his first-born son, then Earl 
 of Carrick, to be Duke of Rothesay, and the Lord 
 Robert, brother of the Lord King, then Earl of 
 Fife, to be Duke of Albany ; and he solemnly 
 adorned and invested them with furred mantles 
 and caps and other insignia fit for and used to be 
 given to Dukes only, during a solemn mass sung 
 by the Lord Walter Trail, then Bishop of St. 
 Andrews.' Bower adds that the Bishop also 
 preached. At the end of Lord Beauchamp's edi- 
 tion of the Liber Regalis there is a Ritual for the 
 inauguration of a Duke, and there are two in 
 Martene De Antiquis EcclesicB Ritihus, but these 
 we can only conjecturally harmonize with what we 
 know of the ceremony at Scone, nor is there time 
 here to do so. The other insignia were probably a 
 
162 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 ring, a sword, and a coronet. This might indeed 
 be concluded from the Rituals, but it is confirmed 
 by the Great Seals of Kobert of Albany and his 
 son Murdoch, as Governors of Scotland. They are 
 there represented as clad in mantles and caps, the 
 cap surrounded by a coronet, and hold a sword in 
 their right hand, while the scale is too small or 
 the engraving too bad to show whether they have 
 a ring or not. The choice of Rothesay as the 
 place whence Prince David took his title is merely 
 an evidence of the affection which this family seem 
 always to have felt for the Firth of Clyde, and 
 probably upon his own part for Rothesay in 
 particular. 
 
 The business sittings at Perth occupied most of 
 the week. And there is then, as far as my reading 
 has extended, an almost perfect blank as to the 
 history of the Prince, and indeed of the King, for 
 several months. According to Bower, the Queen 
 in this year gave a great tournament in Edinburgh, 
 at which twelve knights contended, and the Duke 
 of Rothesay took the leading part. It was held 
 in what we should now call the Prince's Street 
 Gardens, on the spot afterwards occupied by the 
 North Loch. I have met with nothing to point 
 conclusively to the date of this entertainment ; 
 the natural period would be summer or early 
 autumn, and I think it is probably the tournament 
 which the Registrum Glasguense mentions as 
 having been held for two days at a Michaelmas in 
 some year about this time. The fact that it was 
 given by the Queen seems to indicate that the 
 King's health was even worse than usual : very 
 
DAVID, DUKE OF ROTHESAY. 
 
 163 
 
 likely he was again away cruising in the Firth of 
 Clyde, or may have been laid up at Perth. The 
 year's accounts sent in in May, 1399, enable us to 
 know that the Duke of Rothesay made a journey 
 to the borders with regard to the renewal of the 
 truce, and this may perhaps have been at the end 
 of October or beginning of November, when there 
 certainly were such meetings. 
 
 On November 14 we have a curious and inter- 
 esting fact regarding Falkland. The Duke of 
 Albany, to whom it belonged as Earl of Fife, on 
 that day granted a charter there which was wit- 
 nessed by the Duke of Kothesay, the Bishops of 
 St. Andrews and Aberdeen (the latter of whom 
 was Chancellor of Scotland), the Earl of Douglas, 
 and others. As these are the habitual companions 
 of the King, it seems not improbable that he may 
 have been there himself; the next mention of him 
 is at Perth in the ensuing January. The mention 
 of Falkland is interesting, not only on account of 
 its tragic later connection with the subject, but 
 because the entertainment of such a party implies 
 buildings of extent and splendour. 
 
 The accounts above named moreover show that 
 the Duke and his Chamberlain, John Niddry, had 
 money difficulties. 
 
 In October the Duke had completed his twen- 
 tieth year. The one contemporary writer, Wyn- 
 toun, speaks in the highest language of his talents, 
 culture, and virtuous life, his honesty and good 
 manners, and he possessed moreover that qualifi- 
 cation of personal beauty which contributes so 
 largely to enhance the popularity of Princes. In 
 
164 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 a Parliament held at Perth upon January 27, 
 1399, in consequence of the continued ill-health of 
 the King, he was created Pegent, or, as it is 
 called, King's Lieutenant, for the term of three 
 years. He was to be assisted by a Council, 
 consisting of his uncles, Pobert, Duke of Albany, 
 and Walter, Lord of Brechin, the Bishops of St. 
 Andrews, Glasgow, and Aberdeen, the Earls of 
 Douglas, Boss, Moray, and Crawfurd, the Lord of 
 Dalkeith, Thomas Hay the Constable and William 
 Keith the Marischal, Sir Thomas Erskine, Sir 
 Patrick Graham, Sir John Livingston, Sir William 
 Stewart, Sir John Bamorny, Adam Forster, Abbat 
 of Holyrood, the Archdeacon of Lothian, and Mr. 
 Walter Forster. It was enacted that the Corona- 
 tion Oath should be administered to him, and this 
 is particularly interesting, because it is, as far as I 
 know, the only indication of what the Scottish 
 Mediaeval Coronation Oath was. Unfortunately 
 the record is only a translation. The words are : — 
 ' Ande in efter the said due be sworne til fulfyl 
 efter his powere all the thyngis that the Kyng in 
 his crownyng was suorne for til do to haly Kyrke 
 and the pupyl, syn in to the thyngis he is to ber 
 the Kyngis power. That is to say, the fredume 
 and the rycht of the Kirke to kepe wndamyste, 
 the lawys and the lowablez custumes to gerre be 
 kepit to the pupil manslaerys, Beiferis, brynneris 
 and generaly all mysdoeris thruch strynthe til 
 restreygnhe and punyse, and specialy cursit men, 
 heretikis, and put fra the Kyrke at the requeste of 
 the Kyrke to restreygne.' This is not the place to 
 enter into a disquisition upon the history of the 
 
DAVID, DUKE OF ROTHESAY. 165 
 
 Scottish Coronation Oath. I will merely say that 
 I think that by means of this entry we may recog- 
 nise the additional clause recommended by John 
 XXI., when granting the unction to the King of 
 Scots in 1329, and that by a comparison of the 
 Coronation Oaths of the Kings of France and 
 England we can at least come very near to a re- 
 construction of the actual text, and trace the 
 origin of the formula, through the Pontifical of 
 Egbert of York, to the period of the early Scottish 
 monarchy of Dalriada. 
 
 The King was deprived by tliis Parliament of 
 the power of interfering with the authority of the 
 Lieutenant. 
 
 As I have at least mentioned the name of Sir 
 John Pamorny, I may as well say at once that as 
 far as I have seen any contemporary records con- 
 cerning him — and they are numerous — he always 
 appears as a man of the highest position of honour, 
 and of probity. The picture of him drawn by Sir 
 Walter Scott is partly based upon a story in 
 Bower which that writer himself admits to be 
 gossip (' ut dicitur ') and partly upon imagination. 
 He seems to have had nothing more to do with the 
 household or person of the Duke of Rothesay than 
 had any other minister of the Crown, except in 
 part of one year. He died very soon after the 
 Duke. The one year concerned is the financial 
 one between May, 1399, and May, 1400. I have 
 already mentioned the difficulties of John Niddry 
 with regard to his accounts which appeared at the 
 former of these two dates. He appears to have 
 been suspended or to have resigned for a time his 
 
166 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 office of Chamberlain to the Prince's household, for 
 although he so appears in May, 1400, and subse- 
 quently to the end of the Prince's life. Sir John 
 Pamorny appears as Chamberlain for a part of the 
 year 1399-1400. 
 
 The Court must have moved from Perth to Edin- 
 burgh in the early part of the year, and the 
 Exchequer Court was held in Edinburgh at the 
 end of April and beginning of May. On May 4 
 the King granted a Commission to the Duke of 
 Rothesay and others to treat with England, and on 
 the 14th they were at Haddansdank and executed 
 an indenture prolonging the truce till September 28, 
 1400. The terms between the Royal families seem 
 to have been friendly : on May 27, Richard II. 
 grants a passport, at the Duke of Rothesay's re- 
 quest, to two persons who appear as though his 
 messengers. Later on the Court again went to 
 the Clyde. The King visited Dunbarton and 
 Renfrew; on August 17 he was in Arran along 
 with the two Royal Dukes, but by the beginning 
 of October he was at Linlithgow. It was just at 
 this time, the end of September, that Richard II. 
 fell, and Henry IV. assumed his place. The event 
 seems to have made no difference in Scotland. 
 The King received letters from the new monarch 
 (as Duke of Lancaster) on October 3, and answered 
 him on the 6th, as to the truce. We find him at 
 Linlithgow along with the Dukes until the end of 
 November, but he would seem to have gone to 
 Perth for Christmas, as he was there on January 4. 
 
 It was in this year, 1399, that the Duke of 
 Rothesay became engaged to be married to the 
 
DAVID, DUKE OF ROTHESAY. 
 
 167 
 
 Lady Elizabeth Dunbar, daughter of the Earl of 
 March. And here I am obliged to warn you 
 against an error into which you may possibly be 
 led by reading Lingard. That eminent historian 
 says that Henry TV. was incensed at the treatment 
 in Scotland of the person whom it is the fashion to 
 call Thomas Ward of Trumpington, but who was 
 there recognised as Richard 11. , and that he was 
 able to take his revenge with the help of the Earl 
 of March, enraged at the jilting of his daughter. 
 I own to a suspicion that Dr. Lingard has confused 
 the dates : at any rate he has been unfortunate 
 in his manner of expressing himself. The quarrel 
 with the Dunbar family took place in February, 
 1400, and I can find no mention of the so-called 
 Thomas Ward until about two years and a half 
 later, nearly two years after Henry's invasion, 
 and several months after the death of the Duke 
 of Rothesay. The Court, as I have mentioned, 
 was at Perth at the beginning of January. In 
 February it had moved to Edinburgh, and a Par- 
 liament was held there in the second week of the 
 month. It would seem that this Parliament com- 
 plained that the Heir Apparent should have been 
 engaged to be married without the approval of the 
 Three Estates, and cancelled the engagement. On 
 February 1 8 the Earl of March writes to Henry IV. 
 a furious and treasonable letter on the subject, 
 which it is worth while here to give at length in 
 its original text and spelling, which are addition- 
 ally interesting as showing the precise dialect 
 then spoken at the Scottish Court and in the class 
 of society to which the writer belonged. 
 
168 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 ' Excellent mychty and noble Pry nee, likis yhour 
 Realte to wit that I am gretly wrangit be the Due 
 of Rothesay the quhilk spousit my douchter and 
 now agayn his oblisying to me made be hys lettre 
 and his seal and agaynes the law of hahkirc spouses 
 ane other wif as it ys said. Of the quhilk wrangis 
 and defowle to me and my douchter in swilk 
 manere done, I, as ane of yhour poer kyn, gif it 
 likis yhow requere yhow of help and suppowell for 
 swilk honest service as I may do efter my po^\'er to 
 yhour noble lordship and to yhour lande. Fore 
 tretee of the quhilk matere will yhe dedeyn to 
 charge the lord the Fournivalle, ore the Erie of 
 Westmerland at yhour likyng to the Marche, with 
 swilk gudely haste as yhow likis, qware that I 
 may haue spekyng with quhilk of thaim that yhe 
 will send, and schew hym clerly myne entent, the 
 quhilk I darre nocht discouer to nane other hot tyll 
 ane of thaim be cause of kyn, and the grete lewtee 
 that I traist in thaim, and as I suppose yhe traist 
 in thaim on the tother part. Alsa noble Prynce 
 will yhe dedeyn to graunt and to send me, yhour 
 saufconduyt endurand quhill the fest of the 
 natiuite of Seint John the Baptist fore a hundreth 
 knichtis and squiers and seruantz gudes hors and 
 hernais als wele within wallit Town as with owt, 
 ore in qwat other reasonable manere that yhow 
 likis fore trauaillyng and dwellyng within yhour 
 land gif I hafe myster. And excellent Prynce syn 
 that I clayme to be of kyn tyll yhow, and it pera- 
 ventour nocht knawen on yhour parte, I schew it 
 to yhour lordschip be this my lettre that gif dame 
 Alice the Bewmount was yhour graunde dame, dame 
 
DAVID, DUKE OF ROTHESAY. 169 
 
 Mariory Corny ne hyrre full sister was my graunde 
 dame on the tother syde, sa that I am hot of the 
 feirde degre of kyn tyll yhow, the quhilk m aide 
 tyme was caUit neire, and syn I am in swilk degre 
 tyll yhow I requere yhow as be way of tendirness 
 thare of, and for my seruice in manere as I hafe 
 before writyn, that yhe will vouchesauf tyll help 
 me and suppowell me tyll gete amendes of the 
 wrangis and the defowle that ys done me, sendand 
 tyll me gif yhow likis yhom^ answere of this. With 
 all gudely hafete, And noble Prynce mervaile yhe 
 nocht that I write my lettres in englis, fore that 
 ys mare clere to myne vnderstandyng than latyne 
 ore Fraunche. Excellent mychty and noble Prynce, 
 the haly Trinite hafe yhow euermare in kepyng. 
 Writyn at my castel of Dunbarr the xviij day of 
 Feuerer. 
 
 ' Le Count de La Marche Descoce. 
 ' Au tresexcellent trespuissant et tresnoble 
 Prince le Roy Dengleterre.' 
 
 Henry IV. instantly sent the Earl a passport to 
 come to England, and entered into negotiations 
 with him. 
 
 Meanwhile the Scottish Court returned to Lin- 
 lithgow. The person selected as the bride of the 
 Prince was the lady Mary Douglas, daughter of 
 Archibald, third Earl of Douglas, and sister of 
 Archibald, afterwards fourth Earl, who was already 
 the Duke's brother-in-law, by his marriage with 
 the Princess Margaret. The marriage was publicly 
 celebrated in the existing Church of Bothwell, 
 which was then new and owed its existence to the 
 
 12 
 
170 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 bride's father. There were great festivities on the 
 occasion, and I conjecture that the date may have 
 been the last week of April, the only one which 
 intervened between the Lenten and Easter period 
 and the month of May. I have never come across 
 any mention of the Duchess of Rothesay during 
 the life of her husband. 
 
 This may perhaps be the best place to remark 
 that Bower accuses the Prince of having jilted 
 another person besides the Lady Elizabeth Dun- 
 bar, namely, Euphemia Lindsay, sister of William 
 Lindsay of Rossie, and daughter of Alexander 
 Lindsay of Glennesk. If so, the lady must have 
 been much younger than her brother. The state- 
 ment is entirely without contemporary historical 
 support. If it is true, I can only observe of it, as 
 of the matter of Lady Elizabeth Dunbar, that the 
 marriages of Princes are made so much an affair 
 of public policy (as was indeed the case with the 
 Duke of Rothesay) that their feelings are often 
 disregarded, and they are not so justly open as are 
 other men to the charge of inconstancy. At the 
 worst the meaning would be that the young Prince 
 was rather a flirt before his marriage. Of profli- 
 gacy, either before or after marriage, there is not 
 a scrap of evidence. The accusation of Bower him- 
 self is one not of debauchery but of frivolity, until 
 either he or, as I think, some later editor of his, 
 possessed by the spirit of prurience, suddenly breaks 
 into the hypothetical quotation of a beastly Latin 
 triplet. As to the frivolity, I venture to observe 
 that up to the age of 23 and even later, a certain 
 amount of vivacity is not only natural but desir- 
 
DAVID, DUKE OF ROTHESAY. 171 
 
 able, and that all the contemporary evidence there 
 is tends to show that the tastes of the Prince were 
 for business and in the direction of literary culture 
 rather than of mere pastimes, and certainly not a 
 line can be produced to show that he ever sacri- 
 ficed the former to the latter. As for profligacy, 
 there is not a contemporary word to support the 
 charge, and had it been true, I can hardly under- 
 stand a strait-laced ecclesiastic like Wyntoun, the 
 only contemporary writer, going out of his way 
 deliberately to lie by praising the Prince's virtuous 
 life. 
 
 The Court was in Edinburgh in May when the 
 usual meeting of the Exchequer was held, and 
 afterwards returned to Linlithgow. The Royal 
 Dukes were there as usual with the King in June. 
 Meanwhile the usual interminable correspondence 
 and squabbles with England were going on. 
 Henry IV. was probably not unwilling to have 
 some excuse for upsetting the truce, and the dis- 
 turbances upon the Borders supplied many such. 
 He determined to invade Scotland, and summoned 
 an army at York, where he himself arrived about 
 midsummer : a month later he was at Newcastle. 
 He finally entered Scotland on August 14. King 
 Robert seems to have been sent to the Clyde, to 
 keep him out of harm's way. The Duke of Rothe- 
 say threw himself into Edinburgh Castle, along 
 with his brother-in-law, who was its governor. 
 The invasion was a very harmless matter. Henry 
 IV. reached Haddington on August 15, and stayed 
 there three days, and was at Leith, where he also 
 stayed three days, on the 22nd. The war was 
 
172 
 
 ESSAYS OX HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 conducted with great mildness, and when the 
 Canons of Holvrood sent to beo: that thev mio^ht 
 not be disturbed, Henry not only granted the re- 
 quest, but declared (in striking anticipation of some 
 more modern statesmen) that he himself was in- 
 deed half a Scotchman by blood. At Leith he 
 wrote a rather stupid letter in answer to one of 
 the Duke of Rothesay's, in which it seems that 
 the Prince, probably remembering the Battle of 
 the Clans, had proposed to light him along with 
 100. 200. or 300 chosen troops. The offer can 
 hardly have been meant seriously, and was of 
 course refused. Henry immediately left Scotland : 
 he was at Newcastle on September 3. 
 
 On his departure, the Duke of Rothesay imme- 
 diately joined his father on the Clyde. The King 
 had been at Rothesay on September 5. He was 
 with his son and brother at Irvine on the 12th. and 
 at Renfrew, with the whole of his usual little Court, 
 on October 5. There is nothing to show that they 
 did not remain in the same part of the country 
 over the Xew Year, for it was at Rothesay on 
 January 12 that the King, in presence of this 
 familiar group, and very probably at the solicita- 
 tion of the Prhice. erected that town into a Royal 
 Burgh. On Christmas Eve the Duke's father-in- 
 law, the Earl of Douglas, died at Threave. 
 
 After leaving Rothesay the King came to Perth, 
 and a Parliament was held at Scone at the end of 
 February at which both the Royal Dukes were 
 present. At the end of March the King was at 
 Aberdeen, where he may be supposed to have 
 stayed over Easter (April 3). and on April 29 he 
 
DAVID, DUKE OF ROTHESAY. 
 
 173 
 
 was at Dunfermline with his hrother, but not his 
 eldest son. The Exchequer Court was held at 
 Perth at the end of May. In June an important 
 event, the death of Walter Trail, Bishop of St. 
 Andrews, took place. I have met with no record 
 of the date, but as Wyntoun mentions that the 
 Chapter elected his successor upon July 1, and as 
 an account mentioning payments to him by the 
 customars of St. Andrews, in which there is no 
 mention of his having died, was given in upon 
 June 7, it would appear that his death must have 
 taken place in the middle fortnight of the month. 
 The position of the Church of St. Andrews con- 
 siderably affected the future of Duke David. The 
 death of the Bishop was followed by another 
 which affected him still more deeply, namely, that 
 of his mother, the Queen Annabella Drummond. 
 I have seen no record of the date, but Wyntoun 
 says that it was in harvest, which points to August 
 or September. Bower says that she died at Scone, 
 and the accounts make mention of her expenses 
 at Perth before her death. She was not, however, 
 buried at Scone, but at Dunfermline, very likely 
 from a wish of her own to lie near her sainted pre- 
 decessor Margaret. It is only natural to suppose 
 that her husband and son were with her during 
 her last illness and at her death and burial. The 
 conclusion is that the Court was at Perth almost 
 continuously in this year 1401, from February to 
 September. Of the King there is no further trace 
 until the beginning of March, 1402, when he 
 appears at Portincross, and my conjecture is that 
 after his bereavement he returned to his beloved 
 
174 
 
 ESSAYS ON" HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 Firth of Clyde, and there remained till after the 
 death of his son. He is mentioned as having been 
 
 in Bute. 
 
 The career of the Duke of Rothesay must have 
 been somewhat different. At some time in the 
 Tear, though it is impossible to say when, he was 
 eno-ao;ed in the s'le^e of the Castle of Eeres. 
 Much light is th^o^\^l upon the causes of the resist- 
 ance of Sir John AVemyss by the recently printed 
 Memorials r,f the Family of ^VenLljss of that Ilk. 
 It was a matter reallv concernincr the Duke of 
 Albany, which it would be useless, if it were 
 possible, to go into here. It will be remembered 
 that his Lieutenancy of the Kingdom was to expire 
 upon January 27. 1402. The accounts rendered at 
 the Exchequer Court at Aberdeen in July, 1402, 
 three months after his death, and coverincr the 
 period ft^om June. 1401. thus embracing the last 
 nine months of his life, and the last seven of his 
 Eeo'encv. contain lour curious entries with reu'ard 
 to his last acts, which show the extremities to 
 which he was ckiven by a misplaced economy in 
 stinting his resources and at the same time loading 
 him with the most costly labour, and indicate, as I 
 venture to think, that this was the final cause 
 which led to his earthly end being enveloped in 
 obscurity. One of these is a sum of £52 13s. 4d. 
 (sav. over £1.000 of our monev) which the 
 customars of Perth stated that they had paid at 
 the Duke's order : the Commissioners of the 
 Exchequer seem to acknowledge that such order as 
 alleo^ed would have been suflicient but that the 
 proof of its existence is insufficient, and that the 
 
DAVID, DUKE OF ROTHESAY. 
 
 175 
 
 King is to be consulted. In other words, this 
 order, if it ever existed, must have been given 
 before January 27, 1402. Another is of two sums 
 of £10 and £20 respectively (say £600 or £700 
 of our money) taken from the customars of 
 Edinburgh, as to which the Commissioners have 
 satisfied themselves that it was taken while the 
 Duke had a right to do so, viz., before January 
 27. This entry has an especial interest because 
 it shows the Duke to have been in Edinburgh 
 within a few months before his death, and con- 
 firms the story of Bower that being not long 
 before his death staying in Edinburgh Castle, and 
 gazing at a great comet which was then visible, 
 he remarked that he had heard from astrologers 
 that such a phenomenon heralds the death of 
 Princes. The history of this comet is very in- 
 teresting in itself, and the story of Bower may 
 throw some light upon the details of the last 
 weeks of the Prince's life. I applied to Professor 
 Grant, of Glasgow, for information, and, with the 
 courtesy which is habitual to him, he supplied me 
 with what notes he could, especially from the 
 great work upon comets by the French astronomer 
 Pingre. This comet was among the most remark- 
 able recorded, and shares with a few others the 
 distinction of having been visible to the naked eye 
 not only in full daylight but even when near to 
 the sun. It first became visible upon February 8, 
 reached its maximum of brilliance upon March 21 
 (a few days before the Prince's death), and after- 
 wards ceased to be visible at night, though it was 
 seen for eight days more in the day, with much 
 
176 
 
 ESSAYS (jX home SUBJECTS. 
 
 diminished splendour. If therefore it is true that 
 the Prince observed it from Edinburgh Castle, he 
 must have been in Edinburgh Castle after Feb- 
 ruary That being in Edinburgh he should have 
 cfone to the Castle to stav with his brother-in-law 
 the Governor is exceedincrlv natural, and seems to 
 be in itself almost a sufficient refritation of the 
 prurient fiction by which modem writers are fond, 
 in the teeth of all the known facts, of accusing 
 him of a marital infidelity which had alienated 
 him from his wife's family. The third case is one 
 in which John Tyndall, customar of Montrose, had 
 paid .£*24 (say £560 of om* money) to the deputy 
 of the I>uke of Albany as Chamberlain of Scot- 
 land, and the Prince had imprisoned the customar 
 in question until he paid it to him again. The 
 ground of this act doubtless was some disputed 
 point as to the question to whom the money had 
 really been payable, and seems to fix the date 
 after January '27. The last instance is that of 
 John Mortimer, a customar of Dimdee. who as- 
 sured the Commissioners that the Duke had taken 
 £71 4s. 9d. (say £1500 of our money) from him by 
 force. All this shows that the Duke in his last 
 months was in great pecuniary straits, that he had 
 been at Edinburgh as well as Perth, and that sub- 
 secjiiently to the expiry of his Lieutenancy of the 
 Kincfdom on Januarv 27, 1402. he was at Mon- 
 trose and Dundee ti*vincr to obtain monev. 
 
 It is still in connection with these monetary 
 difficulties that I now turn to the condition of the 
 See of St. Andrews, the facts as to which uve closely 
 bound up Avith those of the Duke of Rothesay's 
 
DAYID, DUKE OF ROTHESA/Y. 
 
 177 
 
 last days. On the demise of Bishop Trail the 
 whole temporalities of the See, as a feu from the 
 Crown to an ex officio feuar who, as such, had no 
 hereditary succf^ssor, reverted into the hands of the 
 Crown as feudal superior. This was the ordinary 
 rule, and it naturally happened that impecunious 
 Governments were not always very anxious in 
 such cases that the See should be immediately 
 filled up. In this case the Chapter, upon July 1, 
 1401, had elected as successor to Walter Trail, 
 Thomas Stuart, the Archdeacon of St. Andrews, 
 a meek man, whose most distinctive merit pro- 
 bably was that he was the bastard half-brother 
 of the King and of the Duke of Albany, the 
 latter of whom at least was much attached to 
 him. William Nory, the Sub-prior of the Cathe- 
 dral Priory, was immediately despatched to Avig- 
 non to obtain the Bull for Consecration. The 
 moment was peculiar. The Great Schism was 
 raging, and Peter de Luna or Benedict XIIL, 
 whichever you like to call him, was at one of the 
 lowest ebbs of his very varying fortunes. Scotland 
 alone seems to have adhered to him quite faith- 
 fully, and her support was not worth much. The 
 French Government could hardly, even in common 
 decency, abandon and persecute him, but they put 
 the strongest pressure upon him to cause him to 
 abdicate, which he, in that clear, eloquent Latin of 
 which he must be owned to have been a master, 
 firmly and consistently refused to do. His Car- 
 dinals deserted him, and the army of the Marshal 
 Boucicaut beleaguered his palatial fortress, with- 
 out actually daring to assault it. The siege can- 
 
178 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 not have been very close, or, during the space of 
 nearly five years for which it lasted, he would 
 have been cut off from communication with the 
 outer world, and ultimately compelled by famine 
 to surrender. But great delay in transacting 
 business was necessarily produced. William Nory 
 however in time obtained the Bull and returned. 
 Here, however, there arose a fresh obstacle. The 
 custody of the Castle of Dunbarton had become 
 nearly, if not absolutely, hereditary in the family 
 of Daniels ton, and the fortress was now in the 
 possession of a certain priest, Walter Danielston, 
 whom I take to have been probably the eldest son 
 of Sir Robert Danielston, who had died in 1396 or 
 1397. He was not distinguished for the virtues 
 which ought to adorn the clerical state, but the 
 Government wished to obtain possession of the 
 castle, and when he proposed to surrender it upon 
 being created Bishop of St. Andrews, the Duke of 
 Albany closed with the offer, persuaded his half- 
 brother Thomas to forego his rights, and obtained 
 a fresh election from the Chapter, in which, accord- 
 ing to Wyntoun, voters were induced to act against 
 their own consciences. It must be added, in 
 justice to Benedict XIII., among whose faults in- 
 consistency cannot be charged, that he would 
 never consent, and Walter Danielston died uncon- 
 secrated at Christmas, 1402. He had, however, 
 been inducted into the temporalities in the preced- 
 ing summer, probably in May. 
 
 How far this extraordinary negotiation had pro- 
 gressed in the early months of the year it is im- 
 possible to say, but it must have been in hand. 
 
DAVID, DUKE OF ROTHESAY. 
 
 179 
 
 The temporalities of St. Andrews were vacant and 
 in the hands of the Crown, and the whole question 
 of the succession to the See was in a state of con- 
 fusion and uncertainty. As to the Duke of Rothe- 
 say, we have here to fall back upon Bower, but his 
 statements are largely supported by known facts. 
 It occurred or was suggested to the impecunious 
 Prince that he would act wisely in taking posses- 
 sion of the temporalities. There can be no doubt 
 that in determining to do so, he must have argued 
 that he would be not only relieving his own neces- 
 sities by a justifiable use of the property of the 
 Crown, but would also, by impeding the abomin- 
 able Danielston intrigue, be rendering a real service 
 to the Church, a matter as to which, as is evident 
 from the records of payments to ecclesiastical 
 objects made by his command, he was anything 
 but indifferent. It is, however, easy to imagine 
 the feelings with which the persons then con- 
 ducting the Government must have heard of his 
 intention. His exactions at the custom-houses 
 must have been already almost intolerable. His 
 proposed seizure of the temporalities of St. 
 Andrews, which would moreover have paralysed 
 all the negotiations for obtaining the Castle of 
 Dunbarton, could not be borne, and his uncle and 
 brother-in-law placed him under restraint. It is 
 one of the statements of Bower that this arrest 
 took place in obedience to an instruction from 
 the King. This is clearly false. The Royal 
 document of May 20, which declares that the 
 Prince's death had proceeded solely from natural 
 causes, expressly lays upon the Duke of Albany 
 
180 
 
 <:»y HO^IE SURJECTS. 
 
 and the Earl : !> iglas, along with their accom- 
 phces. the w: ^ responsibility for the act of 
 placing him under restraint, to which they repre- 
 sent themselves as havincr been driven bv motives 
 of public policy, and grants them a complete par- 
 don for it. while mentioning the inclination which 
 the King had felt upon the subject. Bower's 
 statement is simply irreconcilable with this 
 docimient. 
 
 According to Bower, the arrest was effected by 
 William Lindsay of Rossie and John Ramomy, as 
 the Prince was on his way to the Castle of St. 
 Andiews. very slightly attended. The place was 
 between Nydie and Strathtyrmn, that is, very near 
 St. Andrews itself, and the Liber Plu.scardemns 
 adds that it was close to the great cross. I can- 
 not identtfr this place. Perhaps it was one of the 
 12 crosses which traditionallv bounded the -reuevo^ 
 or Holy Girth of the Apostle. The Royal prisoner 
 was first taken to the Castle of St. Andrews, 
 which his uncle had thus been beforehand with 
 him in occupying, and which it is even possible 
 may have already been placed in the hands of 
 Danielston. Bower says that Albany and Douglas 
 now held a meeting at Culross, where they dis- 
 cussed the most expedient step to take, and that 
 in consequence they removed the Duke under a 
 strono: guard to Falkland. The languacre of Bower 
 seems to mean that his uncle and brother-in-law 
 went with him in person : he adds that the Prince 
 was mounted on a pack-horse, and wrapped in a 
 large reddish-brown cloak like that of a servant. 
 He was taken to the Tower at Falkland, and 
 
DAVID, DUKE OF ROTHESAY. 
 
 181 
 
 lodged in a ' befitting chamber.' This tower 
 seems to have formed the most prominent feature 
 of the building at the time, and is mentioned as a 
 sort of synonymous term along with ' manor ' to 
 designate the whole residence, till a consideral)ly 
 later period. The new buildings mentioned in 
 the accounts for 1468-9 appear to have changed 
 the character of the place and thrown the tower 
 into the background. The last notice of it which I 
 have observed, is for the repair of its roof just fifty 
 years after the Duke of Rothesay's death, viz., in 
 the year 1461-2, and in the accounts for the year 
 1472-3, the word ' Palace' appears. I was natur- 
 ally anxious to find any remains of this tower, 
 which had totally disappeared. In excavating in 
 the garden to the north of the standing portions of 
 the Palace, we found the remains of the original 
 enclosing wall, and in the north-east angle a part 
 of a round tower over fifty feet in diameter, re- 
 taining a small portion of the ornamental string- 
 course, which shows it to be of about the 
 thirteenth century. In its centre is the well, 
 sunk in the rock. The plan of this part of the 
 buildings it is possible to surmise with a very high 
 degree of probability, from the parallel buildings 
 which remain in a more perfect condition at Both- 
 well Castle and elsewhere. This great tower with 
 its high pointed roof must have been the main 
 feature of the early group of buildings, and a 
 prominent feature in the landscape for many miles 
 round. Its great size implies truly noble rooms. 
 I cannot doubt that it is the structure to which 
 the Duke of Rothesay was carried, and that the 
 
182 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 befitting chamber in which he was lodged was 
 some apartment or apartments in it befitting the 
 rank of the captive. Even Bower, late as he is, 
 seems never to have heard of the subterranean cell 
 of more modern romancers. 
 
 In a short time it was announced that the 
 Prince had died of dysentery. If the statement 
 of Bower that the waning of the comet instantly 
 followed the Prince's imprisonment be true, that 
 imprisonment can have lasted only a few days, 
 since the comet reached its maximum brilliancy on 
 Tuesday, March 21, but I must say that I think 
 this can hardly have been the case. 
 
 The assertions as to the day of his death vary. 
 The Registrum Glasguense says it was March 1. 
 The Liber Pluscardensis gives April 7. Bower 
 says that he died during the night between Satur- 
 day the 25th and Easter Sunday, the 26th of 
 March, but that it was not known whether before 
 or after midnight. If this be really true, it argues 
 a most singular secrecy as to his imprisonment, 
 which is suspiciously harmonious with the story of 
 his disguise during his journey to Falkland, and 
 the startling circumstances of unusual place and at 
 least possible privacy of detail which attended his 
 funeral. Wyntoun gives Monday, March 27, and 
 may, I conceive, be right, at any rate as the 
 ecclesiastical reckoning of the evening and the 
 morning making the day, would make March 27 
 commence at sunset on March 26. The Regis rum 
 Glasguense must, I think, be wrong. The Liber 
 Pluscardensis may, I think, be misled by the fact 
 
DAVID, DUKE OF ROTHESAY. 
 
 183 
 
 that March 26 is vii. kk. Aprilis, or it may mean 
 that the funeral was upon April 7. 
 
 The natural course with regard to his funeral 
 would have been to take his body for burial to 
 Dunfermline, there to lie beside that of his own 
 mother and those of so many of his kingly 
 ancestors. On the contrary, it was taken to 
 Lindores, where there had never been any Royal 
 interments. The only item with regard to his 
 funeral expenses is one of £2 Is. 4d. in the Perth 
 accounts. Even allowing that about £50 worth of 
 our money is meant, I can hardly bring myself to 
 believe that the ceremony was conducted upon a 
 scale so mean. 
 
 The most sinister rumours regarding the cause 
 of his death at once became current. Parliament 
 sat in Edinburgh in May, and the matter was 
 discussed and more or less sifted. On May 20 the 
 King published the following document : — 
 
 ' Robert by the grace of God King of Scots unto 
 all unto whose knowledge this present letter shall 
 come [wisheth] everlasting health in the Lord : for 
 as much as our dearly beloved Robert, Duke of 
 Albany, Earl of Fife and Menteith, our brother, 
 and Archibald, Earl of Douglas and Lord of Gallo- 
 way, our son-in-law, by reason of our daughter 
 whom he hath taken to wife, did lately cause our 
 most illustrious son David our first-born, the late 
 Duke of Rothesay and Earl of Carrick and Athole, 
 to be taken and put under personal restraint, and 
 first warded in the Castle of St. Andrews, and 
 then to be kept in ward at Falkland, where he is 
 
184 
 
 ESSAYS OX HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 shown to have passed from this light by the Pro- 
 vidence of God and not otherwise. The which 
 [Robert and Archibald] compearing in our presence 
 in our General Council begun at Edinburgh upon 
 the 16th day of the month of May in the year 
 of our Lord one thousand four hundred and two, 
 and continued for some days [thereafter], and 
 being interrogated upon this matter by our royal 
 authority, or accused [therein], and avowing the 
 taking, restraining, and death as above mentioned, 
 did in our presence set forth the causes w^hich did 
 thereunto move them, as they declared, for the 
 public weal, the w^hich causes w^e judge not to be 
 inserted herein : and thereupon diligent inquisition 
 having been made thereon, and all and everything 
 touching this matter to be herein considered having 
 been so considered, and the mature deliberation of 
 our Council having been had upon the matters dis- 
 cussed, we hold excused the aforesaid Robert our 
 brother, and Archibald our son-in-law% and their 
 accomplices whomsoever herein, that is, in restrain- 
 ing, keeping, w^arding, counselling, and all others 
 giving them counsel, to wit, help or favour, or 
 obeying their orders or commands howsoever ; yea, 
 and in our aforesaid Council we have openly and 
 publicly declared, pronounced and decreed, and by 
 the tenour of this present, we do declare, pro- 
 nounce, and by this our definite sentence do define 
 that they and any one of them are innocent, harm- 
 less, faultless, at peace, free, and safe, utterly and 
 anyhow, of any crime against our Majesty, or of 
 any crime, fault, injury, blame, or offence whatso- 
 ever which might be anywise imputed to them by 
 
DAVID, DUKE OF ROTHESAY. 
 
 185 
 
 occasion of the aforesaid matters : and if we have 
 anyhow conceived against them, or any of them, 
 man or woman, one or more, who have anyhow 
 taken part in this thing, or anyhow cleaven unto 
 them, any anger, wrath, blame or offence, we do of 
 our own free will, of our own knowledge and also 
 from the deliberation of our Council already named, 
 annul, put away the same, and will it be annulled 
 for ever. Wherefore we do strictly ordain and 
 command unto all and every our subjects of what- 
 soever state or condition they be, that neither by 
 word nor deed do they impute blame to Robert 
 and Archibald oftentimes aforesaid or to them who 
 took part, consented, or clave unto them in this 
 thing, or whisper anything against them whatso- 
 ever whereby their good fame may be wounded or 
 any prejudice begotten against them, under every 
 punishment which the law can therein inflict. 
 
 ' Given under witness of our Great Seal in the 
 Monastery of the Holy Rood of Edinburgh upon 
 the 20th day of the month of May aforesaid, in the 
 year of our Lord one thousand four hundred and 
 two, and of our reign the thirteenth.' 
 
 It is an ominous proverb that imprisoned Princes 
 do not live long. And when we ask the usual 
 question, the answer of which points to the author 
 of a crime. Who profitted by it ? the answer un- 
 doubtedly is. His uncle, in whose house he died. 
 On the other hand, the motive with the brother- 
 in-law would have been all the other way, but he 
 again, although an accomplice in the arrest, might 
 have known nothing of the murder, if murder 
 there were. It may be suggested that a chill 
 
 13 
 
186 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 caught upon the journey might have resulted in 
 death — that a Lenten diet of stock fish, salt 
 herrings, and oatmeal would not have tended to 
 health — that starvation at least is a slow and 
 improbable mode of assassination — and that the 
 moment of Easter is not one Avhich superstition, 
 even if there were no question of religion, would 
 have been likely to select for the crime. Of the 
 two persons named by Bower as his keepers, John 
 Selkirk was certainly in the Royal employment 
 from 1384 to 1389, when he probably entered that 
 of the Duke of Albany, and the other, John 
 Wright of Falkland, was certainly customar of 
 Kinghorn under Albany at least from 1411 to 
 1420, and perhaps received other favours, as the 
 name is not an uncommon one, and it is not always 
 clear which particular person is meant. Of the 
 persons who effected the arrest, William Lindsay 
 was certainly afterwards in high favour with 
 Albany, and when John Eamorny died soon after 
 Rothesay, Albany settled a pension upon his 
 widow. But this means nothing more than would 
 have been clear anyhow, viz., that they were 
 Albany's trusted friends and servants. My own 
 impression is that the truth as to the cause of the 
 Duke of Rothesay's death is and must remain un- 
 certain. I have only put together these few notes 
 in the hope that, by at least a certain number of 
 hard facts, I may combat a most pernicious tradi- 
 tion to which Sir Walter Scott unhappily lent the 
 support of his genius, and may do, and perhaps 
 induce others to do, an act of justice not only to 
 the truth of history but also to the memory of an 
 unfortunate lad. 
 
BRENDAN'S FABULOUS VOYAGE. 
 
 Lecture delivered on January 19, 1893, before 
 the Scottish Society of Literature and Art.~\ 
 
 "DRENDAN, the son of Finnlogh 0' Alta, was 
 ^ born at Tralee in Kerry, in the year 481 or 
 482.^ He had a pedigree which connected him 
 with the rulers of Ireland, and thus perhaps secured 
 for him a social prominence which he would not 
 otherwise have enjoyed. Nature seems to have 
 endowed him with an highly wrought and sensi- 
 tive temperament. Putting aside altogether the 
 idealism which caused him, like so many others of 
 his time and race, to give himself to the Church, 
 he displayed throughout life a restlessness which 
 led him to constant journeys, sometimes of the 
 nature of migrations, and the constant inception 
 of projects to which he did not continue long to 
 adhere ; and in the statements about him there 
 are elements from which I conjecture that he was 
 probably of the class of persons who furnish good 
 subjects for hypnotic experiments. When he was 
 a year old he was handed over to the care of the 
 nun Ita, when she dwelt at the foot of Mount 
 Luachra. With her he remained until he was 
 
 ^ Reeve's Adamnan, 221. 
 
188 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 seven years old, when she sent him to Bishop Ere, 
 by whom he had been baptized, but during the 
 whole of her life, which lasted nearly as long as 
 his own, he never ceased to regard and to treat 
 her with all the alfectionate reverence of a son. 
 His education was continued under Ere, until he 
 grew towards manhood, when he visited other 
 parts of Ireland for the sake of study, but it was 
 to Ere that he returned to be ordained to the 
 Presbyterate. At that period there was a sort of 
 passion among the Celtic clergy for retiring into 
 deserts after the manner of the monks and hermits 
 of Egypt, and the islands of the Western and 
 Northern ocean, if they could show nothing like 
 the burning sands of Africa, supplied deserts 
 enough of a different sort. It was only in ac- 
 cordance then with a common custom of his day, 
 that Brendan, after his ordination, set out by sea 
 with a few companions, to find a place where to 
 found a monastery. It is to be remarked also that 
 this was just about the time of the migration of 
 the Royal Race of the Dalriads to the country 
 which has ultimately received from them the name 
 of Scotland, and the project therefore bears a 
 strong resemblance to that in which Columba suc- 
 ceeded about 60 years later. If Brendan had not 
 failed, perhaps Columba would not have come. 
 The wanderings or explorations of Brendan and 
 his companions appear to have lasted several 
 years, during which it may be presumed that 
 they were in the habit of laying up somewhere 
 for the winter. It was doubtless partly owing to 
 the restlessness which was a part of his nature, 
 
Brendan's fabulous voyage. 189 
 
 that he finally settled nowhere, and returned to 
 Ireland. 
 
 In Ireland he did a good deal of work, but Ita 
 urged him to try and do good elsewhere, and he 
 went over with some of his friends to Britain, 
 possibly in connection with movements affected by 
 the career of the historic Arthur, who was killed 
 at Camlan or Camelon in 537. The Christian Irish 
 at that time certainly made endeavours to assist 
 the Christian party among the Britons. The nun 
 Edana was making her attempts, either in person 
 or by her disciples, to found her girls' schools in 
 the south of Scotland, and it is not impossible that 
 Ita thought that she might also accomplish some 
 good by sending forth a male emissary. In con- 
 nection with Brendan's sojourn in Britain, there 
 is a most curious mention of the use of a Greek 
 Liturgy somewhere in the British Church. There 
 is a statement that Brendan was at the head of 
 the celebrated Welsh monastery of Llancarfan. 
 He also went over to Brittany, to see Gildas the 
 Wise, who was bewailing the woes of his native 
 land on the shores of the Morbihan. He ulti- 
 mately returned to the Western Islands, and there 
 succeeded at last in founding two monastic settle- 
 ments, one in Tiree, at a place which the writers 
 call Bledua, and one in an island called Ailech, 
 which it seems to me may possibly mean Islay. 
 Then he went back to Ireland, and started 
 another monastery in a desert island in Loch 
 Oisbsen, which was given to him by Aedh, the 
 son of Ethdach. Hence, however, he again moved 
 in 559, and founded the great monastery of Clon- 
 
190 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 fert, an act which is the principal achievement of 
 his Hfe. 
 
 He was friendly with the principal persons of his 
 own race, time, and class. He seems, as I have 
 said, to have possessed the peculiar temperament, 
 which some call sensitive and others mediumistic, 
 and which leads to the phenomenon generally 
 known as second- sight, for, putting aside all other 
 records about him which point in the same 
 direction, it is recorded of him, not only by 
 Adamnan, but also by Cuimine the Fair, that on 
 one occasion when he came over, along with Com- 
 gall of Benchor, Kenneth of Aghaboe, and Cormac 
 o' Leathain of Durrow, to visit Columba, who was 
 then staying in Himba (Eilean na Naoimh, one of 
 the Garveloch islands, lying between Scarba and 
 Mull), and Columba at their request celebrated 
 before them on the Sunday, he afterwards told 
 Comgall and Kenneth that during part of the 
 ceremony Columba had seemed to him to be 
 standing at the bottom of a pillar of fire stream- 
 ing heavenwards. 
 
 He lived to an extreme old age, and was in his 
 96th year when the end came. When he felt that 
 it was at hand, he went to see his sister Briga, 
 and I quote the sentences which follow, on account 
 of the quaint naturalism which inspires them. 
 ' Among other things, he taught her concerning 
 the place of her resurrection. " Not here," saith 
 he unto her, " shalt thou rise again, but in thine 
 own land, that is, in Tralee. Therefore, go thou 
 thither, for that people will obtain the mercy of 
 God by thy means. This is a place of men, not of 
 
Brendan's fabulous voyage. 191 
 
 women. Now is God calling me unto Himself out 
 of the prison house of this body." When she 
 heard that, she was grievously afflicted, and said, 
 " Father beloved, we shall all die at thy death. 
 For which of us could live when thou wast 
 absent living ? Much less, when thou art dead." 
 Brendan said farther, " On the third day hence, 
 I shall go the way of my fathers." Now that 
 day was the Lord's Day. Thereon, after the 
 sacraments of the altar had been offered, he saith 
 to them that stood by, " In your supplications, 
 commend my going forth." And Briga speaketh 
 and saith, " Father, what fearest thou ? " He 
 saith, " I fear that I shall journey alone, that 
 the way will be dark — I fear the unknown 
 country, the presence of the King, the sentence of 
 the Judge." After these things he commanded 
 the brethren to carry his body to the monastery 
 of Clonfert secretly, lest, if they did it openly, it 
 should be kept by them among whom they should 
 pass. Then when he had kissed them all one by 
 one, he saith unto holy Briga, " Salute my friends 
 on my behalf, and say unto them to beware of evil 
 speaking, even when it is true, how much the 
 more when it is false." When he had so spoken 
 and foretold how some things would be in time 
 to come, he passed into everlasting rest, in the 
 96th year of his age.' He died. May 16, 577. 
 
 By combining with all the collected and credible 
 statements concerning him illustrative matter from 
 the history of his times and the biographies of his 
 contemporaries, it would no doubt be possible to 
 write a life of Brendan, which would be both of 
 
192 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 considerable bulk and of considerable interest. 
 But there would be nothing particularly startling 
 or striking about it. Apart from the interest of 
 public events contemporary with his long career, 
 the monotonous variety produced by his vagabond 
 nature, and such psychical interest as might 
 possibly attach to stories of his mediumistic tem- 
 perament, it would be rather hum-drum. Brendan, 
 however, has had the ill luck to be selected by 
 some unknown antient Irish novelist as the hero of 
 a romance of the wildest kind, which has certainly 
 spread his name, if not his fame, in quarters Avhich 
 in all his travels he could never have anticipated. 
 Even in the Canary Islands, the natives apply the 
 term ' Isla de San Borondon " to a peculiar effect 
 like mirage, showing a shadowy presentiment of 
 land, which is sometimes seen off their coasts. His 
 character as an hero of romance, somewhat of the 
 t}^e of Sinbad the Sailor, if not of that of Gulliver, 
 has even injured him as a subject of serious study. 
 There has been a sort of custom, to which may be 
 applied a celebrated phrase of Xewman. ' aged but 
 not venerable,' of confounding the hero of the 
 romance with the real man. It would be just as 
 proper to identify the hero of the PicJcwicJc Fajyers 
 with a certain Mr. Pickwick, whom it was, oddly 
 enough, the duty of one of Dickens' sons to call as 
 a witness in an Eno^lish law-suit not manv vears 
 aofo. Even Homer sometimes nods - — at least 
 according to the critics, of whose opinion Lucian 
 credits him with so low an estimation — and the 
 great Bollandists had their historical equanimity 
 — much as experience must have already taught it 
 
Brendan's fabulous voyage. 
 
 193 
 
 to bear — so upset by the brilliancy of the fable that 
 they have omitted to print the real life at all, a 
 life which is, at the worst, no more startling than 
 a good many with which they have enriched their 
 pages — (".g., those of Patrick, Brigid, and Columba 
 — and after a denunciation of what their authori- 
 ties call the vana, Jictaque vel apocrypha delira- 
 menta, ' the silly, lying, or apocryphal ravings,' 
 simply proceed to give a compilation of isolated 
 notices drawn from a variety of different sources. 
 
 Prof O' Curry, in his Lectures on the AjS. 
 Material of Ancient Irish History, page 289, men- 
 tions four ancient Irish romances in the form of 
 voyages, of which the voyage of Brendan is one. 
 He gives an epitome of that of the sons of Ua 
 Corra, which seems at least in parts to be almost 
 equally wild. But that of Brendan has certainly 
 been the most popular. M. Achille Jubinal, who 
 edited one Latin and two French translations of it, 
 says that it also exists in Irish, Welsh, Spanish, 
 English, and Anglo-Norman. The Spanish, Eng- 
 lish, and Anglo-Norman I have never read, and of 
 the Welsh I have never heard. Of the Latin I 
 once made a complete translation from the Latin 
 text published by Jubinal, but I have lost it, and 
 have had to do the work again so far as necessary 
 for the present lecture. I remember, however, 
 that from several features, I came to the conclusion 
 that the Latin text was a translation from Irish, 
 and the Irish text must present considerable 
 variants, as Dr. Todd in his book on St. Patrick, 
 Apostle of Ireland, page 460, cites from ' An Irish 
 Life of St. Brendan,' but w^hich must evidently be 
 
194 
 
 ESSAYS oy h<jme subjects. 
 
 the fabulous voyage, lour incidents, of which one is 
 about the finding of a dead mermaid, another about 
 one of the vovaofers bein^ devoured aUve bv sea- 
 cats, and a third about an huge sea -cat as large as 
 an ox which swam after them to destroy them, 
 until another sea -monster rose up and fought with 
 the cat. and both were drowned, none of which in- 
 cidents occur in the Latin. However, to the Latin 
 version my defective knowledge must confine me, 
 and there is enough of it for one lecture, and to 
 spare. I may, however, say that by the Latin text 
 I do not here mean only the text published by 
 J ubinal. The present BoUandists were good enough, 
 some vears aTO. to edit for me the * Codex Salman- 
 ticensis. which contains both the romance and the 
 Life, and I find in the romance serious diverg- 
 ences from the text criven bv Jubinal : thev are 
 of a kind which, in my judgment, stamp it beyond 
 all doubt as a later and corrupt edition, but I have 
 largely compared the texts, although not word for 
 word. 
 
 Well. I am now going to deal \vith the * siUy, 
 lying, or apocrvphal ravings.' The romance re- 
 lates that on one occasion when Brendan was in 
 a place called the Thicket, there came to him a 
 man called Barint (J XeQ. of the race of Kino^ Xeil 
 ct' IX H jstaores. This man told him that his 
 discipit Marnock had left him, and foimded an 
 hermitaore of his ovm in an island called Deliorht- 
 some, whither he himself afterwards went to visit 
 him. While he was there, they were one day to- 
 gether upon the shore, where there was a small 
 boat, and then, to translate the precise words, ' he 
 
 I 
 
BRENDAN S FABULOrS VOYAGE. 
 
 195 
 
 said unto me. *' Father, go up into the ship, and 
 let us sail ^vestward unto the island which is called 
 the Land of Promise of the Saints, which God will 
 give unto them that come after us in the latter 
 time.'" We went up into the ship therefore, and 
 clouds covered us all round about us, so that 
 hardly could we see the stern or the prow of the 
 ship. After the space, as it were, of one hour, a 
 oreat lio-ht shone round about us. and there 
 appeared a land wide and gi-assy. and very fruitful. 
 And when the ship was come to land, we went 
 out. and be<?an to o-q about, and to walk throuo^h 
 that land for fifteen days, and we could not find 
 the end thereof AVe saw there no plant without 
 a fiower. and no tree without fruit, and all the 
 stones thereof are precious stones. And upon the 
 fifteenth day we found a river running from the 
 west eastward. And when we considered all these 
 things, we doubted what we should do. We were 
 fain to pass over the river, but we waited for coun- 
 sel fi^om God. While we discussed thus between 
 us, of a sudden there appeared before us a man in 
 oreat brightness, who called us bv our names and 
 saluted us, saying, "It is well done, good brethren, 
 for the Lord hath revealed unto you that land which 
 He will give unto his Saints. For it is an half of 
 the island up to this river : but unto you it is not 
 given to pass over. Go back therefore whence ye 
 are come." When he said thus, we asked him 
 whence he was. and by what name he was called. 
 And he said unto me, " Wliv dost thou ask me 
 whence I am ; and by what name I am called ? 
 Whv dost thou not rather ask as to this island ? 
 
196 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 For even as thou seest it now, so doth it remain 
 since the beginning of the world. Hast thou any 
 need of meat or drink ? Hast thou been overcome 
 of sleep, or hath night covered thee ? Know 
 therefore of a surety : there is alway day here 
 without blindness or shadow of darkness. For 
 our Lord Jesus Christ is the light thereof, and if 
 men had not done against the commandment of 
 God, they would have remained in the loveliness 
 of this land." When we heard it, we were turned 
 to weeping, and when we were rested, we straight- 
 way took our journey, and the man aforesaid came 
 with us even to the shore where our ship was. 
 But when we got us up into the ship, the man was 
 taken away from our eyes, and we came into the 
 darkness aforesaid, and unto the Isle Delight- 
 some.' Barint goes on to relate his conversation 
 with Marnock's disciples, and how they told him 
 that they often knew by the fragrance of Mar- 
 nock's garments, when he had been away from 
 them for a while and returned, that he had been 
 in that garden of God, where, as it is expressed, 
 ' night gathereth not, nor day endeth . . . for 
 the angels of God keep it.' 
 
 Incited by this narrative, Brendan proposed to 
 some of his disciples to set out in search of the 
 Land of Promise, and after fasting for forty days 
 for three days at a time, they finally embarked 
 from the neighbourhood of Tralee. There is a very 
 curious description of the coracli ^ or skin -boat in 
 
 ^ After the manner of the antient Celts, but which is n<.t, I believe, 
 altogether extinct either in the Highlands or in Ireland, and of 
 which I remember having seen one once in actual use in Wales. 
 
Brendan's fabulous voyage. 197 
 
 which they embarked. It was, it is stated, ' very 
 light, with ribs and posts of wicker, as the use is in 
 those parts, and they covered it with the hides of 
 cattle, dyed reddish in oak-bark, and they smeared 
 all the seams of the ship without ; and they took 
 provisions for forty days, and butter for dressing 
 hides for the covering of the ship, and the other 
 thino^s which are useful for the life of man.' Two 
 of the MSS. add (and are justified by subsequent 
 passages) : — ' They set up a mast in the middle of 
 the ship, and a sail, and the rest of the gear for 
 steering.' The voyagers were fourteen in number 
 besides Brendan, but at the last moment three 
 other brethren came and entreated to be taken, 
 saying that if they were left where they were, they 
 would die of hunger and thirst. Brendan consents, 
 but predicts that while one of them would come 
 to a good end, two would come to a bad. 
 
 They set off in the direction of the summer 
 solstice, by which must, I think, be meant the 
 northerly western point where the sun sets in 
 summer, and are forty days at sea — it will be 
 noticed that the periods in this story are nearly 
 always of forty days. At the end of this time 
 they come to a very high and rocky island, with 
 streams falling down the cliffs into the sea. They 
 search for a landing-place for three days, and then 
 find a narrow harbour, between steep walls of rock. 
 On landing, they are met by a dog, which they follow 
 to a town or fort, but see no inhabitants. They 
 go into a great hall set with couches and seats, and 
 find water prepared for washing the feet. The 
 walls are hung with vessels of divers kinds of 
 
198 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 metal, and bridles, and horns mounted with silver. 
 Brendan warns the brethren against theft, especi- 
 ally the three who had come last. They find a 
 table laid, and spread with very white bread and 
 fish. They eat and lie down to sleep. In the 
 night Brendan sees a fiend in the shape of an 
 Ethiopian child tempting one of the three last 
 comers with a silver bridle. In the morning they 
 find the table again spread, and so remain for 
 three days and nights. Then they prepare to 
 leave, and Brendan denounces one of the brethren 
 as a thief On this the guilty brother draws the 
 silver bridle out of his breast, and cries out, 
 ' Father, I have sinned : forgive it, and pray for 
 my soul that it perish not.' The devil is cast out, 
 but the brother dies and is buried on the island. 
 As they are on the point of embarking, a lad brings 
 them a basket of bread and a vessel {amphora) of 
 w^ater, which he gives to them with a blessing. 
 
 They start again upon the ocean, and are carried 
 hither and thither, eating once every two days. 
 At last, on Maundy Thursday, they reach another 
 island, where are many abundant springs full of 
 fish, and flocks of white sheep as large as cattle, 
 sometimes so thick as to conceal the earth. There 
 they remain until the morning of the Eve of Easter, 
 when they take, and apparently kill and dress, one 
 sheep and one lamb without blemish. The refer- 
 ence is evidently to an identity of custom with that 
 which still prevails in all the southern countries of 
 Europe, of preparing the flesh of a lamb on Holy 
 Saturday, in honour of the Paschal Lamb, which 
 flesh is blessed on the Saturday, and used to break 
 
Brendan's fabulous voyage. 
 
 199 
 
 the fast of Lent on the next day.^ When all is 
 ready there comes to them a man with a basket of 
 bread baken on the coals — evidently meaning Pass- 
 over bread. This man now becomes a regular 
 although occasional feature in the narrative, and 
 is called their provider {procurator). He foretells 
 their journey for some time, and how they will be 
 until a week after Pentecost in a place which is 
 called the Eden of Birds. 
 
 Thus furnished, they go to an island close by, 
 which he has pointed out to them as the place 
 where they are to remain until the following noon. 
 This island is destitute of grass, and with but scanty 
 vegetation, and there is no sand upon its shores. 
 All goes well until the next day, when they light 
 a fire to boil the pot, whereupon the island becomes 
 restive, and finally sinks into the sea, although they 
 all manage to escape into the ship. ' " Brethren," 
 saith Brendan, " ye wonder at that which this 
 island hath done." " Father," say they, " we 
 wonder sorely, and great dread hath taken hold 
 upon us." He said unto them, " Little children,, 
 be not afraid, for God hath this night shown unto 
 me the secret of this thing. Where we have been 
 was not an island but the first fish of all that swim 
 in the ocean, and he seeketh ever to bring his tail 
 unto his mouth, but he cannot, because of his 
 length. Jasconius is his name." ' 
 
 1 In Italy at least, in order as far as possible to combine the strict 
 fast of the Saturday with a fulfilment of the words of Ex. xii. 8, 
 ' And they sliall eat the flesh in that niglit.' It is usual to have an 
 image of a lamb in sugar or other confectionary, which is also blessed 
 during the day, and eaten at supper. 
 
200 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 This is the only incident in the whole romance 
 which is actually grotesque. But from the solem- 
 nity with which it is narrated, it is evident that it 
 did not appear to be grotesque to the author. It 
 seems to have taken the fancy of the early and 
 mediaeval public, and even of the iconographic 
 public in a special degree. The word whale has 
 commonly been applied to the beast, and as the 
 same episode occurs in the story of Sinhad the 
 Sailor, Jubinal has set himself to speculate how 
 that story, or the Arabian Nights in which it is 
 incorporated, came to be known in Ireland. I 
 confess I do not agree with him. In the first 
 place, the notion is not particularly recondite, and 
 it has at least this possible foundation in fact, 
 that, as I have been told by sailors, the back of 
 a whale of advanced years, when asleep at the 
 surface, may be and has been mistaken from 
 some distance, greatly owing to the accretions 
 upon it, for the top of a reef Again, a somewhat 
 similar notion occurs in Lucian's Travellers Tale, 
 which was much more likely to be known to the 
 Irish fabulist. Lastly, I must observe that all 
 this is gloss. The word whale (cete) is never 
 applied to the animal but always Jlsh (piscis) or 
 monster (bellua) or beast (bestie), and the whole 
 thing, with the notion of its vast size, and the 
 attempt to join the tail to the mouth, which brings 
 it into connection with the emblem of eternity, 
 which is due, I believe, to the Phoenicians, but 
 which we ourselves so often use upon coffins and 
 grave-stones, seems to bring it into connection 
 rather with the idea of the Midgard-Worm, the 
 
Brendan's fabulous voyage. 
 
 201 
 
 great under-lying world-serpent which figures so 
 largely in the mythic cosmogony of the Scandin- 
 avians. I suggest that this is the notion, of which 
 the romancer may have heard from Scandinavian 
 sources ; and there is even a kind of indication 
 that it was associated in his mind with the idea 
 of paganism, as Brendan is made to speak else- 
 where of God having made the most terrible 
 (immanissimam) of beasts subject unto them. 
 
 On leaving the spot where the monster had 
 sunk, they first returned to the provider's isle, 
 from the top of which they perceived another near 
 at hand, covered with grass and woods and full of 
 flowers, and thither they went. 
 
 On the south shore of this island they found a 
 river a little broader than the ship, and up this 
 they towed her for a mile, when they came to the 
 fountain-head of the stream. It was a wondrous 
 fountain, and above it there was a tree marvellously 
 beautiful, spreading rather than high, but all 
 covered with white birds, so covered that they hid 
 its foliage and branches. (The notion is perhaps 
 taken from a tree loaded with snow. ) ' And when 
 the man of God saw it, he began to think in him- 
 self what or wherefore it should be, that such a 
 multitude of birds should be gathered together in 
 one place. And the thing distressed him so, that 
 he wept, and fell down upon his knees, and 
 besought the Lord, saying, " O God, Who knowest 
 the things which are unknown, and makest mani- 
 fest the things which are hidden, Thou knowest 
 how that mine heart is straitened ; therefore I 
 beseech Thee that it may please Thee to make 
 
 14 
 
202 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 manifest Tinto me, Thy sinful servant, this mystery 
 which now I do see with mine eves. And this I 
 ask not for any desert of my worthiness, but 
 in respect of Thy mercy." When he had so spoken, 
 behold, one of the birds flew from the tree. From 
 the ship, where the man of God was sitting, his 
 wings sounded as with the sound of little bells. 
 He perched upon the top of the prow, and began 
 to spread his wings for joy, and looked kindly 
 upon the holy father Brendan. Then the man of 
 God, when he understood that the Lord had had 
 regard unto his prayer, saith unto the bird, " If 
 thou be the messenger of God, tell me whence be 
 these birds, and wherefore they be gathered here." 
 And it said, " We are of that great ruin of the old 
 enemy ; but we have not fallen by sinning or con- 
 senting ; but we have been predestinated by the 
 goodness and mercy of God, for wherein we were 
 created, hath our ruin come to pass, through his 
 fall and the fall of his crew. But God the 
 Almighty, Who is righteous and true, hath by His 
 judgment sent us into this place. Pains we sufler 
 not. The presence of God in a sense we cannot 
 see, so far hath He separated us from the company 
 of them that stood firm. We wander through the 
 divers parts of this world, of the sky, and of the 
 firmament, and of the earths, even as other spirits 
 who are sent forth [to minister]. But upon the 
 holy days of the Lord, we take bodies such as Thou 
 seest, and by the ordinance of God we dwell here, 
 and praise our Maker. As for thee, thou and thy 
 brethren are a year upon the way, and yet there 
 await you six. And where this day thou hast 
 
Brendan's fabulous voyage. 203 
 
 kept the Passover, there shall ye keep it every 
 year, and afterward shalt thou find that which 
 thou hast set in thine heart, even the land 
 promised unto the Saints." And when the bird 
 had so spoken, it rose from the prow, and returned 
 unto the others. And when the hour of evening 
 came, they all began to flap their wings, and to 
 sing as it were with one voice, saying, " Praise 
 waiteth for Thee, O God, in Zion, and unto Thee 
 shall the vow be performed in Jerusalem, through 
 our ministry." And they repeated that verse even 
 for the space of an hour, and the song and the 
 sound of their wings was like harmony (carmen 
 cantus) for sweetness. Then holy Brendan saith 
 unto his brethren, " Refresh your bodies, since this 
 day the Lord hath satisfied your souls by His 
 Divine rising again." And when supper was 
 ended, and the work of God done, the man of God 
 and they that were with him gave their bodies 
 unto rest until the third watch of the night. And 
 the man of God woke and roused the brethren for 
 the watches of the night, and he began holily to 
 sing that verse, " 0 Lord, open Thou my lips." 
 And when the word of the man of God was 
 finished, all the birds sang out with wings and 
 voices, saying, " Praise ye the Lord, all His 
 Angels, praise ye Him, all His hosts." Likewise 
 at even for the space of an hour, they sang ever, 
 and when the dawn glowed they began to sing, 
 " And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon 
 us," with the same harmony and length of singing 
 as in the Morning Praises : likewise, at the third 
 hour that verse, " Sing praises to our God, sing 
 
204 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 praises, sing praises unto our King, sing ye praises 
 with understanding:" at the sixth hour, " May 
 the Lord cause His face to shine upon us, and be 
 merciful unto us : " and at the ninth hour they 
 sang, " Behold, how good and how pleasant it is 
 for brethren to dwell together in unity." So by 
 day and by night these birds gave praise to God.' 
 
 I have read this passage at length, not only 
 because of its intrinsic merit, but also because of 
 its evident meaning. It is obvious that it is meant 
 to propound doctrines similar to those which a dis- 
 tinguished writer has recently discussed under the 
 title. Happiness in Hell. It is remarkable that 
 the Codex Salmanticensis omits the whole passage 
 in this sense. Possibly it did not suit the views of 
 the transcriber. 
 
 In a week the provider came to them bringing 
 more food and drink, but warned them not to 
 drink of the fountain, as its waters were stupefy- 
 ing. He returned again at Pentecost, bringing 
 more, but bade them now provision the ship with 
 that water, and with dried bread. A week later 
 they started. When they were on the shore, one 
 of the birds came and perched upon the prow and 
 said, ' Ye have kept the holy day of the Passover 
 with us this year. Ye shall also keep the same 
 day with us in the year to come. And where ye 
 have been in the last year at the Supper of the 
 Lord, there shall ye be upon the said day in the 
 year to come. Likewise shall ye keep the Lord's 
 night, the Passover Supper, where ye have kept it 
 before, that is, upon the back of the monster 
 Jasconius. And after eight months ye shall find 
 
Brendan's fabulous voyage. 
 
 205 
 
 the isle which is called Ailbey. There shall ye 
 keep the birth of Christ.' And so he flew back, 
 and as the boat sailed away, all the birds sang, 
 * Answer us, O God of our salvation. Who art the 
 confidence of all the ends of the earth, and of them 
 that are afar ofl" upon the sea.' 
 
 They were wandering upon the sea for three 
 months, and afterwards came to the isle Ailbey, 
 where they stayed until the middle of January. 
 There is here described a monastery with twenty- 
 four monks, who were fed on miraculously provided 
 bread, and, except the Abbat, never spoke. 
 There is rather a curious description of the church, 
 which was square, with stalls round the walls. 
 It had three altars, all of crystal, as were all the 
 altar vessels, and seven lamps which were lit every 
 evening by a fiery arrow which came in and went 
 out at a window. 
 
 They left Ailbey, and were carried about on the 
 sea until the beginning of Lent. They then came 
 to an island where there was abundant vegetation, 
 roots, and streams full of fish, but some of the 
 brethren became insensible for one, two, or three 
 days, from drinking the water. I own that this and 
 the remark about the water in the Eden of Birds 
 seems to me to be very likely plagiarised from the 
 wine-river in Lucian's Traveller s Tale. Hence 
 they went north for three days, were beating about 
 for about twenty, and then eastward for three 
 more, and then came back for Maundy Thursday to 
 the isle of the provider, who again met them. All 
 went on as before, and a week after Pentecost they 
 started again from the Eden of the Birds. 
 
206 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 It will thus be observed that the real times of 
 voyaging in each year are limited to the months of 
 February and March, and from about the early 
 part of June to the middle of December. 
 
 Forty days after starting in this new year they 
 were much alarmed by a vast fish which seemed to 
 be coming after them to devour them, but it was 
 killed by another monster, breathing fire, which 
 appeared against it from the East, and tore it into 
 three pieces. 
 
 The next day they came to a large and grassy 
 island, where they found the tail portion of the 
 monster fish. On this island they beached the 
 ship, pitched the tent, and stayed three months, 
 during which the sea was too stormy for travel. 
 They lived for the three months on part of the 
 monster, the rest of which was devoured by beasts, 
 but another portion of a fish was afterwards 
 washed up, and they made a salt provision of it — 
 though, as to Brendan himself, it is remarked that 
 he was a consistent vegetarian, having never, since 
 his ordination, eaten anything wherein had been 
 the breath of life. Three days after this, the sea 
 being stiller, they set out again towards the North. 
 
 One day they saw an island in the distance, and 
 Brendan told them that there there were three 
 companies, of children, of young men, and of elders, 
 and that one of the three brethren last come was 
 there to make his earthly pilgrimage. They came 
 to shore. The island was so flat that it seemed 
 level with the sea. It had no trees nor anything 
 that wind can shake. It was vast, and was 
 covered with something which the Latin text calls 
 
Brendan's fabulous voyage. 
 
 207 
 
 scaltcB — a word which I have failed to find in 
 Ducange or in any other authority which I have 
 been able to consult. It is, however, evidently, 
 from the context, some kind of ground fruit, and 
 may perhaps be the strawberry or the blaeberry — 
 although the Latin for these seems to be generally 
 fragura and hacca myrtilii. This fruit was white 
 or 'purpureus—whQT&m another difficulty arises as 
 to the meaning of purpureus. The individual 
 berries were as big as large balls, and tasted like 
 honey. In this island were the three companies, 
 who seemed to be moving and standing in a kind 
 of sacred dance, two moving round while the one 
 which had taken the farthest place stood still and 
 sang, ' The Saints shall go from strength to 
 strength : the God of gods will appear in Zion.' 
 It is vexatious that here the question of colour 
 again arises, as something very picturesque is 
 evidently intended to be described. The company 
 of children were clad in pure and glistering white, 
 but the Latin, which is verbally followed by the 
 French, gives the colour of the young men's 
 garments as hyacinthine, and that of the elders' as 
 purple. I have consulted all the authorities upon 
 the question that I can. The result is that it is 
 disputed whether hyacinthine means red or blue or 
 both, and whether the Latin purple was red or 
 plum-coloured. I hazard the conjecture that there 
 is here an attempt to symbolize innocence, vigour, 
 and ripeness, and that as the first colour is 
 certainly white, the others may be red and what 
 we call purple. 
 
 The voyagers landed at the fourth hour (10 a.m.) 
 
208 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 and the dance went on until noon, when the three 
 companies sang together the Ixvii., the Ixx., and 
 the cxvi. Psalms, adding again, ' the God of gods 
 will appear in Zion.' At 3 p.m. they sang likewise 
 Psalms cxxx., cxxxiii., and what is called in the 
 Septuagint the cxlvii., viz., the last nine verses of 
 that so called in the A.Y. At even they sang the 
 Ixv., the civ., the cxiii., and then the whole 
 15 songs of degrees, during which they sat. 
 When this was done, a bright cloud overshadowed 
 the island, a cloud so bright that it blinded the 
 sight of the voyagers, but they could still hear the 
 sacred song going on without ceasing until mid- 
 night (vigilie matutincB) when they heard sung 
 Psalms cxlviii., cxlix., and cL, and then what are 
 called ' 12 Psalms according to the Psalter, up to 
 " The fool hath said in his heart," ' — an apparent 
 reference to the present Poman Breviary arrange- 
 ment by which the xth is united (as in the Septua- 
 gint) with the ixth, and the vth transferred out of 
 its order. As day broke, the cloud passed away 
 from over the island and the companies sang 
 Psalms li., xc, and Ixiii., and at 9 a.m. xlvii., liv., 
 and cxvi. From what this peculiar arrangement 
 of the Psalms is taken, I do not know. It is not 
 that of the Monastic Breviary, nor of the Poman, 
 nor of the Greek Church, nor is it that of the 
 Mozarabic, at least at present, but from its 
 excessive irregularity, in which it resembles the 
 Mozarabic, I guess that it may belong to some 
 Ephesine rite, as introduced by Patrick into 
 Ireland, and that it is here set down at length 
 because it was becoming obsolete in the days of 
 
Brendan's fabulous voyage. 
 
 209 
 
 the writer. Then they went to Communion. 
 After this, two of the company of young men 
 brought a basket full of the purple fruit, and put 
 it into the ship^ saying, ' Take ye of the fruit of 
 the strong men's isle, and give us our brother and 
 depart in peace.' Then Brendan called the brother 
 to him and said, ' Kiss thy brethren, and go with 
 them that call thee. I tell thee, brother, that in 
 a good hour did thy mother conceive thee, who 
 hast earned to dwell with such a congregation.' 
 So they bade him farewell with tears, and when he 
 came to the companies, they sang, ' Behold, how 
 good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell 
 together in unity,' and then the Tc Deum, and the 
 voyagers set out again upon their way. 
 
 The voyage now continues with two or three 
 comparatively trivial adventures. For twelve days 
 they lived upon the juice of the scaltae, after 
 which they fasted for three days. Then a bird 
 brought them a branch of an unknown tree, bear- 
 ing a bunch of bright red grapes, whereon they 
 lived for four days, and then fasted for three more. 
 On the last of these they sighted the island where 
 grew the grapes. It was thickly wooded, with 
 trees bending under the weight of the fruit, filled 
 with all manner of good vegetation, and exhaling 
 an odour like that of an house full of pomegranates 
 (mala punica). Here they landed, pitched the 
 tent, and stayed for forty days. 
 
 After they left this island they were much 
 alarmed by the sight of a griffin flying towards 
 them, but it was killed by another bird which 
 fought it in the air, and its body fell into the sea. 
 
210 
 
 ESSAYS OX HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 They reached the isle Ailbey in safety, and there 
 passed the midwinter as usual. 
 
 The following years are passed over with merely 
 the general statement that they went about much 
 in the ocean, and passed the usual seasons in the 
 usual places. It is mentioned that one midsummer 
 the sea was so clear for about a week that they 
 could see the marine animals lying at the bottom ; 
 and when Brendan sang, these came up and swam 
 round the ship. 
 
 It must be, as far as the chronoloofv of the 
 romance can be said to be fixed, intended to be 
 represented as in the February of the seventh year, 
 that the narrative again becomes continuous. 
 They saw one day a pillar standing in the sea, 
 which appeared to be near them, but Avhich they 
 did not reach for three days. Its top seemed to 
 pierce the clouds. At the distance of about a mile 
 it was surrounded on every hand by a sort of net- 
 work, of a material like silver, but harder than 
 marble. Thev drew in the oars and mast, and 
 passed through one of the interstices. The sea 
 within was as clear as glass, so that they could see 
 the bottom, with the lower part of the pillar and 
 the network resting upon it. The pillar was of 
 absolutely clear crystal, so that the light and heat 
 of the sun passed through it. It was forty cubits 
 broad on every side. On the south side they 
 found a chalice of the material of the network and 
 a paten of the material of the pillar. After passing 
 aojain out of the network, thev sailed for eis^ht 
 days towards the North, and here begins what 
 may be called the diabolical portion of the story. 
 
Brendan's fabulous voyage. 211 
 
 They saw one day a wild and rocky island, 
 without grass or tree, but full of smiths' forges. 
 The wind bore them past it at about a stone's 
 throw, and they could hear bellows roaring with a 
 sound like thunder, and hammers striking upon 
 anvils. Presently they saw one of the inhabitants 
 come out of a cave. He was shaggy and hideous, 
 burnt and dark. When he saw the ship, he ran 
 back howling into his workshop. Brendan imme- 
 diately bid hoist the sail and have out the oars. 
 While this was doing the creature appeared again 
 with a glowing mass of fused metal (massam 
 igneam de scorm) in pincers, which he hurled at 
 them. Where it struck the water about a furlong 
 from them, it made the sea boil and hiss. They 
 had only escaped about a mile when they saw 
 beings swarming out upon the shore, throwing 
 about molten masses, some after them and some at 
 one another, and then all went back into the forges 
 and set them blazing, until the whole island 
 seemed one mass of fire. The sea boiled like a 
 boiling cauldron, and all day long the travellers 
 heard an awful wailing. Even when they were 
 out of sight of the island, the howls still rang in 
 their ears, and the stench made their nostrils 
 smart. ' And Brendan said, "0 ye soldiers of 
 Christ, make you strong in faith not feigned, and 
 in the armour of the spirit, for we are upon the 
 coasts of hell. Watch, therefore, and play the 
 man." ' 
 
 The next day but one, they found the wind 
 bearing them down upon another mountain in the 
 sea, black as coal, reaching steep down to the sea, 
 
212 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 and whose top they could hardly see, but yet 
 wrapt in soft mists. When they came near it, the 
 sole remaining of the three last come brethren 
 jumped out of the ship and waded to shore. Sud- 
 denly he showed signs of terror, and cried out that 
 he was being carried away and could not return. 
 The brethren in horror pushed the ship away from 
 land, and started towards the South. When they 
 looked back they saw flames shooting up from the 
 top of the mountain, and then sinking in again, 
 and again surging up. It is a phenomenon familiar 
 to any one who has watched the top of a volcano 
 — often even of iron-works — and which has been 
 splendidly described in the account of the burning 
 essence of life in She. From this sight they fled 
 and journeyed for seven days toward the South. 
 
 We now reach an incident founded upon that 
 fact from the contemplation of which the human 
 mind perhaps shrinks more than from any other. 
 But the literary treatment of it is so curious and 
 striking, and is rendered all the more so, at least 
 to me, because I am aware of only one other 
 attempt to grapple with it in the whole cycle of 
 human invention, and that in the very highest 
 sphere of imaginative literature, that I think that 
 you will forgive me if I deal with it, and give at 
 anyrate a part of it in full. ' And after these 
 things,' says the novelist, ' the Father Brendan 
 saw as it were a very thick mist, and when they 
 drew nigh thereto, there appeared unto them a 
 little shape as it had been the shape of a man 
 sitting upon a stone, and before him a veil of the 
 size of a bag hanging between two forks of iron, 
 
Brendan's fabulous voyage. 213 
 
 and thus the waves beat him about as it were a 
 boat when it is in peril in a tempest. And when 
 the brethren saw it, some of them thought that it 
 had been a bird, and others thought that it had 
 been a ship. Then the man of God answered 
 them, " Brethren, let be this strife, and turn the 
 ship unto the place." And when the man of God 
 drew nigh thereto, the waves round about stood 
 still as though they had been frozen. And they 
 found sitting upon a stone a man shaggy and mis- 
 shapen, and from every side when the waves came 
 upon him, they smote him up to the crown of his 
 head ; and when again they fell away from him 
 then was seen the stone whereon the unhappy one 
 sat. And the wind moved about from time to 
 time the cloth that was before him, and it smote 
 him upon the eyes and upon the forehead. And 
 when the blessed one asked him who he was, and 
 for what fault he was set there, and how he had 
 merited such punishment, he said, I am that 
 most unhappy Judas, the worst of bargainers. 
 Neither for any desert of mine do I have this 
 place, but through the pardon and pity of the 
 Redeemer of the world, and in honour of His holy 
 resurrection, have I this rest " (now, it was the 
 Lord's Day), " and when I sit here it seemeth to 
 me as though I were in the Garden of Eden, by 
 reason of the torments which I shall have this 
 even, for when I am in torment I am like a bit of 
 lead molten in a crucible day and night. In the 
 midst of the mountain which ye have seen, there is 
 Leviathan with his crew, and I was there when it 
 swallowed up your brother, and therefore hell was 
 
214 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 glad, and sent forth great flames, and thus doth it 
 ever when it devoureth the souls of the wicked. 
 But that ye may know the measureless goodness 
 of God, I will tell you of my rest. I have here my 
 rest every Lord's Day from evening to evening 
 
 ' and then follow some words as to other 
 
 days which are evidently corrupted both in 
 Jubinal's text and in that of the Salamanca MS. 
 Then it continues, ' " But the other days I am tor- 
 mented with Herod and Pilate, with Annas and 
 Caiphas ; and therefore I beseech you for the sake 
 of the Redeemer of the world, that ye be pleased 
 to plead for me with the Lord Jesus that it be 
 granted me to be here until to-morrow at the 
 rising of the sun, that at your coming the devils 
 may not torment me nor carry me away unto that 
 evil heritage which I have bought unto myself" ' 
 This is done. There is some talk, from which it 
 appears that the cloth is one which Judas once 
 gave to a leper, the forks some which he had given 
 to Priests whereon to hang pots, and the stone 
 whereon he sits, one with which he had once filled 
 up an hole in a public highway. The whole 
 episode closes thus : — ' At the breaking of the day, 
 when the man of God began to take his journey, 
 behold, an infinite multitude of devils covered the 
 face of the deep, speaking with dreadful voices and 
 saying, " 0 man of God, cursed be thy coming in 
 and thy going out, for our prince hath scourged 
 us this night with grievous stripes, because we 
 brought him not that accursed prisoner." And 
 the man of God saith unto them, " Let that curse 
 be not upon us but upon you, for blessed is he 
 
Brendan's fabulous voyage. 215 
 
 whom ye curse, and cursed is he whom ye bless." 
 The devils said, " That unhappy Judas shall suffer 
 double pains these six days, because ye have 
 shielded him this night." The saint saith unto 
 them, " Ye have no power, neither your princes, 
 for power is of God." And he said, " In the name 
 of the Lord, I command you and your prince that 
 ye put him to no greater torments than ye have 
 been wont." They answered him, " Art thou the 
 Lord of all, that we should obey thy words ? " 
 The man of God saith unto them, " I am the ser- 
 vant of the Lord of all ; and whatsoever I com- 
 mand in His Name, it is done ; and I have no 
 ministry save of them whom he giveth me." And 
 so they followed him, continually blaspheming, 
 until he was borne away from Judas ; and the 
 devils went back and lifted up that most un- 
 happy soul among them, with a great rushing and 
 shouting.' 
 
 This subject is one which ought not to be treated 
 at all. It ought to be left veiled in the unknown, 
 as it has been left for us by the Infinite Mercy 
 from Whose revelation we know all that we know 
 about it. As a matter of fact, I am only aware, 
 as I have stated, of one other writer besides this 
 Irish romancer, who has treated it. That writer 
 is Dante. At the lowest depth of his Inferno sits 
 Satan munching Brutus, Cassius, and Judas in his 
 threefold mouth. Brutus and Cassius have their 
 heads and upper parts hanging outside the mouth. 
 
 ' Queir anima lassu, c' ha maggior pena,' 
 Disse '1 Maestro, ' e Ginda Scariotto, 
 Che '1 capo ha dentro, e fuor le gambe mena.' 
 
216 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 The traditional epithet which the world has justly- 
 attached to the name of Dante Alighieri is ' the 
 Sublime.' I am almost afraid to say it, but we all 
 know how proverbially short is the distance be- 
 tween the sublime and the ridiculous. And I 
 venture to submit to the private personal thought 
 of each of you whether it be not merely the horror 
 of the subject and of the conception, and the 
 almost stupefying grandeur of the poetry, which 
 separates this idea from the grotesque ; and 
 whether, if the thing be to be touched at all, the 
 old Irish fabulist has not produced a conception 
 both more tender and more truly tragic. 
 
 They then go for three days southward and find 
 a small precipitous rocky island, quite round, and 
 about one furlong in circumference. Here they 
 find a narrow landing-place, and dwelling on the 
 summit an hermit aged one hundred and forty 
 years, of which he had passed ninety in the island. 
 He had no clothes except his own hair, which was 
 long and white. He was an Irishman named 
 Paul, and had known Patrick. For thirty years 
 he had lived on fish brought him by a beast, pre- 
 sumably an otter, in its fore-paws, along with fuel 
 wherewith to cook it, and which he kindled by 
 striking a flint, and for sixty years upon the water 
 of a spring. He gave them of the water of the 
 spring, and bade them go their way, telling them 
 that in forty days they would keep the Passover 
 as usual, and so also Pentecost, and thereafter 
 would they find ' the land holier than all lands.' 
 
 They remained therefore on the open sea during 
 all Lent, living only on the water of the hermit's 
 
Brendan's fabulous voyage. 
 
 217 
 
 spring, and passed Easter and Pentecost in the 
 usual places. But this was the last time. Their 
 provider came to them and said, ' Get ye up into 
 the ship and fill your bottles with the water of 
 this fountain. I also now will be the companion 
 and leader of your journey, for without me ye can- 
 not find the land which ye seek, even the land 
 which is promised unto the Saints.' As they em- 
 barked, all the white birds sang in chorus, ' The 
 God of our salvation make your way prosperous ' 
 (Ps. Ixvii. 20, Vulg.). They went to their pro- 
 vider's island and there took in provision for other 
 forty days and set forth. And now comes the 
 discovery of the Land of Promise, which I had 
 better read in full : — 
 
 And when forty days were past, and the even- 
 ing was drawing on, a great darkness covered 
 them, so that scarcely could one see another. 
 Then the provider saith to holy Brendan, " Father, 
 knowest thou what is this darkness ? " The Saint 
 saith, "Brethren, I know not." Then saith the 
 other, " This darkness is round about that island 
 which ye have sought for seven years. Behold, ye 
 see it : enter ye into it." And after the space of 
 an hour, a great light shone round about them, 
 and the ship stood upon the shore. When they 
 went out of the ship, they saw a land, broad, and 
 full of fruit-bearing trees, as in the time of autumn, 
 They went round about that land as long as they 
 were in it. They had no night there, but the light 
 shone as the sun shineth in his season. And so 
 for forty days they went about through that land, 
 but they could not find the end thereof But 
 
 15 
 
218 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 upon a certain day they found a great river which 
 they could not pass, running through the midst of 
 the island. Then saith the holy man unto the 
 brethren, " We cannot pass over this river, and we 
 know not how large is this land." While they 
 thought upon these things, behold, there came to 
 meet them a young man with glorious countenance 
 and comely to look upon, who kisseth them with 
 great joy, and calleth them everyone by his own 
 name, and saith, " 0 brethren, peace be unto you, 
 and unto all who have followed after the peace of 
 Christ," and after this he said, moreover, " Blessed 
 are they that dwell in Thine house, 0 Lord : they 
 will be still praising Thee." After these words, he 
 saith unto holy Brendan, " Behold the land which 
 ye have sought of a long time. But for this cause 
 have ye not been able to find it since ye began to 
 seek it, because the Lord Christ hath willed to 
 show unto thee divers of His hidden things in this 
 great and wide sea. Return thou therefore unto 
 the land of thy birth, and take with thee of these 
 fruits, and of precious stones as much as thy ship 
 may hold. For the days of thy pilgrimage are 
 drawing near at hand, that thou mayest sleep with 
 thine holy brethren. But after many times this 
 land shall be made known unto them that shall 
 come after thee, when it shall be helpful in the 
 tribulation of the Christians. The river which ye 
 see divideth this island, and even as now it 
 appeareth unto you ripe in fruits, so is it at every 
 time without shadow or foulness. For the light 
 shineth in it without failing." Then holy Brendan 
 saith unto the young man, " Lord father, tell me if 
 
Brendan's fabulous voyage. 
 
 219 
 
 this land shall ever be revealed unto men." And 
 he saith, " When the Almighty Creator shall have 
 made all nations subject unto Him, then shall this 
 land be made known unto all His elect." And 
 after these things, Father Brendan took a blessing 
 from the young man, and began to return by his 
 way whereby he had come, taking of the fruits of 
 that land and of sorts of precious stones ; and 
 when he had sent away the man that provided for 
 them, who had prepared meat for him and for the 
 brethren season by season, he went up into the 
 ship with the brethren, through the darkness, 
 whence he had begun to sail. And when they had 
 passed through it, they came unto the Isle 
 Delightsome, and when he had been entertained 
 there for the space of three days, he took a blessing 
 from the father of the monastery, and then under 
 God's leading came straight to his own monastery.' 
 
 It remains to make some remark upon the 
 character and possible sources of this curious 
 composition. 
 
 In connection with fabulous voyages, it is 
 natural to think not only of Lucian's Traveller s 
 True Tale, but also of Gullivers Travels, but these 
 are skits, satirizing with wild wit certain features 
 of life which lay before the authors. The gravity 
 of Brendan's Voyage renders it impossible to place 
 it in any such category. It can hardly be said to 
 contain any grotesque adventure except that of 
 the monster's back, and from the way in which 
 this is told, it is evident that it did not appear 
 grotesque to the narrator ; and the religious tone 
 of the whole thing forbids any such explanation. 
 
220 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 On the other hand, I cannot perceive any hidden 
 meaning in it which would assign it to the same 
 class of allegorical romance of which Bunyan's 
 Pilgrims Progress is the most famous example. 
 
 It is impossible that it could ever have been 
 intended to be believed. Some of the incidents 
 are so obviously fabulous — for instance, that of 
 Judas, — that such an hypothesis would be simply 
 to condemn the author as a profane forger, and his 
 tone is much too pious for that ; besides which, 
 there would have been no possible motive ; and 
 again, although this romance stands alone or 
 nearly alone in the popularity which it has 
 attained outside its own country, as Professor 
 O'Curry remarks, it does not stand by any means 
 alone within the native literature of that country, 
 albeit its literary merit may place it above all or 
 nearly all the old Irish compositions of its class. 
 It is, however, an extraordinary fact that it has 
 actually been sometimes taken for sober truth. 
 This has not been, I think, so much the case in 
 Ireland. There are, it is true, one or two incidents 
 in the Life which may be remotely identified at 
 bottom with incidents in the Voyage, there is even 
 mention of the Land of Promise, but I am more 
 inclined to regard these as, more or less, distorted 
 legendary statements about Brendan's real career, 
 afterwards seized upon, magnified, and worked in 
 by the romancer, than as incidents of the romancer 
 appropriated and nationalized into comparative 
 possibility by the biographer. Thus the Land of 
 Promise may have been a fond title for the 
 imaginary site of a monastery for which he was 
 
Brendan's fabulous voyage. 
 
 221 
 
 seeking in the Western Isles. But even in Ireland 
 the son of Finnlogh O' Alta seemingly obtained a 
 character for certain adventures which must have 
 been taken from the fable, and the Martyrology of 
 Donegal gravely refers to the Voyage as well as to 
 the Life as an authority upon the subject, although 
 I confess I can hardly believe that Cuimin of 
 Condeire was not jesting when he wrote the 
 verse — 
 
 ' Brenainn loves constaur, piety, 
 According to the synod and congregation ; 
 Seven years on a whale's back he spent ; 
 It was a difficult mode of piety.' 
 
 It was, however, outside Ireland, in countries 
 where less was known of the facts, and the Voyage 
 was isolated from other works of its class, that this 
 romance was most largely accepted as serious 
 matter of fact. The possession of St. Brendan's 
 Isle whenever it should be discovered was, accord- 
 ing to M. Jubinal, actually made the subject of 
 State documents, and he names no less than four 
 maritime expeditions which were despatched in 
 search of it, the last from Santa Cruz in Tenerife 
 in 1721, at the instance of Don Juan de Mur, 
 Governor of the Canaries, and under the command 
 of Caspar Dominguez. I must, however, avow 
 that I have great difficulty in believing that such 
 an expedition as this could have been motived by 
 any other hypothesis than that the romance was 
 the legendary record of some really existing island 
 in the Atlantic. 
 
 The mention of such a belief brings me to the 
 consideration of another and very different form of 
 
222 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 what I may call the naturalistic school of inter- 
 pretation. This theory throws overboard the 
 whole of the elements of the class commonly called 
 supernatural, and even treats the identity of the 
 voyagers as a matter of comparative indifference, 
 but it sees in the wild narrative a distorted and 
 legendary account of some actual voyage and some 
 actual adventures and discoveries in the Atlantic. 
 By some the Canary Ai:chipelago, with perhaps 
 Madeira, the Cape de Yerd Islands, and some parts 
 of the African coast, if not even the Azores, have 
 been supposed to be the original scene of the 
 wanderings of some early navigators, even if not of 
 Brendan, and the Burning Island with its savage 
 inhabitants, and the infernal volcano would of 
 course be interpreted of the great volcano of 
 Tenerife. But a more interesting interpretation 
 is that which sees in the voyage of Brendan a dis- 
 torted account of some ancient voyage by the 
 Western Islands, the Orkneys and Shetlands, the 
 Faroe Isles, Iceland, and finally to the coast of 
 America. I need not remind you that the earliest 
 voyages to America of which we have historical 
 accounts are those of the Norsemen, who, as early 
 as the year 1001, proceeded so far South as to 
 come into a land where the vine was growing wild, 
 and which they consequently named Yineland. It 
 matters comparatively little to the naturalistic 
 interpretation of this romance whether it be based 
 upon mutilated and gossiping accounts of the 
 voyages of the Norsemen, or upon some still earlier 
 adventures of which all truly historical record has 
 perished. The shores of America here become the 
 
Brendan's fabulous voyage. 223 
 
 Land of Promise, the clouds which veil it are the 
 fogs of the coasts of Newfoundland or Labrador, 
 the great and impassable river which divides it, 
 perhaps the St. Lawrence : the crystal column is 
 an iceberg : the rough and rocky island, and the 
 black, cloud-piercing volcano, which burnt in the 
 midst of the Northern Ocean, are Iceland and its 
 volcanoes ; the Eden of white birds is some region, 
 perhaps the Faroes, where sea-fowl congregate in 
 vast flocks : and the minor isles are to be more or 
 less identified with some of those of the several 
 archipelagos, many of which, in the time of the 
 romancer, if not in that of Brendan, possessed halls, 
 monasteries, and hermits. It may be urged as one 
 of the main objections to this theory that it is 
 almost outside the bounds of possibility that a 
 corach could make such a voyage, but it is perhaps 
 only fair to remark that in the Life, although not 
 in the Voyage, it is stated that after the first five 
 years of the wanderings Brendan returned to 
 Ireland, where, among other things, he went to see 
 Ita, and the narrative then continues : ' She 
 received him with joy and honour, and said, " O 
 my beloved, wherefore hast thou tried without my 
 counsel ? Thou wilt not gain the Land of Promise 
 borne in the hides of dead beasts. Thou wilt find 
 it with a ship made of boards." So he went into 
 Connaught, and embarked with 60 disciples in a 
 ship skilfully made of boards, and toiled in 
 voyaging for two years ; and at length came to 
 the island where he would be.' This island, how- 
 ever, is only one with an old man dressed in 
 feathers, who calls it * an holy land, polluted by 
 
224 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 no blood, open for the burial of no sinner, . 
 a land like Eden,' but this seems to be the 
 only Land of Promise which was known to the 
 biographer. 
 
 While, however, I willingly make a present of 
 this passage to the naturalistic interpreters, I do 
 not accept their interpretation. As I have said, I 
 look upon Brendan's wanderings in the Western 
 Isles soon after his ordination, in search of a place 
 wherein to found a monastery, as the only scrap of 
 historical basis, at any rate as far as he was con- 
 cerned, which the romance possesses. The Life 
 says that he reached many islands, but instances 
 only two, one of these being the so-called Land of 
 Promise as above, and the incidents are not of a 
 very startling character. No one on the other 
 hand will deny that the Voyage narrates a series 
 of incidents ol a very startling character indeed, 
 and it seems to me beyond possibility that some of 
 them, such as the Judas episode, can have even a 
 legendary basis, or be anything but pure, unmiti- 
 gated, intentional, avowed, undisguised fiction, like 
 the incidents of any novel of the present day. It 
 seems to me that there is in the romance more 
 resemblance to Lucian's Travellers True Tale than 
 is likely to be accidental, and the Land of Promise 
 indeed occupies a position somewhat similar to 
 that held by the Islands of the Blest in that re- 
 markable skit. Again I think that the Burning 
 Island with its forges, and its monstrous inhabit- 
 ants hurling rocks into the sea after the voyagers, 
 and the great black volcano piercing the clouds, is 
 very suggestive of Etna and the Cyclopes as de- 
 
Brendan's fabulous voyage. 
 
 225 
 
 scribed in the Odyssey. It must be remembered 
 that Greek scholarship was a good deal cultivated 
 in antient Ireland. My own impression is that 
 the author, whoever he was, was a very pious man, 
 who had read Homer and Lucian, and to whom it 
 occurred that it would be a nice thing to write an 
 imaginary voyage which might unite similar ele- 
 ments of interest and excitement with the inculca- 
 tion of Christian, religious, and moral sentiments. 
 For his own purposes he plagiarized them a little, 
 and I am very far from wishing to contend that it 
 is impossible that he may also have worked in 
 some vague accounts of the wonders of America, 
 which had reached his ears from the adventurous 
 voyages of the Norsemen, if indeed his date were 
 late enough, possibly of even earlier navigators, 
 now to us unknown. But as an whole, I look 
 upon the Fabulous Voyage as a composition which 
 is really only differentiated by the elements due to 
 the time and place of birth from religious novels 
 such as those which enrich the pages of the Leisure 
 Hour or the Sunday at Home. 
 
ST. ANDEEWS. 
 
 (Rectorial Address.) 
 
 npHE position to which I have had the honour of 
 being elected has surrounded me with a good 
 many elements of the new or of the unexpected. 
 My installation, indeed, is but a few moments old, 
 but those who know anything of the circumstances 
 of my election know that that election was in no 
 way anticipated by me. My adventures since 
 have not been of a character which I foresaw. 
 Nor can I even exclude from the category of the 
 unforeseen much kindness with which I have been 
 treated, for it has been greater than any for which 
 I was entitled to look. But there is one feature 
 about my office in which there is for me nothing 
 new. That feature is St. Andrews itself I may, 
 indeed, claim that my affection for this place has 
 hitherto been life-long. My mother, like so many 
 others, sometimes came here about August and Sep- 
 tember — how often, I do not remember, for these 
 sojourns enter dimly into the region of some of the 
 very earliest recollections which I have, and these 
 memories, associated with that of the only parent 
 whom I ever knew, and with those of friends of 
 hers, nearly all of whom are now passed away, 
 form elements in that mental store which is now 
 
 227 
 
228 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 become sacred for me without becoming sorrowful. 
 I dimly recall the old garden of St. Leonards and 
 a variety of mechanical toys working by wind and 
 water with which Sir Hugh Lyon Play fair had 
 adorned it. The art of taking photographs was 
 then new, and he was rather an enthusiastic 
 amateur in it, and fond of getting my mother and 
 her friends to sit for him. I think I have some of 
 the results now. There was Sir David Brewster, 
 who gave me a kaleidoscope, an instrument which 
 was, I believe, of his invention, and was then still 
 regarded by his contemporaries as somewhat a 
 new thing ; and I have a faint remembrance of 
 some other optical machine of his, I think of a 
 rotatory character. I remember gazing from St. 
 Andrews at the great comet which there was 
 about the time of the Indian Mutiny, and when 
 we were living in the Principal of St. Mary's 
 house, my kinsman, Charles M'Lean, came home 
 wounded from India and stayed with us, and with 
 his maimed hand gave me some elementary lessons 
 in fortification, with wet sand in a box. I think 
 St. Mary's must have been the last house in St. 
 Andrews where we stayed. I am one of those 
 ])ersons of perhaps disputable prudence, who keep 
 a Diary, and I find under date of July 20, 1889 — 
 ' to St. Andrews . . . saw the last of the old 
 garden of St. Mary's College, where I used to play 
 (and eat unripe pears) as a child : they are going 
 to build the library extension over it.' Well, I 
 can only hope that the fruits of the tree of know- 
 ledge, to the cultivation of which that spot is now- 
 dedicated, may prove less crude and more whole- 
 
ST. ANDREWS. 
 
 229 
 
 some than the grosser dainties to the attractions 
 of which I there formerly yielded. 
 
 As I grew towards manhood, I did not put 
 away childish things in the sense of losing my 
 feelings towards this place. And I remember 
 when I was at Oxford, and was going one Long 
 Vacation to Iceland in company with an English 
 friend (now the secretary of one of Her Majesty's 
 present ministers), I stopped the yacht here in 
 order to show him with pride the only place in 
 Scotland, as far as I know, whose appearance can 
 boast any kinship with that of Oxford. And, 
 indeed, if the buildings here be comparatively few, 
 they would be proud enough at Oxford of the 
 tower and chapel of St. Salvator, they never had 
 any building such as is the Cathedral, even in its 
 ruins, they have nothing to compare to the tower 
 of St. liegulus, and no walls like those of Prior 
 Hepburn. And the glorious surroundings of 
 nature .here rise above any comparison with the 
 site of Oxford amid flat meadows surrounded by 
 tame hills, upon the banks of a small, sluggish 
 river, and annually insulated for a longer or 
 shorter period by floods. 
 
 I was going to have added that St. Andrews 
 had also the advantage over Oxford of emerging 
 into the light of history from the glittering haze 
 of the heroic myth, instead of from the dark fogs 
 of uncertainty, occasionally illuminated by the 
 fitful will-o'-the-wisp of doubtful conjecture. But 
 I am not fond of the heroic myth when I can get 
 facts and even fair suppositions drawn from facts. 
 And St. Andrews needs not the heroic myth in 
 
230 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 order to clothe its birth or its history with lustre. 
 Its real history is noble. And as time advances, 
 and the romance of youth becomes ever more and 
 more distant, and the sober desire for historic and 
 scientific truth waxes stronger, it seems to me all 
 the more precious for being a real history which is 
 recoverable from documents, and of which what 
 must still be the subject of conjecture, is at least 
 conjecture based upon good circumstantial evid- 
 ence. How much has been done for that history 
 by the late William Skene it would be unseemly 
 here not to acknowledge, and the field which his 
 learning covered was so vast that it is no dis- 
 paragement to him to say that he has left in it 
 much which has yet to be gleaned, or that a con- 
 sultation of the authorities may sometimes lead to 
 the respectful formation upon particular points of 
 conclusions other than his. 
 
 I look upon the history of St. Andrews as 
 especially precious here as a continual expression 
 of and witness to the spirit of the Scottish nation- 
 ality in the higher spheres of thought and activity. 
 There is, of course, a true and a false nationalism. 
 It seems to me to be a false nationalism when, as I 
 think is done by Erastianism, it is attempted to 
 render amenable to political and even artificial dis- 
 tinctions things which are by their very nature 
 either true or false, not only in every part of this 
 planet, not only in this system, but universally. 
 It is a true nationalism which recognises and acts 
 upon those racial instincts and characteristics 
 which are eradicable only with the races them- 
 selves. The developments of these instincts and 
 
ST. ANDREWS. 
 
 231 
 
 characteristics may be modified, but to ignore their 
 existence and endeavour to thwart their mani- 
 festation is merely a useless and harmful fighting 
 against nature. This extends into the modes of 
 religious thought and practice as well as to other 
 things. It would be no doubt an exaggeration to 
 say that the conversion of an Aryan country to 
 Christianity is no more than the infusion of Shem- 
 itism into its religion ; but I have seen a certain 
 amount of people of different races and of different 
 religions, and the result of my observation is that 
 those who are of the same race, and of different 
 religions, resemble one another more even in their 
 religious practices than do those who are of the 
 same religion but of different races. I might take 
 divers examples, which I abstain from citing for 
 fear of hurting the feelings of any good people, 
 but I think I cannot be blamed for taking two or 
 three which are historic. You cannot have helped 
 remarking how parts of the English population in 
 the reigns of Henry VIII. and Edward YI. dis- 
 played great indifference upon the subject of what 
 really were fundamentals, but rose in rebellion 
 over changes in certain adjuncts which were of no 
 comparative importance. And I verily believe 
 that if the parish churches among those people's 
 descendants were turned into Buddhist temples 
 to-morrow, they would regard you with perfect 
 equanimity while you held forth to them upon the 
 Causal Nexus of Being, or upon that Nirvana 
 which Wagner has so beautifully called ' love's 
 endless, dreamless sleep.' What they would not 
 like would probably be the priest wearing a yellow 
 
232 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 robe. It is, I believe, a certain fact that the 
 statues of Reason which were set up in the French 
 Churches at the time of the Great Revolution 
 became in not infrequent cases the objects of the 
 same observances as had, a few years before, sur- 
 rounded in the same places statues representing 
 very different things. No one, again, can read the 
 suggestions for religious practices which Augustus 
 Comte has made to his disciples without being 
 struck by their resemblance to those which prevail 
 among the majority of French Christians. As to 
 Scotland, I may recall to you the rather hyperboli- 
 cal saying, ascribed (on I forget Avhat authority) 
 to James YIL, to the effect that every Scotchman, 
 to whatever Church he may belong, and however 
 sincerely, is always a Presbyterian. 
 
 I look, then, upon St. Andrews and her history 
 as a singularly pure type, presentment, and symbol 
 of the distinctive genius of the Scottish race ener- 
 gizing in the highest field of thought, a chief 
 witness to, and monument of, the Scottish national 
 history in its most ideal and elevated aspects. In 
 such a type, while the whole is, as I think, and 
 have said, controlled, through the very force of 
 nature, by physiological causes, the introduction of 
 Christianity has necessitated the existence of two 
 elements. They are elements which here have 
 harmonized as a patriotic State supporting a 
 patriotic Church. The secular or State element is 
 the Scottish nationality, of which the southern of 
 the two Roman walls in Britain was perhaps even 
 originally a witness, perhaps, after the invasion of 
 Britain by the English and Saxons, in one sense a 
 
ST. ANDREWS. 
 
 233 
 
 partial cause, in any case has been, and, as I 
 think, is the great geographical expression. The 
 Christian element has been based upon things 
 which are contemporary not with the invasion 
 of Britain by the English but with that by the 
 Romans. I mean the difference between the so- 
 called Petrine and the Joannine Liturgical families. 
 I need not remind the student of Christian Litur- 
 giology that all the antient Liturgies contain in 
 common a certain skeleton or ground-work, and 
 certain formulae, which for this reason can hardly 
 fail to be ascribed to the Apostolic era itself, 
 most probably even to a time before the dis- 
 persion of the Apostles, but that after these 
 features of a common origin to which all alike 
 bear witness, the early forms of Christian worship 
 divide themselves into five heads. It is true that 
 in these cases the difference of the lex orandi 
 implied no difference in the lex credendi, but they 
 sometimes became identified with discussions such 
 as the Paschal controversy, which some, such as 
 the Canterbury school, did their very best to drag 
 into the sphere of doctrine. Indeed, the represen- 
 tatives of that school at Whitby, in 664, strove, 
 more or less honestly, to represent Columba as 
 being set up as a rival to the Apostle Peter. If 
 they had named the Apostle John, it would not 
 have been true, but it would have been nearer the 
 mark. Perhaps they did not dare. As for the 
 five Liturgical families — with the Egyptian, the 
 Syrian, and the Chaldean, we need not here con- 
 cern ourselves. But the Italian, commonly called 
 Petrine, and the Ephesine or Joannine have 
 
 16 
 
234 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 divided the Western world. The early history of 
 the Italian is turbid. Without going the lengths 
 of Renan, I think it will be generally admitted 
 that there are some indications of a Pauline as 
 well as of a Petrine tradition, and the period at 
 which what was originally, as we all know, a 
 Greek Church, became, under influences which 
 were possibly African, a Latin Church, is wrapped 
 in absolute mystery. On the other hand, the 
 Joannine Liturgy is recognized on all hands as 
 springing from the tradition of the beloved disciple, 
 from the very home of her whom all generations 
 shall call blessed. It was brought to Lyons by 
 Irenseus, the disciple of Polycarp, the disciple of 
 John. The local tradition of the Churches — prob- 
 able enough, I think — bring it to Marseilles with 
 the family of Bethany, Martha, and Mary, and 
 Lazarus. Under the circumstances, its history 
 presents a curious phenomenon, and it is almost 
 startling to read the language applied to it, for 
 instance, by ' T,' the biographer of St. Margaret. 
 It has now practically no rest for the sole of its 
 foot except in a side-chapel of the Cathedral of 
 Toledo, and even that it owes only to the cultured 
 patriotism of Cardinal Ximenes. 
 
 What were the forms of Christian worship pre- 
 valent in Britain during the Roman occupation, it 
 is unnecessary here and now to discuss. I hazard 
 the conjecture that they very probably varied, 
 according to the nationalities of the troops quar- 
 tered in the island, or of the other immigrants 
 from different parts of the Empire, in the same way 
 that different forms of worship are to be found at 
 
ST. ANDREWS. 
 
 235 
 
 the present moment in use among the British 
 population of India. The author of the hfe of 
 Brendan of Cluainferta (I speak of the Life, not of 
 the Romance) mentions a Greek Liturgy as in use 
 in Wales in the Vlth Century. This is at least a 
 proof that he believed such a thing to be possible ; 
 if it be true, it may throw some light upon the 
 tradition of Eleutherius and Lleurwg, as showing 
 a possible survival from that epoch. But before 
 the Romans had finally evacuated Britain, our 
 illustrious compatriot, Patrick M'Calphurn, w^as 
 born near Dunbarton. What the form of Christ- 
 ianity was which he introduced into Ireland can 
 hardly be said to have admitted of any question 
 before, but the publication by the BoUandists in 
 1882 of the Wurzburg Codex of the Life by 
 Muirchu Maccumachtheni, appears to me to clinch 
 it by rendering no longer reasonable any doubt 
 that in the words of that Life, ' he went forth 
 no farther ' than Auxerre, but sat at the feet of 
 Germanus, ' according to that which Paul was at 
 the feet of Gamaliel,' and that his ' brethren,' (as 
 he himself expresses it) were ' the Saints of the 
 Lord ... in the Gauls.' This was undoubtedly 
 the form of Christianity re-imported into what is 
 now called Scotland, by Columba, in 563. The 
 mission of Columba has indeed perished as regards 
 its merely Liturgical practices, and their very 
 monuments are scant. But in its essence, as the 
 abiding idea of a national and nationalist Church, 
 it will be generally confessed to have ultimately 
 dominated hitherto anything which it found before 
 it, and anything which it has since been sought to 
 
236 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 introduce into it. It lives mightily. Whatever 
 denomination people belong to in Scotland at this 
 day, they are all eager, with hardly a single if any 
 exception, to claim that they most truly represent 
 the ideas of Columba. I do not believe that his 
 memory ever received so wide a veneration as it 
 does at this moment. 
 
 And it is with this birth of the distinctively 
 patriotic National Scottish Church, as opposed to 
 what had thitherto been rather the Churches of 
 Roman Cantonments, that what had been thitherto 
 merely the Wild Boars' Headland, first, but at 
 once, becomes in the very light of Columba's own 
 day, if not actual presence, a sacred spot. There 
 are two names connected with the sowing of that 
 grain of mustard-seed which afterwards grew into 
 such a tree, in whose branches so many a mind of 
 soaring thought and thrilling voice has found a 
 congenial home. The first of these two is Kenneth 
 of Aghaboe, the intimate personal friend of 
 Columba, whom he accompanied when he first 
 went to see Brude, the King of the Picts, and 
 whom he survived for only three years, dying in 
 600. Of his historic greatness in Ireland, it is 
 needless to speak. His fame is attested in Scot- 
 land by the continual popular use of his name, as 
 well as by the dedication of churches. I am, how- 
 ever, inclined to think, with Dr. Skene, that, when 
 he is named in connection with St. Andrews, the 
 phrase is used rather loosely, much as one might 
 say that the Charing Cross Railway Station is in 
 London, whereas it is really west of Temple Bar, 
 and that, familiar as he must have been with the 
 
ST. ANDREWS. 
 
 237 
 
 Promontorium Apri, the actual scene of his tempo- 
 rary abode is more probably to be found outside 
 its swampy moat. The second name is that of 
 Regulus. With him the questiori is different. A 
 tower raised in his memory, when that memory 
 was less than half as distant as it now is, still rises 
 above us, and his connection with the actual spot 
 is intimate. But very little is now known about 
 him. He belongs almost completely to that 
 curious class of whom it has been said, with a 
 certain quaint beauty, that ' their memories are 
 justly venerated among men, but their acts are 
 known only to God.' I have not succeeded in 
 finding any date assigned as that of his death, but 
 one of the few statements regarding him associates 
 him with a moment more interesting than that 
 which a barren entry of decease would record. It 
 was soon after the accession of Aidan M'Gabhrain, 
 that great Prince from whom not only is our pre- 
 sent Koyal Family descended, and in right of 
 whom they may be said to reign, but who un- 
 doubtedly was the first monarch who proclaimed 
 the national independence of the Scottish Kingdom, 
 and who is regarded by Dr. Skene as the founder 
 of the Scottish monarchy more really than even 
 Fergus M'Erca, while he also seems to have been 
 the last man who actually represented the Roman 
 Emperors, as commanding the united forces of 
 all Christian Britain. Only the year before 
 Columba, in obedience, as he believed, to a direct 
 revelation from Heaven which had substituted the 
 Divine Will for his own, had ordained him King in 
 lona with such a tremor of patriotic and religious 
 
238 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 emotion, that while his hand was resting upon the 
 august head the very words of Benediction which 
 he was reciting had been broken by an unpre- 
 meditated outburst of prophecy and warning. 
 In 574 the hero and the saint went together to 
 Drumceatt, to claim the independence of the 
 Scottish Kingdom. Before he returned, Columba 
 founded the Church of Drumcliffe, and among 
 those who met him upon the occasion to do him 
 honour was Begulus. 
 
 From the few facts and the jumble of contradic- 
 tory fictions, I think we may at least gather that 
 Regulus was a contemporary, and a friend, per- 
 haps a disciple of Columba, who retired at some 
 time to the then solitude of the Boars' Headland. 
 There is certainly a curious coincidence between 
 this name of the Boars' Headland, with the Cursus 
 Apri and the rest of it, and that of the Boars' 
 Isle in Lough Derg on the Shannon with which 
 the name of Begulus is elsewhere associated. And 
 I venture to hazard a conjecture. I cannot identify 
 the isle among the many which stud Lough Derg, 
 but I find that the Lough is fairly deep. Pigs 
 notoriously swim very badly, and I strongly doubt 
 whether wild boars would ever make an habitual 
 resort of an island in deep water. Whence then 
 the name ? At St. Andrews it is fitting enough, 
 as this isolated headland is separated from the 
 mainland only by a swampy valley with a little 
 stream where the boars would have wallowed and 
 whence they could have sought a drier refuge on 
 the higher ground. Is it possible that Regulus 
 went over into Scotland after Columba, later 
 
ST. ANDREWS. 
 
 239 
 
 than the Synod of Drumceatt, and then founded 
 the cell called thenceforward Cillrighmonaich, and 
 when he returned to Ireland and sought an hermit- 
 age in Lough Derg, gave it the name of Boars' 
 Isle in remembrance of his foundation and probably 
 his hermitage upon the Boars' Headland ? 
 
 From the time of Begulus till that when it 
 became St. Andrews, I notice nothing of the 
 history of this place, but events took place which 
 mightily affected it. In 597 (the very year of 
 Columba's death) the Petrine Church of Canter- 
 bury was founded by an Italian mission under 
 Augustine, and, although primarily meant for the 
 conversion of the heathen Angles and Saxons, soon 
 assumed an aggressive attitude not only towards 
 English Churches such as that of Deira, which 
 owed their existence to the labours of the 
 members of the antient Joannine Churches, but 
 also towards these Churches themselves. In 
 664, the Canterbury party at the Synod of 
 Whitby, by invoking the civil power to decide 
 a purely ecclesiastical question, succeeded in 
 conquering and capturing the Church of North- 
 umbria. In 710 a similar change was made by 
 Nectan MacDerili, King of the Picts. He threw^ 
 himself body and soul into the arms of the Canter- 
 bury party. In 717 he expelled the Columban 
 monks from his dominions. He proclaimed St. 
 Peter Patron of his country, and invited an archi- 
 tect to build him a church in the Roman style, a 
 building of which I need hardly remind you that 
 the late Dr. Stuart believed the lower part of the 
 existing tower of Bestennet Priory to be a part. 
 
240 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 It is interesting to observe how history repeats 
 itself, as though by those re-incarnations of which 
 we have heard a good deal of late years. Not 
 many months ago a ceremony with a similar object 
 was performed in London in honour of St. Peter, 
 with exactly the same intention as that of Nectan 
 MacDerili, and the place purposely selected for it 
 was a building erected on precisely the same prin- 
 ciple, and with the same motive as those which 
 dictated his architectural choice. 
 
 This brings me to the time of the in-bringing of 
 the reliques of St. Andrew, from which this city 
 has its name, and the national and sacred move- 
 ment with which that in -bringing is associated. 
 First, as to the reliques. Without discussing the 
 varying amount of attraction which is presented to 
 various minds by the contemplation of minute 
 fragments of bone, it is a patent fact that the 
 reverence for the remains of the dead, of which 
 that attraction is only one manifestation, is an 
 universal sentiment of mankind. The respectful 
 or tender ceremonial of every funeral is only 
 another form of it. And such respect varies in 
 character with the character of the dead. The 
 emotion which centred round the bones of Robert 
 Bruce when they were found in their grave at 
 Dunfermline in 1818, and re-interred the next 
 year, was patriotism. But it is the love of our 
 Fatherland which is in heaven which rouses 
 emotion at the sight of remains, which, as we 
 know them to have been sown in corruption, we 
 are also sure will be raised in incorruption, but 
 especially of a body which had enabled him who 
 
ST. ANDREWS. 
 
 241 
 
 wore it to walk with Christ in the flesh, which 
 had enabled him to imitate his Master to such an 
 extent as to manifest by suffering martyrdom the 
 love than which no man hath greater, which had 
 enabled him alone with Peter, among the Apostles, 
 to share with their Master the death of the Cross. 
 
 But it is needless to remark that a super- 
 structure of such feeling as that with which we 
 should gaze upon the mortal remains of the Saint, 
 of the Apostle, of Andrew, must be based upon at 
 least a reasonable belief in the authenticity of the 
 object, and such belief can only be justified by a 
 purely archaeological investigation. It is neces- 
 sarily to hold clear, on the one hand, from the 
 excessive credulity which has enriched collectors 
 with so many autographs of Burns, not to mention 
 those of Montrose or Charles Edward, articles 
 made by or belonging to Mary, Queen of Scots, or 
 furniture, especially writing-tables, once used by 
 Marie Antoinette, and, on the other, from an 
 irrational and unscientific scepticism which I fancy 
 really owes a good deal to jests made by Erasmus, 
 of which I venture to think that the honesty is 
 sometimes nearly as shady as the taste. I follow 
 the late Dr. Skene, so far as he goes, to the 
 history of the reliques of the Apostle Andrew 
 which were brought here and gave this place its 
 name, while I admit with him that some of the 
 evidence is only circumstantial, and I supplement 
 his researches with one or two additional obser- 
 vations. 
 
 In the time of Constantine the Great the grave 
 of the Apostle Andrew at Patrai, in the Pelopon- 
 
242 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 nesos, must have been as well known as that of 
 John Bunyan is to us. The comparison is very- 
 exact, because both belonged to the mechanic 
 class, both were itinerant preachers of detested 
 dissenting sects, and both for that reason found 
 themselves in collision with the law. The body of 
 Andrew was removed by Constantino to Constan- 
 tinople in the 20th year of his reign, and by him 
 or Constantius buried in the Church of the 
 Apostles. Roundly speaking, as I need hardly 
 remind you, it was thence removed by Cardinal 
 Peter Capuano, after the sack of Constantinople in 
 in 1204, and re- interred in 1208 in the Cathedral 
 of Amalfi, where it now is. I have seen the top 
 of the skull. It was during the sojourn of the 
 remains of the Apostle at Constantinople that 
 they underwent a mutilation which, according to 
 the plausible conjecture of Dr. Skene, was the 
 remote cause of the national position which the 
 Galilean Fisherman now occupies among us. 
 When Gregory the Great returned in 584 from 
 discharging the duty of Apocrisiarius at the Court 
 of Tiberius II., he brought with him to Rome an 
 arm of St. Andrew, which the Emperor had given 
 him, and placed it in the monastery of St. Andrew, 
 (now called from its founder San Gregorio) which 
 he erected upon the site of his ancestral home — 
 and where most of it seems still to be. But from 
 this it may be conjectured were taken the reliques 
 brought to England by Augustine, a monk of the 
 same monastery and in honour of which his Royal 
 convert, Ethelbert, erected the Church of St. 
 Andrew at Rochester. Hence again were most 
 
ST. ANDREWS. 
 
 243 
 
 probably derived the reliques which Bishop Acca 
 placed in the church which he raised in honour of 
 St. Andrew in his See at Hexham. In 731 he 
 was expelled from his See — for what cause we 
 know not, but it can have been none to endear 
 the Northumbrian Government to his sympathies. 
 He is said to have taken refuge among the Picts. 
 It is certain that Angus, King of the Picts, re- 
 ceived reliques of the Apostle, which he placed 
 here, and immolated this place, the antient Muck- 
 ross, the more modern Cillrighmonaich, to the 
 Apostle from whom it is now named. That the 
 late Historiographer Royal was right in this de- 
 rivation of the reliques here from the arm brought 
 by Gregory from Constantinople, appears to me to 
 be greatly supported by the fact that these reliques 
 are stated to have consisted of three fingers (pro- 
 bably finger-bones) and a fragment of an arm. A 
 knee-pan and a tooth, which are also mentioned, 
 I am inclined to guess to have been the additions 
 of subsequent and less critical times. But what- 
 ever the history of these bits of bone, and whether 
 they were or were not part of the body of the first- 
 called Apostle of Christ, they were undoubtedly 
 believed at the time to be genuine, and they were 
 the immediate cause of the creation of St. Andrews 
 as the great national Church of Scotland. 
 
 The historic expulsion of Acca followed at no 
 long interval after the occupation of the throne of 
 the Picts by Angus, son of Fergus, and while 
 that Prince must have been still warm from the 
 struggle in which he had deposed Nectan Mac- 
 Derili. Angus is distinguished for three sets of 
 
244 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 wars in particular. The first of these is the 
 struggle against Nectan MacDerili, the last scene 
 of which was enacted at Loch Inch in 729, although 
 the civil war did not close till 731, and Nectan did 
 not die till the following year. It was a struggle 
 which argues in Angus no love for Nectan and his 
 Canterbury sympathies, or any enthusiasm for his 
 peculiar Petrine devotion. The second group con- 
 sists of his wars against the Scots of Dalriada, 
 which argue no special love for lona, the sacred 
 capital of their race, and its Columban monks. 
 The third class are his wars against Northumbria, 
 which argue no love for the Cantuarian Churches 
 and the English Benedictines, but do render certain 
 at least one bond of sympathy with Acca, the pos- 
 sessor of the reliques of the Apostle Andrew, the 
 Bishop whom the English had driven out of his 
 See of Hexham. 
 
 I think that the presentation of the reliques to 
 him by Acca, which gave him an advantage over 
 Nectan MacDerili, who is not known to have 
 possessed any of St. Peter, enabled him to indulge 
 all these feelings at once by starting a thoroughly 
 national church of his own and proclaiming St. 
 Andrew Patron of Scotland. 
 
 He selected the antient Boars' Headland for the 
 place which should be given to the Apostle. This 
 may have been partly for some topographico-his- 
 torical reason, such as meeting Acca near there, as 
 hinted in the later and mythological legends, but I 
 should fancy mainly for two reasons. The first of 
 these is that so beautifully expressed by Sir Walter 
 Scott, when he puts in the mouth of one of his 
 
ST. ANDREWS. 
 
 245 
 
 characters the words, ' if there is anything utterly 
 uneatable, let it be given to the poor,' and in 
 accordance with which you will observe that the 
 sites bestowed for monasteries are in most cases 
 either howling wildernesses like the Grande Char- 
 treuse, or bogs and swamps such as the site of 
 Fountains must have been till it was reclaimed by 
 labour which it was not worth the lay proprietor's 
 while to expend, while the endowments of these 
 establishments, as recorded in their Chartularies, 
 consist, with almost monotonous regularity, of the 
 bestowal by lay Patrons of the Patronages of 
 parishes of which they were unable to draw the 
 teinds for themselves. This wild and rocky head- 
 land, separated by a swamp from the cultivable 
 mainland, must have been singularly well adapted 
 for the purpose of pious munificence. The second 
 reason was that there was an appeal to national 
 ecclesiastical history and sentiment in the memories 
 of Kenneth and Pegulus, the friends of Columba : 
 indeed, the name Cillrighmonaich, as a variant of 
 Ceannrighmonaich, leads me to conjecture that 
 there may have been actually some place of wor- 
 ship dating from the time of Regulus. 
 
 Then Angus wanted some staff to look after the 
 place, to do something to keep the services going 
 decently, and to provide lodging for anybody who 
 came (doubtless including himself), and, as he did 
 not want to have Dalriadic monks from lona, and 
 still less, English Benedictines from Northumbria, 
 or to have to endow any one else, he put in a com- 
 munity of Culdees. I think that the first mention 
 of Culdees at St. Andrews is the entry in the 
 
246 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 Annals of the Four Masters under 742, and, I 
 believe, in Tighernac under 747, Mors Tuathalain 
 Abbas Cindrighmonaigh, and that this is one of 
 the very few places, either on account of its Royal 
 or sacred character, or because they ruled there 
 alone, or for all these or some other reason or 
 reasons, where their superior was styled Abbat. 
 This peculiarity seems to be preserved down to 
 this day by the use of the word Abbey in connec- 
 tion with some places in this city, although I have 
 not found the title itself used later than 1178-88, 
 when the constitution of the Culdees was being 
 shaken by the action of the Bishop and his new so- 
 called Augustinian Chapter. Perhaps the then 
 holder was the last w^ho bore it. 
 
 I feel a good deal of shrinking from that old 
 subject of fiction, the Culdees, but I suppose some- 
 thing must be said, if not for very shame's sake, at 
 least for history's sake. As in many other points 
 concerning Celtic ecclesiastical history on which I 
 have not been able myself to make original re- 
 search, I feel great confidence in accepting on this 
 subject the opinion of my late dear and venerated 
 friend. Bishop Grant, of Aberdeen, who was able 
 to deal with such things with singular learning 
 and acumen. There are either historical notices 
 or more or less trustworthy allusions to 25 estab- 
 lishments of persons called Culdees. Of these 
 establishments, 13 were in Scotland, 9 in Ireland, 
 1 at York, and 1 in the island of Bardsey, off the 
 coast of Carmarthenshire. These people had at 
 least two Rules which are extant, one of which is 
 attributed to Mochuda, who died in 636, but is 
 
ST. ANDREWS. 
 
 247 
 
 perhaps somewhat later, and the first name 
 actually connected with them is that of Moling, 
 v/ho died in 697. They do not seem, like ordinary 
 religious orders, to have had any bond of common 
 Government, a fact which probably accounts for 
 what appears to be a notice of some re-organizing 
 of some at least of the Scottish houses upon an 
 Irish model in 921. Their establishments were 
 communities, but where, as was, or came to be, the 
 case at St. Andrews, they consisted of married men 
 living with their families, the tie of the common 
 life cannot have been very strict. They were not 
 clerical bodies in the ordinary sense, any more than 
 is the Board of Governors of an hospital, although, 
 as with such a board, a clergyman might join them 
 if he so pleased. They dedicated themselves mainly 
 to two works. First, they erected and maintained 
 hospitals for the spiritual and the more comfortable 
 bodily tending of the poor and the sick ; and 
 secondly, they strove, by singing, etc., to make 
 more solemn the rendering of Divine Service. 
 
 This ecclesiastical part of their work consisted in 
 attending and taking part in the regular Church 
 services every day. In the absence of a properly 
 ordained officiant, they conducted them, with the 
 exception of the Eucharist. In the fifteenth cen- 
 tury we find that the Prior of the Culdees of 
 Armagh was a sort of precentor in the Cathedral. 
 In some cases at least there seems to have been an 
 attempt to add to the daily services the chanting 
 through of the Avhole Book of Psalms every day. 
 The distinctiveness of their hospital work is illus- 
 trated by a mystic story about Moling, in the Book 
 
248 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 of Leinster, so striking that I shall read it. ' One 
 time, when he was praying in his Church, he saw 
 the youth coming to him into the house. A purple 
 garment was about him, and he had a distinguished 
 countenance. That is good, 0 cleric, said he. 
 Amen, said Moling. Why dost thou not salute 
 me ? said the youth. Who art thou ? said Moling. 
 I, said he, am Christ, the Son of God. That is not 
 possible, said Moling, when Christ approaches to 
 converse with the Celi-De, it is not in purple. . . . 
 He comes, but in forms of the miserable, i.e., of the 
 sick and lepers.' The book of Fenagh applies the 
 word Culdee to St. J ohn the Evangelist, apparently 
 because he provided for the widowed and childless 
 mother a home and the services of a son. One 
 might have thought that the sacred pathos of this 
 allusion might have moved Prior Hepburn to spare 
 the poor old women whom he deprived, with a 
 rather brutal remark, of their refuge, but probably 
 he had never heard and never thought of it. 
 
 The origin of the Culdees is from Ireland, but 
 the fact of their larger development in Scotland is 
 owing, I think, to the expulsion of the Columban 
 clergy by Nectan MacDerili, whereby they were to 
 a certain extent called upon to take their place ; 
 indeed. Dr. Skene remarks that it is not till after 
 that expulsion that the name of Culdee appears in 
 Scotland at all. This is again, I think, an instance 
 in which history repeats itself Such lay bodies 
 occasionally co-exist with monasticism, but the 
 suppression of monasticism has a tendency to 
 develop them. I remember visiting a lay com- 
 munity on the slopes of Mount Etna, which was 
 
ST. ANDREWS. 
 
 249 
 
 several centuries old, and in Mallorca there were at 
 least two. One of these, which I visited, and in 
 which there was no clergyman, was, I think, 
 though I am not quite sure, older than the suppres- 
 sion of the Spanish monasteries, but my impression 
 is that the other, which I did not see, but which I 
 heard had been joined by one clergyman, was more 
 recent. The most striking instance, however, is 
 that of the body commonly called Frati Grigi, who 
 have come into existence entirely since the sup- 
 pression of the monastic establishments under the 
 present Italian constitution. They have, besides 
 other establishments, which I believe are numerous, 
 an Orphanage or Reformatory for boys, and an 
 Asylum for old men, with which I am familiar, 
 close to Sorrento. 
 
 The history of Scotland now gathers more and 
 more closely round St. Andrews, and nearly every 
 distinguished name is to be found in connection 
 with it. The national Bishopric of Alban had 
 been founded at Fortrenn about the middle of the 
 ninth century. Early in the tenth century King 
 Constantine and Bishop Cellach stood together 
 upon the Mote Hill at Scone, and swore that in 
 the land of the Picts ' the laws and discipline of 
 the faith, and the rights of the Churches and of 
 the Gospels, should be kept as well as among the 
 Scots.' This Cellach transferred the See, which 
 had already been moved from Fortrenn to Aber- 
 nethy, from Abernethy to St. Andrews, and Con- 
 stantine himself, in extreme old age, went thither 
 and became Abbat of the Culdees. As it is said — 
 
 17 
 
250 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 ' Afterwards did God call him 
 To the Recles on the brink of the waves, 
 In the house of the Apostle he came to his death ; 
 Undefiled was the pilgrim.' 
 
 In 1144 the reforming and constructive zeal which 
 so marks the reign of David I. made itself felt at 
 St. Andrews. Robert the Bishop, an Englishman, 
 in view of the lay character of the Culdees, and 
 anxious to provide his Church with a clerical staff, 
 in strict accordance with the ideas of his day and 
 of his sovereign, brought in the Augustinian 
 Canons — who, as I need hardly remind you, have 
 nothing to do with Augustine, except so far as 
 their rule is based upon his works, especially the 
 109th Epistle, which, however, originally relates to 
 women. The result was a kind of intermittent 
 struggle with the Culdees, the original occupiers of 
 the ground, which lasted about 200 years. The 
 hospital work of the Culdees crystallized into the 
 hospital of St. Leonard, the name of which is the 
 same as that of their hospital built by King 
 Stephen at York. It was, as you know, suppressed 
 by Prior Hepburn in 1512, and turned into St. 
 Leonard's College, so that its moral heir is now 
 the United College, and its material representatives 
 the remains of the chapel, once the parish church 
 of St. Leonard, and some remains of buildings 
 mainly incorporated in those of Miss Dove's ad- 
 mirable school. The more ecclesiastical side of the 
 Culdee community became shaped into the Royal 
 Collegiate Chapel of St. Mary of the Heugh, the 
 interesting remains of which, uncovered not so 
 many years ago, we see upon the Kirkheugh This 
 
ST. ANDREWS. 
 
 251 
 
 institution long survived the Reformation. But in 
 the arrangements for the settHng of Episcopacy by 
 James YI. the place was, in 1606, conveyed to the 
 Archbishop, and Mr. Robert Buchanan, who had 
 been appointed to the Provostry in 1599, the last 
 representative of the Culdees, and successor of 
 Tuathalain, died minister of Ceres in 1617. 
 
 I have said that there is hardly one great name 
 in the history of Scotland which is not connected 
 with St. Andrews, and the mention of the Culdees 
 is connected, though not in a friendly way, with 
 the chief action of William Wallace towards the 
 place. William Fraser, Bishop of St. Andrews, 
 died in France, August 20, 1297. William 
 Comyn, Provost of the Culdees, was the English 
 candidate, and they claimed the right to vote, 
 but were not allowed, and William Lamberton 
 was elected. In the articles against him, printed 
 by Palgrave, we find ' when the Chapter of St. 
 Andrews had chosen Mr. William Comyn, who 
 had always held himself loyal to our Lord the 
 King and in his friendship, William Wallace and 
 his adherents, the enemies of our Lord the King, 
 to whom the said Mr. William Lamberton had, 
 and has been, an adherent, contrary to his oath 
 and allegiance, by force and stress made him to be 
 elected Bishop of St. Andrews.' I think this im- 
 * plies that Wallace was actually present and aided 
 the seven Augustinians to exclude the Culdees, 
 and that the day must have been September 5, 
 as stated by Gordon, just a week before the 
 Battle of Stirling, and not November 5, as stated 
 in Bower, when Wallace was in England. But if 
 
252 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 SO the election must have been very hurried, as 
 they could not long have heard of Fraser's death. 
 On July 5, 1318, this Lamberton had the satisfac- 
 tion of consecrating the Cathedral in the presence 
 of King Robert I., who then settled 100 marks 
 yearly upon the Church in thank-offering for his 
 victory at Bannockburn. It is interesting still to 
 observe upon the east wall of the Cathedral the 
 scored lines which guided Lamberton's thumb in 
 applying the Sanctum Chrisma. 
 
 In 1378 broke out the Great Schism, and the 
 Church of Scotland, with the exception of the 
 Bishop of Galloway, who had to retire to York, 
 declared in favour of the line of Anagni. It 
 was during the Schism that the University was 
 founded. Of the University itself I need hardly 
 speak. I was going to say Si monumentum quoeris 
 circumspice, but I might apply that famous quota- 
 tion to the University itself as the living monu- 
 ment of the remarkable man who founded it in 
 1413 at the request of Bishop Wardlaw. I mean 
 Peter de Luna. His arms still appear upon the 
 University Seal between those of the King and of 
 the Bishop. But if you look above the Tabernacle 
 in St. Salvator's Chapel, you will see that some 
 Urbanist fanatic has defaced them. That childish 
 act, which could not delete the facts of history by 
 injuring an historical work of art, was but of a 
 part with the treatment which Peter received from 
 so many during life, and a forerunner of that which 
 his memory has very commonly received since his 
 death. To denounce him has been the continuous 
 occupation of the historians who adopt the Urban- 
 
ST. ANDREWS. 
 
 253 
 
 ist view, a view which is undoubtedly the prevalent 
 one, although there have not lacked writers such as 
 Baluze, to set forth the other side of the question. 
 Dr. Ludwig Pastor, Professor of History in the 
 University of Innsbruck, has assailed Peter de 
 Luna and his party within the last few years in a 
 work which has just been published in an English 
 translation, and the learning of which is worthy of 
 the writer's nationality. German nationality may, 
 however, I think, have something more to do with 
 it, when we find Peter represented as a tool for 
 the unjust extension of French political influence, 
 much as we might regard French political agents 
 in Siam, Madagascar, or Tunis. The accusation 
 strikes me as remarkable, when we consider that 
 the man was a Spaniard, and passed most of his 
 official and public career as the object of the per- 
 secution of the French Government, which finally 
 drove him out of the country. The more usual 
 charge against him is pig-headed obstinacy. But 
 pig-headed obstinacy is an expression which may be 
 only an abusive term for what others might as well 
 call an unflinching and self-sacrificing devotion to 
 duty. He is accused of believing himself to have 
 been in the wrong all the while, — and here, as far 
 as my reading goes, I would join issue. It might, 
 I think, have been observed that where so many 
 learned and able, so many pious, even saintly per- 
 sons were divided in opinion, a difference of judg- 
 ment from one side or the other, did not necessarily 
 imply moral obliquity. Pemember also that the 
 Sovereign Princes of Spain suspended their judg- 
 ment, until the most searching enquiry had ascer- 
 
i 
 
 254 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 tained the facts which were to be laid before them 
 as the basis for their decision : that this was done, 
 and that after the most careful consideration, the 
 decision of these Sovereigns was given in favour 
 of the claims of the line represented by Peter. A 
 very able English writer, who has publicly directed 
 against him, within the last few months, a reiter- 
 ated attack, which is all the more telling from the 
 moderation of its language, admits not only the 
 force of the case as put by Baluze, but also that 
 until the publication of the additional documents 
 from the Vatican Secret Archives, by the Abbe 
 Gayet, in 1889, the full strength of the Anagni 
 case was not placed before us. As a matter of 
 practice, I would ask you, if you wish to 
 form an opinion, to investigate the conditions 
 under which the Conclave elected Urban, and to 
 ask yourselves what would be the decision of one 
 of our judges at this day were similar evidence 
 laid before him in the case of a Parliamentary 
 election petition. Peter de Luna has been held up 
 to condemnation as a man whose only motive was 
 a personal lust of power. I do not think that it 
 looks very like it, that, when Scotland was the only 
 country in Europe really faithful to him, and an 
 army of French troops was beleaguring his Palace, 
 to extort his resignation, and were withheld from 
 actually assailing it only by that spectacle of 
 patient dignity, he yet refused at any cost to 
 assent to the induction into this Church of St. 
 Andrews of one who would be an unfit minister of 
 the Word and Sacraments, and when the Scottish 
 Government proceeded to give the temporalities to 
 
ST. ANDREWS. 
 
 255 
 
 their nominee, Peter replied that tliat was in their 
 power, and they were able to rob the Church of 
 St. Andrews if they would, but that as for him, he 
 would never consent — and he never did. It does 
 not look like personal and worldly ambition that 
 when he was asked why he did not lay France under 
 interdict, he replied that he would never profane 
 the censures of the Church to punish the poor, 
 the ignorant, and the helpless, for the faults of 
 their rulers, and moroever in a matter which could 
 possibly be said to concern himself personally. It 
 does not look like personal ambition when all his 
 Cardinals left him, and he told them that they 
 might go, but that he dared not flee, and leave the 
 sheep which the Great Shepherd had called upon 
 him to assume. Ambition is generally to be 
 measured by the possible gains. What did he 
 gain ? The shifty Angelo Corario, the infamous 
 Baldassare Cossa, even poor Egidio Munoz, gained 
 by submission the certainty of much more power 
 and wealth and dignity than they could have 
 dared to hope for before their uncertain assumption 
 of the state by the resignation of which they 
 gained it. Peter de Luna, your founder, a man 
 whose straightforwardness no one has ever chal- 
 lenged, a man whose private life no one has ever 
 dared to assail, but who^ said that he could not 
 desert the post of duty except at the command of 
 Him Who had called him to it, received nothing 
 but persecution, — as far as this world goes, ruin. 
 This very University deserted him five years after 
 he had founded it. But I hope that when he lay 
 upon his death-bed at Peniscola, almost quite for- 
 
256 
 
 ESSAYS OX HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 saken by men, he was yet not alone, because the 
 Master Whom he had tried to serve was with him. 
 
 I have always desiderated that history should 
 be written with only an impartial statement of 
 al)Solutely certain facts, so that the reader may be 
 able to take one view or the other, just as the 
 contemporary did. The ideal history of Mary, 
 Queen of Scots, composed upon this principle, 
 certainly never has been written, and I strongly 
 doubt whether it ever will be written. I myself 
 have tried to deal thus with smaller matters, in my 
 o^^'n small way, and I think not altogether without 
 such success as I really coveted, namely, a testi- 
 mony to my absolute impartiality. I once wrote 
 an essay on the so-called prophecies of Malachi of 
 Armagh, in which I did my best to put the argu- 
 ments both for and against their Divine inspiration 
 as strongly as I could. Some of my friends said to 
 me afterwards, that they wondered how I could 
 believe in such rubbish. Others told me that, 
 however I might myself believe these prophecies 
 to be a forgery, they thought I might have done 
 better to attack in less violent language, a thing 
 in which so many good people believe. A third 
 friend told me that I had displayed an absolute 
 impartiality which deprived my essay of all 
 interest. Then I wrote another essay upon the 
 question whether Giordano Bruno was burnt or 
 not. I put the historical arguments both ways as 
 well as I could. My own impression at the time 
 was that he really was burnt. But a newspaper 
 critic remarked that I had strained every nerve to 
 make out that he was not, and I had finally a 
 
ST. ANDREWS. 
 
 257 
 
 sort of triumph over myself, because, when I re- 
 read the article some years afterwards, I found 
 myself a good deal shaken in my opinion by my 
 own arguments. I think, therefore, that you may 
 fairly trust me, even me, to speak of the Eeform- 
 ation without giving offence to any man. It is 
 not, however, merely the fearsome joy of dancing 
 among eggs which makes me wish to speak of the 
 subject, but because it necessarily falls in with the 
 line of historical sketch which I have been taking, 
 and because there are two observations upon it 
 which I wish to make. 
 
 The first of these is that the Great Schism, of 
 which your own founder, Peter de Luna, was one 
 of the most prominent features and almost the last 
 survivor, was one of the things which most chiefly 
 led to it. That this would be so would be evident 
 to anybody who thinks, having regard to the belief 
 thitherto generally prevalent in Western Christen- 
 dom as to the constitution of the Visible Church. 
 It is interesting to observe as a proof of this the 
 effect of the spectacle upon the mind of Wiclif 
 He began by being a violent Urbanist. He said 
 (I cannot lay my hand upon the place but the 
 words fixed themselves in my memory), ' No man 
 taketh this honour unto himself, but he that is 
 called of God, as was Aaron, and as is Urban.' 
 Afterwards he said, ' If ever Urban departs from 
 the right way, then is his election a mistaken one ; 
 and in this case it would be not a little for the 
 good of the Church to want both Popes alike.' 
 He ended by blessing God for having, as he ex- 
 pressed it, split the serpent's head into two. Pro- 
 
258 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 fessor Pastor has gone into this whole question 
 at length, in its several aspects. I need only 
 here remark that the necessities of the contending 
 parties and the ultimate discrediting and weaken- 
 ing of the central authority must be universally 
 admitted to have borne an immense part in 
 generating, in perpetuating, and in fostering those 
 practical abuses, the existence of which at the 
 beginning of the XYIth. Century no moderately 
 educated man in his senses denies. 
 
 Considering the prominent position which St. 
 Andrews had occupied in connection with the 
 Great Schism, it is therefore all the more natural 
 to observe the prominent position which it occupies 
 in the history of the Reformation, or to observe 
 that in 1571 no less than 12 of the Augustinian 
 Chapter, without counting the Prior and the Prior 
 of Pitmook, were holding Reformed parochial bene- 
 fices, and that the Principal of St. Mary's, an old 
 Carmelite friar, was inducted into the Reformed 
 Archbishopric in the same year. 
 
 As far as the University goes, and any changes 
 effected in its constitution, I might nearly as well 
 have left the Reformation unmentioned ; but this 
 is exactly the second remark which I wished to 
 make upon the subject, viz., the mild and con- 
 servative manner in which the Reformation was 
 effected in Scotland as compared with England. 
 A tempest of blood and fire raged in England for 
 something like 300 years, in fits of intermittent 
 violence, but rising into a tornado in the reigns of 
 Henry VIII. and his children. In Scotland, the 
 future was reserving horrors of cruelty based upon 
 
ST. ANDREWS. 
 
 259 
 
 religion almost entirely for later periods, for witches 
 and for Covenanters. The maximum of persons 
 put to death in connection with the Reformation is 
 stated to be 19 on one side and 5 or 6 on the 
 other. Admit the 25. Henry or Mary would 
 have consumed them in a month. Again, the dis- 
 solution of the religious houses was effected with- 
 out that cruelty and injustice towards individuals 
 which marked the proceedings of Henry YIII. It 
 is not very unusual to hear people talk vaguely 
 about what they call the rapacity of the nobles. 
 I once began a thorough examination of this sub- 
 ject. It is not finished, but I did enough to see 
 that this sort of talk is nonsense. Very few per- 
 sons profited by the confiscation of this property 
 who did not profit by it already. The Act of Re- 
 sumption itself was not passed till long after the 
 Reformation, viz., in 1587, and the ground on 
 which the Crown resumed, viz., that the objects 
 for which the grants had been sanctioned were 
 no longer attained, was not unreasonable. The 
 vested rights of individuals were respected ; there 
 had even sometimes to be interference to prevent 
 their alienating property in which they could in 
 any case have had only a life-interest. There 
 were immense reservations and exceptions, pro- 
 visions for glebes, and so on. In some cases, 
 especially the friaries, which were few and poor, 
 the property went to the burgh where they were 
 situated. In some, as at Queensferry, it was re- 
 turned to the representatives of the donor. In 
 most, it seems to have been made over to the 
 Abbats or Priors, many of whom already held it 
 
260 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 almost hereditarily, and of whom, as regarded the 
 larger houses, there were very few who were 
 either in Holy Orders, or members of the Order 
 to which the establishment belonged. Some of 
 these remain to this day — Neubotle, for example 
 — and the Chapel Royal, and the endowments 
 connected with it, still holds the Abbacies of Cross- 
 raguel and Dundrennan. Lastly, a good deal is 
 said about the destruction of architectural monu- 
 ments which I believe to be at least very greatly 
 exaggerated in popular belief Many of the 
 people who say these things do not know, or do 
 not remember, that the work of ruin in the south, 
 as at Melrose, was the work, not of the Scottish 
 Reformers, but of the English. The expression, 
 ' cast down,' means, I think, the destruction of 
 much of the internal decoration and furniture, and 
 although many inestimable monuments of art and 
 history must thus have perished, the destruction of 
 stone buildings is not only a thing which a mob 
 could hardly eflPect, but is opposed to the formal 
 directions sent from Edinburgh in 1560, not to 
 injure desks, windows, doors, glass, or iron, to a 
 variety of notices, such as the directions given in 
 1563 for the upkeep of the Abbey of Dunfermline, 
 which had been what was called ' cast down ' 
 three years before, and to the action of John 
 Knox himself with regard to Scone, when the 
 building was ruined in spite of him. As regards 
 the Cathedral of St. Andrews, I commend to con- 
 sideration not only Knox's own description of what 
 occurred, and which does not seem to me to war- 
 rant the impression often conveyed by modern 
 
ST. ANDREWS. 
 
 261 
 
 writers, but also the arguments of Mr. Fleming as 
 to the bad condition of the building for some time 
 before its sack, in 1559. 
 
 The last occasion upon which St. Andrews ap- 
 pears as the centre of the national life was the 
 sitting of Parliament in 1645-6. Just as the 
 Reformation may be traced from the Great Schism, 
 so may the Covenant be traced from the Reform- 
 ation. And this is no doubt the case as regards 
 the First Covenant, but the Solemn League and 
 Covenant I am inclined to regard less in this light 
 than in that of an expression of the national spirit, 
 for, although its first article connects it with the 
 earlier document, the essential principle of the 
 second is the same as that of the clause apparently 
 added to the Coronation Oath for the first time in 
 1331, on the recommendation of John XXL in 
 1329, and certainly administered to David, Duke 
 of Rothesay, in 1399, while the remaining four 
 articles do not differ in principle from that of the 
 famous declaration of the Barons of Scotland in 
 1320. With regard to the blood which was shed 
 by this St. Andrews Parliament, and to which I 
 think that an undue amount of relative attention 
 is sometimes called, I will only express the hope 
 that, as regards the Irish prisoners, we may form 
 an exaggerated idea of the numbers who suffered, 
 and we must regard the episode in the light of the 
 nature of their unprovoked invasion of the country 
 under Montrose, and especially of their acts at 
 Kilsyth, and above all, at Aberdeen. Whatever it 
 was, I believe it was not as sanguinary, not only as 
 the action of the French Republican Government 
 
262 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 in Brittany, but as that of the Hanoverian Govern- 
 ment after the '45. As regards regular judicial 
 proceedings, there can be no comparison between 
 the moderate justice with which the Covenanting 
 Government selected for punishment a few of the 
 highest and most responsible leaders, and the 
 almost promiscuous vindictiveness with which the 
 Hanoverian consigned to a death of studied horror 
 a great number of persons, even down to the 
 humblest walks of life. And the same moderation 
 once more appears towards the close of the century, 
 in the philosophical self-restraint which — unlike 
 the silly fanaticism which defaced the arms of Peter 
 de Luna — has left us intact in the Parish Church, 
 even after 1689, the blatant monument of Arch- 
 bishop Sharp. 
 
 I have quoted the saying of him who called the 
 eighteenth century the Valley of the Shadow of 
 Death more than once, and still I cannot find 
 another phrase which seems to me so truly to de- 
 pict it. So in Scotland— 1706-7— 1715-6— 1745-6. 
 In St. Andrews the Imum Cceli was probably reached 
 when the Butcher Duke of Cumberland was elected 
 Chancellor in 1746, and next year St. Leonard's Col- 
 lege may be said to have collapsed from inanition. 
 
 Eppur, si muove — or, as I would rather say, 
 Epimre, sta. Anyhow, it abides still. 
 
 I have spoken of the past. Perhaps I should in 
 any case have been borne in that direction by my 
 own idiosyncrasy, or by the same profound venera- 
 tion for this spot which led my Assessor, when he 
 was invited to preach the University sermon, to 
 choose for his text the words : ' Put off thy shoes 
 
ST. ANDREWS. 
 
 263 
 
 from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou 
 standest is holy ground.' But after all, how could 
 I, here and now, have spoken of the present or of 
 the future ? In the present there are ' fightings 
 within and fears without.' And yet perhaps a 
 voice, however feeble, which speaks here of the 
 past, may aspire to do a little both for the present 
 and for the future by fanning the noble ambition 
 to have a present, and to make a future, worthy of 
 a noble past. 
 
 Of the future how could I have spoken ? I 
 have heard a distinguished man utter the hideous 
 word Euthanasia. I myself have sometimes 
 dreamt of the primeval headland, still lifting sky- 
 ward its crown of ant lent towers, but with that 
 crown encircled by an aureola of affiliated colleges 
 — a commonwealth of seats of learning, an Oxford 
 of the North. 
 
 Anyhow, even as in the days of Constantine, the 
 son of Aedh, the house of the Apostle still stands 
 upon the brink of the waves. May it stand. 
 
 On the 5th of March, in this year, I took a walk 
 with Professor Knight to Drumcarrow. It was a 
 fine, sunny day. We stood among the remains of 
 the pre-historic fort, and looked over the bright 
 view, the glorious landscape enriched by so many 
 memories, the city of St. Andrews enthroned upon 
 her sea-girt promontory, the German Ocean stretch- 
 ing to the horizon, from where it chafes upon the 
 cliffs which support her walls. And we remarked 
 how God and man, how nature and history, had 
 alike marked this place as an ideal home of learn- 
 ing and culture. And then the view and the 
 
264 
 
 ESSAYS ON HOME SUBJECTS. 
 
 name of the Apostle together carried my thoughts 
 away to another land and to a narrower and land- 
 locked sea. I do not mean that where Patrai, the 
 scene of Andrew's death, looks from the shores of 
 Achaia towards the home of Ulysses over waters 
 rendered for ever glorious by the victory of 
 Lepanto. I do not mean the City of Constantine, 
 where the first Christian Emperor enshrined his 
 body, and where the union of ineffably debased 
 luxury and ineffably debased misery, which drains 
 into the sea of Marmora, excites a disgust which 
 almost chokes grief and humiliation. Neither do 
 I mean those sun-baked precipices which, by the 
 shores of the Gulf of Salerno, beetle over the 
 grave where lies the body that was conformed in 
 death to the likeness of the death of the Lord. I 
 mean the land of Andrew's birth — the hot, brown 
 hills, which, far below the general sea-level of the 
 world, gird in the Lake of Gennesereth, — that 
 strange landscape which also is not unknown to 
 me, the environing circle of arid steeps, at whose 
 feet, nevertheless, the occasional brakes of oleander 
 raise above the line of the waters their masses of 
 pink blossom, and whence the eye can see the 
 snows of Hermon glistering against the sky far 
 away, — and I pray that some words which he 
 heard uttered upon one of those hills may be real- 
 ized here, — that the physical situation of this place 
 may be but a parable of its moral position, — and 
 that it may yet be said of the House of the Apostle 
 that ' the rain descended, and the floods came, and 
 the winds blew, and beat upon that house ; and it 
 fell not : for it was founded upon a rock.' 
 
INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Abercorn, E. (D.) of, 87 
 
 Abernethy, 249 
 
 Acca, Bishop, 243, 244 
 
 Act of Security, the, 120, 126 
 
 Ailbey, the isle of, 205 
 
 Albany, D. of,. ..158, 161, 164, 166, 
 171, 179, 180 
 
 Alsiodorum, 51 
 
 Altus^ the, of S. Columba,...2i, 22, 
 23, 24 
 
 Amalfi, Cathedral of, 242 
 
 Amathus (Amathorex), King and 
 
 Bishop, 53, 75 
 
 Ambrose of Milan, 13 
 
 America, Norse discovery of, ... 222 
 Ancient Celtic Latin Hymns, 9 ; 
 those only of the golden age of 
 the Scoto-Irish Church to be 
 treated of, 10, in all twenty- 
 seven hymns, and with two 
 exceptions found in the Leab- 
 har imuiun, ib. ; the Anti- 
 phonarium Benchorense MS. 
 described, ib. ; and the Leab- 
 har ijfmiun, II ; the hymns 
 contained in the latter — Hym- 
 num dicat turba, 12 ; medics 
 noctis tenipus est, 13 ; Sancti 
 Verite^ 14, 15; Audite Omnes, 
 19, 17 ; Stiffr agate, 19, 20 ; 
 the Alius of S. Columba, 21, 
 22, 23 ; In Te Chris te creden- 
 tium viiaerearis omnium, 25 ; 
 Noli Pater, 25, 26 ; Precamur 
 Pair em, 27, 28 ; Sacratissifjii 
 Martyres, 29, 30 : Spiritus 
 Divines, 31 ; Jgnis Creator, 
 igneus, 32 ; a hymn in praise 
 of S. Comgall, 33 ; Celebra 
 Juda, by Cummain Fota of 
 Clonfert, 34 ; hymn in honour 
 of Molaisran of Leighlen, 35 ; 
 the hymns, Christe Qui Lux es 
 and Christi, Patris iji dextera, 
 35 ; ABC Darian hymn in 
 praise of S. Brigid, 36 ; change 
 in style of hymns, ib. Cuchu- 
 
 PAGE 
 
 imne's hymn in praise of the 
 Blessed Virgin — Cantemus in 
 ODini die, 37 ; use of anti- 
 phonal singing observable, 39 j 
 hymns for the feasts of Patrick 
 and Brigid, Ecce fulget claris- 
 simi Patricii solemnitas and 
 Phcebi diem fert orbita. ib. 
 Anecdota quce ex Ambrosiance 
 Bibliothecce codicibus nunc 
 pri?nus erutt A. Muratorius,.. 9 
 
 Angus, E. of, 95 
 
 Angus, King of the Picts. ...243, 244, 
 
 245 
 
 Antiphonary, Benchor, 13, 14, 18 ; 
 
 anonymous hymns in, 27 
 
 Aralanensis (Aries?), 55, 5^ 
 
 Athole, Earldom of, 96 
 
 Auxerre (Antissiodorum), 51 
 
 Augustinian Canons at St. 
 
 Andrews, 250 
 
 Auxilius, 53 
 
 Badenoch, the Wolf of, 149, 159 
 
 Balfour, Lord, of Burleigh, 91 
 
 Baronies, Scottish, 82 
 
 Battle of the Clans 156, 172 
 
 Benaven Tabernise (River-head 
 
 Tavern), 60, 71 
 
 Benedict Xin....i77, 252, 253, 254, 
 
 255 
 
 Benum (the Boyne ?) 62 
 
 Birds, the Eden of, 199, 205 
 
 Book of Armagh, 41, 43 
 
 Bothwell, Duchy of, 84 
 
 Brendan's Fabulous Voyage, 189; 
 his birth and character, ib. ; 
 his education, 188 ; his work, 
 189 ; his friendships, 190 ; his 
 death, 191 ; his ill-luck, 192 ; 
 Irish and other romances about 
 him, 193 ; the Latin romance, 
 194 ; the search for the Land 
 of Promise, 195 ; the corach, 
 197 ; the first island, ib.', the 
 second, 198 ; the Provider, 
 199 ; the whale, ib.', return to 
 
INDEX. 
 
 266 
 
 PAGE 
 
 the Provider's isle, 201 ; the 
 island of the fountain and the 
 white birds, 201 ; the isle of 
 Ailbey, 205 ; other islands 
 visited, 206 ; the voyagers are 
 fed by a bird, and are fright- 
 ened by a griffin, 209 ; the 
 pillar standing in the sea, 210; 
 the island with the smiths' 
 forges, 211; Judas Iscariot, 
 212 ; the hermit, 216 ; the 
 land covered with darkness, 
 218; character of the romance, 
 
 219 ; probable source, 224 
 
 Breviary, the Aberdeen, lo 
 
 Breviary, the Mozarabic, 13 
 
 Bruce, Robert, 92 
 
 Bruce, surname, in the peerage,. 91 
 Buccleuch and Queensberry, D. of, 98 
 
 Buchan, Earldom of 97 
 
 Bute, M. of, 88, 98 
 
 Calpornius (M'Calphurn), 61 
 
 Campbells, antiquity of, 114 ; by 
 
 whom represented, 106 
 
 Carnegies, by whom represented, 108 
 
 Carrick, E. of, 91 
 
 Cellach, Bishop, 249 
 
 Cillrighmonaich (St. Andrews), 243, 
 
 245 
 
 Collectanea, Tirechan's, 54 
 
 Colville, Lord, of Culross, 87 
 
 Concessa, 47 
 
 Confession of S. Patrick, 59, 60 
 
 Constantine, son of Aedh, ...249, 263 
 
 Contice, 46 
 
 Council to assist the King's Lieu- 
 tenant, the D. of Rothesay,... 164 
 
 Coronation of Robert IIL, 161 
 
 Crawford and Balcarres, E. 's of, 108 
 Cualfarnus (M'Calphurn) Deacon, 47 
 
 Cuchuimne, 37 
 
 Culdees, the, 245, 246, 247, 250, 251 
 
 Cummain Fota of Clonfert, 34 
 
 Curbia, 53, 54 
 
 Casus Apri, the, 238 
 
 Dalzells, E.'s of Carnwath, 85 
 
 Danielston, Sir Robert, 178, 180 
 
 Danielston, Walter, 178 
 
 Darien Scheme, the, 120, 126 
 
 David, D. of Rothesay, 145 ; 
 mystery of his death associated 
 with Falkland, ib., the associa- 
 tion due to Sir Walter Scott, 
 ib. ; sources of information re- 
 garding life of the Duke, 146 ; 
 his birth and childhood, 147 ; 
 
 health of Robert IIL, ib. ; 
 places of residence, 148; Re- 
 gency of Albany, 148 ; move- 
 ments of Robert 11. in 1390, 
 ib. ; his death and burial, 149 ; 
 coronation of Robert III. at 
 Scone, 150 ; David must have 
 been present, ib. ; receives title 
 of E. of Carrick, perhaps at 
 Perth, March, 1392, 151 ; his 
 chamberlain, ib. ; his educa- 
 tion, 152 ; movements of the 
 King and Court from shortly 
 after his coronation to March, 
 J 394' 153 ; the Queen's letter 
 to Richard II., 154; the D. 
 of Rothesay a commissioner 
 respecting his own marriage, 
 155 ; in the North on the 
 King's business in 1396, ib. ; 
 again in 1396-97, ib. ; and 
 again before Aprfl in 1398, ib.; 
 in October, 1397, brought for- 
 ward by the King in the con- 
 duct of most important public 
 affairs, 158 ; his movements 
 down to March, 17, 1398, 158- 
 9 ; his letter to John of Gaunt, 
 159; created D. of Rothesay, 
 161 ; appointed Regent, 164 ; 
 characterof Sir John Ramorny, 
 165; movements of the Court, 
 166 ; the D. is engaged to be 
 married, ib. ; his engagement 
 cancelled, 167 ; letter by the 
 E. of March to Henry IV., 
 
 168 ; the Duke's marriage, 
 
 169 ; Bower and the Duke's 
 inconstancy, 170 ; invasion of 
 the country by Henry IV., 171; 
 the Duke in Edinburgh Castle, 
 ib. ; joins his father on the 
 Clyde, 172 ; the Court at 
 Perth, from February to Sep- 
 tember, 1401, 173 ; the Duke 
 at Castle Reres, 174 ; expiry 
 of his Regency or Lieutenancy, 
 27th January, 1402, 176 ; elec- 
 tion of William Nory to suc- 
 ceed Bishop Trail at St. 
 Andrews, 177 ; during vacancy 
 the Duke proposes to take 
 possession of temporalities, 
 179 ; his arrest by order of the 
 D. of Albany and the E. of 
 Douglas, ib. ; where arrested, 
 180 ; taken to Castle of St. 
 Andrews, and then to the 
 
INDEX. 
 
 267 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Tower of Falkland, ib. ; de- 
 scription of the Tower, i8i ; 
 is said to have died of dysen- 
 tary, 182 ; buried 7th April, 
 183 ; rumours regarding cause 
 of death, id. ; the King's pro- 
 clamation, ib. ; cause of the 
 
 Duke's death uncertain, 186 
 
 Delightsome, the isle, 219 
 
 Dingwall, barony of, 89 
 
 Douglas, Archibald, third E. ot, 
 a commissioner for the Prince's 
 
 marriage, 155, 161, 169 
 
 Douglas, Archibald, fourth E., 182, 
 183, 184 
 
 Douglas family, 99 
 
 Douglas, Lady Mary, married to 
 
 the D. of Rothesay, 169 
 
 Drummonds, E. 's of Perth and 
 
 Melfort, 85 
 
 Drummond family, 108 
 
 Drummond, William, chamber- 
 lain to the D of Rothesay, ... 151 
 
 Duchies, Scotch, 81 
 
 Dumfries, E. of,.. 88 
 
 Dunbar, Lady Elizabeth, 170 
 
 Dunblane, Viscounty of, 83 
 
 Dundonald, E. of, 87 
 
 Dysart, Earldom of, 85 
 
 Dysart, E. of, 80 
 
 Earldoms, Scottish, 82 
 
 Ebmoria, Eboria 54 
 
 Eden, the, of Birds, 199, 205 
 
 Elgin and Kincardine, E. of.. ..91, 92 
 
 Enon, the farm of, 60 
 
 ErroU, E. of, 94 
 
 Erskines, E.'s of Mar, 85 
 
 Erskines, family of, present re- 
 presentatives of, 104 
 
 Fairfax, barony of, 83 
 
 Fairfax, Lord, 80 
 
 Fair Maid of Perth., 'I he, 145 
 
 Falkland. 163; Tower of, 180, 
 
 181 ; Viscounty of, 83 
 
 Families in the Scotch peerage : 
 Bruce, 91 ; Stuart, 92 ; Doug- 
 las, 99; Erskine, 104; Ham- 
 ilton, 105 ; Murray, ib. ; 
 Campbell, 106 ; Fraser, ib. ; 
 Sinclair, 107 ; Drummond, 
 108 ; Ogilvy, 109 ; Hume, ib.; 
 Scott, ib. ; Graham, no ; 
 Montgomery, ib. ; Kennedy, 
 ib. ; Cochran, iii ; Falconer, 
 ib. ; Keith, ib. ; Dalrymple, 
 ib.\ Boyle, 112 ; Primrose, ib.\ 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Elphinstone, ib.\ Seton, ib.\ 
 Napier, ib. ; Rollo, ib. ; Ruth- 
 
 ven, ib. ; Hope, ib. 
 
 Families, liturgical, 233 
 
 Fiach of Sletty, 18 
 
 Foclada (Foclut), wood of, ...52, 66 
 
 Forbes, the, 87 
 
 Forrester, barony of, 86 
 
 Fortrenn, 249 
 
 Erasers, the, representatives of, 106 
 
 Galloway, Lords of, present re- 
 presentatives of, 104 
 
 Genealogical and Heraldic Dic- 
 lioiiary of the Peerage and 
 Baronetage, by Sir B. Burke,. 79 
 
 George TIL, 83 
 
 Geraianus (Germanus ?), 50 
 
 Germanus of Auxerre, 51, 52, 56, 
 
 57, 73 
 
 Gildas the Wise, 19 
 
 Gordons, by whom represented, 107 
 Grahams, by whom represented, no 
 Gulliver's Travels., 219 
 
 Hamilton, Ducal house of, 83 
 
 Hamilton, D. of, families repre- 
 sented by, 90, 105 
 
 Harald Harfagri, 84 
 
 Hay, family of, 94 
 
 Hawdenestanke, Haddensdanke, 158 
 Elepburn, Patrick, chamberlain 
 
 to the D. of Rothesay 151 
 
 Herries, Lord, 87, 88 
 
 Hilary of Aries, 12 
 
 Hilary of Poitiers, 12 
 
 Hogan, Fr. Edmund,... 42, 45, 46, 
 47, 48, 49, 51, 56 
 Hymns of the ancient Church of 
 Ireland, 9 ; Audite Omnes, 
 16 ; Cantenius in omni die^ 
 37 ; Celebra Juda, 34 ; Christe 
 Qui Lux es, 35 ; Christi, 
 Pat r is in dexter a, 35 ; Draw 
 nigh, and take the Body of the 
 Lord, 15 ; Ecce fulget claris- 
 sivm Patricii solemnitas, 39 ; 
 Hytnnum dicat, 12 ; Ignis 
 Creator igneus^ 32, 33 ; Lit Te 
 Christe, 25 ; MedicE noctis 
 tempus est, 13 ; Noli Pater, 
 25 ; Phccbi diem fert orbita, 
 39 ; Precamur Patre?/i, 27, 
 
 28 ; Sacratissimi Marty res, 
 
 29 ; Sancti Venite, 14, 15 ; 
 Spiritus Divinoe, 30, 31 ; 
 Suffragare, 19, 20 
 
268 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Hymn of Hilary in praise of 
 Christ, 12, 64 
 
 Imigonus, 46 
 
 Iscariot, Judas, 213, 214 
 
 Jasconius, 199 
 
 Jubinal, M. A,, ...193, 194, 200, 221 
 
 Kellie, Earldom of, 81 
 
 Kenneth M'Alpin, 93 
 
 Kenneth of Aghaboe, 236, 245 
 
 Kerrs, by whom represented, ... 107 
 
 Kilmarnock, E. of, 94 
 
 Kilpatrick, 47 
 
 Kinloss, Lord, 91 
 
 Kinnoul, E. of, 94 
 
 Kinross, barony of, 86 
 
 Kirkwal, Viscounty of, 84 
 
 Lamberton, Bishop of St. 
 
 Andrews, 252 
 
 Leabhar breac, the, 14 
 
 Leabhar imuiun, 9, 10, 11, 18 
 
 Lennox, D. of 87 
 
 Levingstons, E.'s of Newburgh,, 86 
 Lindsay, David, made E. of 
 
 Crawford, 160 
 
 Lindsay, Euphemia, 170 
 
 Liturgical families, 233 
 
 Loca Patriciana, 75 
 
 Logy, John, chamberlain to the 
 
 D. of Rothesay, 151 ; receives 
 
 charter from Robert HL, 156 
 
 Loricae, 19 
 
 Lucian's Traveller's Tale, ...200, 205, 
 219. 214 
 
 Lyons, 93 5 94 
 
 Maccumachtheni, Muirchu, 44, 46, 
 56, 57, 64, 71, 72, 74, 235 
 M'Calphurn,...57, 58, 59, 64, 73, 74 
 
 Mac Kays, the, 87 
 
 M'Moyre, family of, 44 
 
 Magonus, 54 
 
 Mar, Earldom of, 81 
 
 March, E. of, a commissioner 
 for the D. of Rothesay's mar- 
 riage, 155, 167 ; his treason- 
 able letter to Henry IV., 168 
 
 Margaret, Countess of Carrick 
 
 and Lady of Galloway, 92 
 
 Marquessates, Scotch, 81 
 
 Mavonius, 46 
 
 Menteith, Earldom of, 93 
 
 Miliuc Mac Cuboin (magus),... 46, 55 
 
 Midgard- worm, the, 200 
 
 Moeri, E. of, 84 
 
 Monmouth, D. of, 99 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Montgomeries, origin of, no 
 
 Moray, E. of, 93 
 
 Mote Hill at Scone 249 
 
 Mount Miss 55 
 
 Mount Seine, 55 
 
 Muckross (St. Andrews), 243 
 
 Murrays, by whom represented, 105 
 
 Nairne, Baroness, 86 
 
 Nectan Mac Derili,....239, 243, 244, 
 
 246 
 
 Newburgh, E. of, 88 ; Earldom of, 85 
 Niddry, John, chamberlain to the 
 
 D. of Rothesay, 151, 163, 165 
 
 Ninnidh, 18 
 
 Nithsdaill, E.'s of, 88 
 
 Nory, William, elected Bp. of 
 
 St. Andrews, 177 
 
 Nydie, 180 
 
 O'Curry, Prof., 193, 220 
 
 Oengus M'Tipraite, hymn in 
 
 praise of, 37 
 
 Ogilvy family, antiquity of, 109 
 
 Orkney, E.'s of, 38 
 
 Palladius, Archdeacon of Pope 
 Celestine, 52, 53, 71 
 
 Parliament at St. Andrews 
 (1645-6), 261 
 
 Parliament in Scotland, 1 19; 
 reasons for writing the essay, 
 ib. ; ignorance in England re- 
 garding Scotland, 120 ; ar- 
 rangements made at the Union 
 of 1707 outgrown, ib. ; chief 
 causes of discontent with the 
 Union, 121 ; neglect of Scot- 
 tish legislation in Parliament, 
 id. ; expense of ptivate Bills 
 and of appeals to House of 
 Lords, id. ; jurisdiction claimed 
 by English Courts over Scots- 
 men, 122 ; other causes, 123 ; 
 effect or Union on the material 
 prosperity of the country, 124; 
 reasons why there is no more 
 active agitation, 125 ; benefits 
 likely to result from a Parlia- 
 ment sitting in Edinburgh, 131 ; 
 composition of a Scottish Par- 
 liament, 135 ; two sets of re- 
 presentatives suggested, i/>., 
 and two chambers, 136 ; the 
 latter undesirable, id.; consti- 
 tution of the old Parliament of 
 Scotland, 137; Scottish tradi- 
 tion and a Scottish House of 
 
INDEX. 
 
 269 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Lords, 139 ; sketch of the con- 
 stitution of a modern Scottish 
 Parliament, ib. ; crucial diffi- 
 culty of all Home Rule schemes, 
 142 ; its solution, 143 ; relation 
 of the Scottish to the Imperial 
 Parliament, ih. ; Scottish pat- 
 riotism and the reestablish- 
 ment of a Scottish Parliament, 144 
 
 Patrai, 242 
 
 Peerage, the Scottish, 79 ; num- 
 ber of, 81 ; in the nth, 12th, 
 14th, 15th, and i6th centuries, 115 
 
 Peerage of Scotland, by Sir 
 Robert Douglas, 79 
 
 Peers (Scotch) Catholic, Episco- 
 palian and Presbyterian, 88 
 
 Peers, Scotch, at the Union of 
 
 1707, 79 
 
 Peter de Luna, see Benedict XIH. 
 
 Pilgrim'' s Progress, 220 
 
 Plague, the Yellow, 19 
 
 Plunket, Archbp. Oliver, 44 
 
 Potitus, Priest, 47 
 
 Public buildings, Scottish, ne- 
 glect of, 122 
 
 Queen Annabella Drummond 
 crowned, 150 
 
 Radcliffs, E. of Derwentwater, .. 86 
 Ramorny, Sir John, ....164, 165. 186 
 Reformation, the, in Scotland 
 
 and in England, 258, 259, 260 
 
 Regent Moray, the, 93 
 
 Renfrew, Robert IH. at, 166 
 
 Robert L, 252 
 
 Robert IL, 147, 148, 149 
 
 Robert III 147, 156, 166 
 
 Rothesay, D. of, 91 ; length of 
 
 pedigree 113 
 
 St. Andrews, 227 ; early reminis- 
 cences of, ib. ; St. Andrews 
 and Oxford, 229; the history 
 of St, Andrews a continual ex- 
 pression of, and witness to, 
 the spirit of Scottish nation- 
 ality in the higher spheres of 
 thought and activity, 230 ; the 
 secular and the Christian ele- 
 ments, 232 ; the forms of 
 Christian worship prevalent in 
 Britain during the Roman oc- 
 cupation, 234 ; St. Andrews 
 and the birth of the distinctive- 
 ly patriotic National Church, 
 236 ; Kenneth of Aghaboe, ib. ; 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Regulus, 237; events affecting 
 the Wild Boars' Headland 
 from the time ot Regulus till it 
 became St. Andrews, 239 ; the 
 inbringing of reliques to St. 
 Andrews, 240 ; the body of St. 
 Andrew, 242 ; Bishop Acca 
 and the Apostle's reliques, 243 ; 
 their removal to St. Andrews, 
 244 ; the Culdees, 246 ; St. 
 Andrews becomes the centre 
 of Scottish history, 249; great 
 names connected with St. An- 
 drews, 251 ; the University and 
 the Great Schism, 252 ; Pope 
 Benedict XIII., 254 ; the Re- 
 formation in Scotland as com- 
 pared with the Reformation in 
 England, 258 ; St. Andrews 
 the centre of national life for 
 the last time, 261 ; the St. 
 Andrews of the present, 262; 
 
 an ideal place of learning, 263 
 
 St. Andrew, reliques of, 241, 242, 243 
 St. Andrews, Parliament at 
 
 (1645-6), 261 
 
 St. Andrews, temporalities of,... 179 
 St. Brigid, the earliest poem 
 concerning her, 18 ; hymn in 
 
 praise of, 36 
 
 St. Columba, 236, 237, 238, 245 ; 
 the Alius of, 21, 22, 23, 24 ; 
 his In '/'e Christe, 25 ; his Ai?/z 
 
 Pater, 25, 26 
 
 St. Comgall, 18 ; hymn in hon- 
 our of, 33 
 
 St. Mary of the Heugh, Chapel 
 
 of 250 
 
 St. Molaisran of Leighlin, 35 
 
 St. Moling, 248 
 
 St. Patrick, 17, 19, 41, 45, 235 ; 
 
 Cotifession o{, \ Epistles,... 59 
 St. Patrick, new light upon, 41 ; 
 Book of Armagh, purest and 
 earliest source for his life, ib. ; 
 imperiection of its biography 
 of him, ib. ; discovery and 
 publication of new codex of 
 the biography, 42 ; contents 
 and history of the Book of Ar- 
 magh, 43 ; new text of Life, 
 45 ; period of life of Patrick to 
 be dealt with from his birth to 
 his appearance as Apostle of 
 Ireland, ib. ; Prologue of new 
 codex, 46 ; translation of new 
 text, 47-54 ; Tirechan's text on 
 the same period, 54-55; the 
 
270 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 known chronology of German- 
 us of Auxerre, 56 ; inconsist- 
 ency of Tirechan, 57 ; St. Pat- 
 rick's statements respecting 
 himself during ihe period under 
 consideration, 58-70 ; compari- 
 son of them with those in the 
 new codex, 70-75 ; tendency 
 of new matter to support the 
 theory that Patrick went to 
 Ireland some time after 433, 
 
 and died about 470, 76 
 
 S/. Patrick^ Apostle of lielajid. 
 
 Dr. Todd's, 76 
 
 St. Regulus, 245 
 
 Sanninus, 53 
 
 Schism, the Great, 252, 257 
 
 Scott family 109 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter, 127, 144, 156 
 
 Scottish Home Rule Association, 
 
 the, 120, 129 
 
 Scottish Peerage, the, 79 ; an 
 effect of the Union of 1707 
 upon it, ib.', not representative 
 of political power, 80 ; decrease 
 in number, 81 ; Scotch peers 
 not all Scotchmen, 82 ; Scotch 
 peerages held by aliens and 
 without property in Scotland, 
 84 ; Scotch peers who do not 
 live in Scotland, 87 ; religion 
 of Scotch peers, ib. ; surnames 
 of, 90 ; families in Scottish 
 peerage which have figured 
 most largely in Scottish history, 
 91 ; Bruce, ib. ; Stuarts, 92 ; 
 Douglas, 99 ; remarkable as 
 regards antiquity, 104 ; Stuarts 
 and Bruces, ib. ; Hamilton, 
 
 105 ; Murray, ib. ; Campbell, 
 
 106 ; Fraser, ib, ; Sinclair, 
 
 107 ; Lindsay, 108 ; Drum- 
 mond, ib.', Scott, 109 ; Ogilvy, 
 ib.\ Graham, 1 10 ; Dalrymple, 
 III ; Boyle, 1 12 ; Arbuthnott, 
 ib.\ Elphinstone, ib.\ pedigree 
 of Royal family, 113 ; antiquity 
 of Argyll fatnily, 114; Erskine, 
 ib.\ Lindsay, tb.\ Ogilvy, ib.', 
 antiquity of peerages, ib. ; peer- 
 ages which have been merged 
 with others, 116; peerage of 
 Scotland interesting as a re- 
 minder of things which were 
 until 1707, ib. 
 
 Scottish Review, The,... 122, 124, 133 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Segitius the Priest, 52 
 
 Sinbad the Sailor, 200 
 
 Sinclairs, St. Glairs, representa- 
 tives of, 107 
 
 Singing, antiphonal mode of, in 
 
 use, 39 
 
 Smedt, Fr. de 42 
 
 Sochet (Patrick), 46, 47 
 
 Stewards, High, families descen- 
 ded from before their accession 
 to the Crown, 94 ; after acces- 
 sion, 95 
 
 Stokes, Dr. Whitley, 42 
 
 Strathmore, E.'s of, 93 
 
 Strathtyrum, 180 
 
 Stuart, John, of Craigie, cham- 
 berlain to the D. of Rothesay, 151 
 Stuart, Sir John, of Bonkyl, ...95, 96 
 
 Succetus (Patrick), 54 
 
 Sucsetus 46 
 
 Tirechan, 44, 56, 73 
 
 Todd, Dr., St. Patrick, Apostle 
 
 of Ireland. 193 
 
 Torbach, Bishop, 44 
 
 Trail, Walter, Bishop of St. An- 
 drews. 152, 161 ; death of,.... 173 
 Trucebetween Scotland and Eng- 
 land executed at Haddensdank 
 or Hawdenestanke, March 16, 
 
 1398, 158 
 
 Tweeddale, M. of, 94 
 
 Ultan of Ardbrechan, 18 
 
 Ultan, Bishop, 54, 55 
 
 Ultan Concubrensus, Bishop, ... 46 
 
 Union of 1707, the, 120, 121 
 
 Union of ijoy, The, Viewed Fin- 
 ancially, 124 
 
 Urban VL, 254, 257 
 
 Vanduara, 47 
 
 Ventra, 47 
 
 Victor, Victorious, 48, 55, 58, 71, 72, 
 
 74 
 
 Villaneuva, M 59, 65, 69, 76 
 
 Viscounties, Scottish, 82 
 
 Walter Fitzalan, 92 
 
 Wardlaw, Bishop, 252 
 
 Wild Boars' Headland (St. An- 
 drews), 236, 238, 244 
 
 William HL, 120 
 
 Wiirzburg Codex of Life of St. 
 
 Patrick, 46 
 
 Wyntoun, his history, 146, 163 
 
 THE END. 
 
4 
 
DATE DUE 
 
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