VOLUME 3 CONTENTS.

Chapter 1 UNION OF THE PICTS AND SCOTS-REIGN OF KENNETH MACALPIN. Importance of the Union, - Its Way prepared by great Battles, - The historic Career of the Picts closed, - Legends of their Massacre false, - Causes of permanence of Union, - Two Peoples, but one Faith, - After War comes Legislation, - The “Code Macalpin,” - Early Laws relating to Land, - Specimens of the Code Macalpin, - The Code the Compilation of several Ages, - Chair of Columba and Stone of Destiny placed at the Center of the Kingdom, - Death of Kenneth Macalpin, - His Burial, .

Chapter 2 DONALD-CONSTANTIN-FIRST BATTLE WITH THE DANES.

With Kenneth Macalpin the Light departs, - Clearness of the Columban Age compared with following Centuries, - Scotland retrograding, - The Scots must be placed on the Anvil, - King Donald, - Two Portraits of him, - King Constantin, - Quells a Disturbance in Lochaber, - The Danes land on the Coast of Fife, - Battle and Defeat of the Danes on the Leven, - Danish Fleet in Balcombie Bay, - Bloody Battle at Crail, - Defeat of Scots and Death of King Constantin, - Burial of Constantin, - Contrasted Modes of Emigration in Ancient and Modern Times, - Shall Scotland be blotted out and Daneland substituted? .

Chapter 3. ETH-GRIG-PICTISH PERSECUTION OF COLUMBAN CHURCH-TOLERATION. Outlook after the Battle of Crail, - Accession of “Swiftfoot,” - A Shoal of “Sea Monks,” - Accession of Grig, or Gregory, - Gives Freedom to the Scottish Church, - First Use of the Term “Scottish Church,” - The “Pictish Bondage” of Scottish Church, - King Nectan and a new Easter Calendar, - Nectan’s Clergy shorn in the Roman Fashion, The Recalcitrants expelled, - Nectan’s Edict revoked by Gregory, Evils of Nectan’s Policy, - Columbites recalled by Kenneth Macalpin - Nectan dies in a Monk’s Cowl, .

Chapter 4. GREGORY OF SCOTLAND AND ALFRED OF ENGLANDNORSEMEN-THE FADING COLUMBAN LAMP. A strong Hand at the Helm, - Treason among the Picts, - Gregory chastises them, - Gregory’s Exploits on the Border, - His Conflicts with the Danes and the Britons, - Crosses to Ireland, - Ravages of Hardnute in North of England, - Expelled by Gregory, - Friendship betwixt Gregory and Alfred of England, - Beauty of Alfred’s Character, - Adversities of his Youth, - Illustrious Labors of his riper Years, - Heads Army of Bible Translators, - A dying Lamp, .

Chapter 5. DONALD-CONSTANTIN-LOST BATTLES AND THEIR LESSONS. Accession of Donald, - Return of the Danes, - The Scottish Alliance with Alfred renewed, - The Danes repulsed, - A Danish Colony settled in Northumbria, - Donald fights two Battles in Moray, - His Death, - Accession of Constantin, - Under Constantin Scotland retrogrades, - A National Assembly at Scone for the Reformation of the Church, - Its Significance, - Civil Divisions of Scotland, - The Country known as Alban, - Boundaries of the Kingdom of Alban, - Out- lying Regions north and south of Alban, - Saxonia on the south and Norwegia on the north, - Divisions of the Kingdom of Alban, - Names and Boundaries of its five Provinces, - Subdivisions of the province, - Constantin joins the Danes against England, - Is defeated in Battle, - Invades England a second time, - Stratagem of Anlaf, - Battle of Brouny, - Lesson of Defeat, - Retreat of Constantin pursued by Athelstan, - Scottish Boundary recedes to the Forth, - Convention at Abenqethy, - Constantin abdicates and enters the Monastery of St.. Andrews, .

Chapter 6. SPECIAL MISSION OF SCOTLAND-SYNOD OF SCONE- ATENTH CENTURY REFORMATION. The Silent Forces the Mightier, - Power of Christianity is in the ratio of its simplicity, - Shown in the Power of Columba’s Mission, - Sources of Scottish History, - Adamnan’s Life of Columba; Book of Deer, &c., - Dr. Johnson’s eulogy, - General Assembly of the Scottish Church at Scone, - Independence of Scottish Church, - Reformation on the lines of the Bible, - Proceedings closed with an Oath to go forward in Reformation, - Delays the Triumph of Rome, - Revival, - Columban Church in Existence and Action in the Twelfth Century, .

Chapter 7. DESTRUCTION OF EARLY SCOTTISH LITERATURE-THE COLUMBITES METAMORPHOSED-WAS IONA AROMAN OR A\parPROTESTANT CHURCH? Causes of the Destruction of Early Scottish Literature, - The Columbites claimed in our day by Romanists, - This a Hallucination, - Iona and Rome contrasted in their Foundation- stone, - Bede’s testimony to the Columbites, - Testimony of Columbanus, - Iona and Rome contrasted in their Top- stone, - The Columban Eucharist and the Romish Mass, -Extraordinary Statement of Father Innes, - Testimony of Claudius Scotus, - The use of the terms “body and blood of Christ,” “Altar,” “Sacrifice,” &c.; no proof that the Church of Columba believed in Transubstantiation and the Mass, - - Cave on the Communion Tables of the Early Church, - Dr.. Lindsay Alexander on the Columbite Supper, , Footnote- Wooden Communion Tables in Early Irish Church, - The Mass of the Primitive Church, - What the phrase means and how it came into use, - Still used in Eastern Church, - No witness from the dead needed, .

Chapter 8. REIGNS OF MALCOLM-INDULF-DUFF-CULLENSCOTLAND’ S ONE TALENT. Disorders repressed, - Malcolm assassinated, - Indulf ascends the Throne, - The Danes in Firth of Forth, - Battle at Cullen in which Indulf falls, - Edinburgh, - Duff the Black, - Change in Office of Abbot, - Vigor of Duff, - He is assassinated, - Cullen King, - His Profligacy and Death, - Scotland’s one Talent, Bible Christianity, - Scotland trading with its one Talent, - The rich harvest it yields it, - The Scots burying their Talent in the Earth, .

Chapter 9. REIGN OF KENNETH-BATTLE OF LUNCARTY-HOUSE OF HAY-ALTERATION OF LAW OF SUCCESSION. Mission of the Norsemen, - Kenneth III., - State of the Hebrides, - A Norse Flotilla on the East Coast, - Battle of Luncarty, - The Scots flee, - Arrested by Hay and his two Sons, - Defeat turned into Victory, - Historic Proofs of the Incident, - Revival of Arts and Agriculture, - Succession to the Crown: the Fittest chosen, - Law of Succession changed, - Death of Prince Malcolm, - Story of Kings Death, .

Chapter 10. MALCOLM II.-CESSION OF LOTHIAN TO SCOTS-BATTLES OF MURTLACH AND BARRY-KINGDOM OF SCOTIA. Evil Years, - Claimants to the Throne, - Malcolm II. mounts it, - His Character, by Fordun, - Battle of Carham, - Lothian ceded to Scotland, - Danish Fleet off the Spey, - Devastations, - Spread of the Danish Power in Scotland, - Battle of Murtlach, - Growth of the Danish Power, - The Danes aim at Subjugation of all Scotland, - A Danish Fleet at the Red Head, - Danish Ravages, - The Scots Muster at flurry, - Battle of Barry, - Death of Camus, -” Kingdom of Alban” dropped, and “Kingdom of Scotia” substituted, - Last of Male Line of Fergus, - Malcolm II. dies by the Dagger, - The Laurel entwined with Cypress, .

Chapter 11. DUNCAN AND MACBETH. This Era in itself trivial, - Lighted up by a great Genius, - Who was Macbeth? - His Genealogy and History, according to Scottish Chroniclers, - According to the Orkneyinga Saga, - Grandeur of Shakespeare’s Drama, - We accept the Fiction of the Poet in place of the real History of the Time, - Macbeth a good Ruler, - His Gifts to the Culdees, - Nevertheless Nemesis follows, - Return of Malcolm, Son of Duncan, - War for the Throne, - Macbeth is slain, - Malcolm ascends the Throne, .

Chapter 12. MALCOLM CANMORE AND WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR.

With Malcolm Canmore a new Age, - Invaders in Frock and Cowl, - Battle of Hastings, - William of Normandy, - England receives a New Master, - War betwixt Malcolm Canmore and William the Conqueror, - William invades Scotland, - William at Abernethy, - Terrible Devastations, - William fails to conquer Scotland, - His Failure a Blessing to both Countries, .

Chapter 12.* QUEEN MARGARET-CONFERENCE WITH CULDEE PASTORS. A Royal Closet, l- Malcolm Tower at Dunfermline, - Arrival of Edgar Aetheling and his Sister Margaret at Queensferry, - Character of Margaret’s piety, - Her Fastings, Charities, and Religious Acts, - Her Church Reforms, - Conference with Culdee Pastors, - Bishop Turgot, - Scottish Church of Eleventh Century, Anti- Papal, - Points debated in the Conference: st, Uniformity of Rite, - nd, The Lenten Fast, - rd, The Lord’s Day, - th, The Question of Marriage, - th, The Question of the Eucharist, - Culdee “Lord’s Supper,” - Irish Culdees and the “Supper,” - The “Hour of Temptation” to Scotland, .

Chapter 13. GLIMPSES OF THE COLUMBAN CHURCH IN THE MIDDLE AGES-EASTER CONTROVERSY-FALL OF IONA. Continuity of Columban Church, - Glimpses of it in Middle Ages, - Its Golden Age, - Its first Ebb, - Marked Decadence in Eighth Century, - Expulsion of Columbite Clergy from Pictish Territory, - An Eighth Century Exodus, - Persecutions and Sufferings of the Exiles, - War follows betwixt Pict and Scot, - The Easter Controversy, - Difference betwixt the Eastern and Western Observance of Easter, - Council of Nicea, - The Moons do not revolve in accordance with the Council’s Decree, - The Nineteen Years’ Cycle, - The “Elders” rebel against the Easter Decree, - In Iona submits, - The Material Iona falls, the Spiritual Iona flourishes, - Monastery burned and Monks slain, .

Chapter 14. TRANSLATIONS OF THE CHAIR OF COLUMBA-THE ONE BISHOP OF ALBAN- AGREAT TEMPEST IN WHICH SCOTLAND DOES NOT SINK. Service rendered by Sword of Dane, - Continued Organization and Vigor of Columban Church, - Proofs furnished by Rome herself, - Roman Synods at Chalons- sur- Soane and Celcyth, - Translations of Columba’s Chair to Dunkeld, Abernethy, St.. Andrews, - Boundaries of Alban in Tenth Century, - Wreck of Kingdoms and Peoples, - Scotland escapes, .

Chapter 15. EPOCHS OF REVIVAL IN COLUMBAN CHURCH. Alban’s one Bishop, - Who consecrated Cellach? - Rome includes Bishop and Presbyter in the same Order of Clergy, - Re- establishment of Columban Clergy in East of Scotland, - Enlargement of Liberties of Scottish Church, - Synod of Mote Hill, - The Columban Church comes again into view in Queen Margaret’s Days, - Her success with the Scots small, - They are still outside the Pope’s Church, .

Chapter 16. THE CULDEES-THEIR ORIGIN-THEIR FUNCTIONS-THEIR DIFFUSION. Dissolution of Columban Brotherhoods, - Rise of the Ascetic or Anchorite System, - The Culdees or Keledei, - Name signifies “the Servants of God,” - Two Theories of their Origin, - First, that they are sprung from the Roman Church, - Proofs: Legend of St..

Serf, - First Pope, next Abbot of Lochleven, - Another form of this Legend, - Legend of St.. Andrew, Patron Saint of Scotland, - Legend of founding of St.. Andrews, - The first Ceile De, - This Theory inconsistent with the Fact that the Culdees were persecuted by Romanists, - Inconsistent with the Fact that they were the Evangelizers of the Continent, - The Culdees a Continuation of the Columban Church, - Great historic Proofs of this, - Culdees Pioneers of the Reformation, .

Chapter 17. NORWEGIAN KINGDOM OF ORKNEY-MARGARET REVOLUTIONIZES SCOTLAND-DEATH OF MALCOLM AND MARGARET-ESTIMATE OF MARGARET’ S CHARACTER AND SERVICES. Bye Drama in Orkney and Shetland, - Their early Religion Druidism, - Christianized by Missionaries from Iona, - Norwegian Kingdom in Orkney, - Heathenism returns, - Christianized a second time under Olave Tryggvosson, - From A. D. the Norwegian Power in Scotland begins to decline, - Crinan, Abbot of Dunkeld, - Margaret changes her Tactics, - Builds a magnificent Church at Dunfermline, - Pomps and Ceremonials, - Margaret’s Ideal of Worship, - Tendency of dying Churches to effloresce into Rites and Ceremonies, - Last Days of Malcolm and Margaret, - Death of Malcolm Canmore, - Margaret’s illness, - Her Death, - Estimate of her Character and Services to Scotland, .

Chapter 18. DONALD BANE-KING EADGAR-ALEXANDER I.-ALEXANDER’ S BATTLE WITH THE BISHOPS-ALEXANDER’ S VOW AND MONASTERY OF INCHCOLM. A double vacancy, - Unpopularity of the Reigning House, - Donald Bane, - Eadgar Ascends the Throne, - Introduction of Lowland Scotch, - Alexander the “Fierce,” his zeal for the “Church,” - His religious benefactions, - Turgot becomes Bishop of St.. Andrews, - Quarrel over his Consecration, - Another vacancy in See of St.. Andrews, - Eadmer elected, - Battle of Jurisdiction betwixt the Bishop and the King, - Eadmer leaves the Kingdom, - The “Fatal” Chair of St.. Andrews, - Alexander makes more Bishops, - Scotland changing its appearance, - The Storm, - Alexander’s Vow, - Founding of Inchcolm, - Career of the monastery, - Walter Bower and Thomas Forret, .

Chapter 18.* DAVID I.AND NEW AGE OF EUROPE-DAVID’ S PERSONAL QUALITIES AND HABITS-WAR TO RESTORE THE ANGLO-SAXON LINE IN ENGLAND-BATTLE OF THE STANDARD. Battle betwixt the Spiritual and the Temporal Powers, - The Spiritual conquers, - Scotland brought within the sphere of this Conflict, - Personal qualities of David, - Painstaking in Administration of Justice, - A lover of the Chase, - His peregrinations: Stirling, Perth, Jedburgh, Edinburgh, - His efforts to raise his Niece to the English Throne, - Treaty at Durham, - Second Invasion of England, - The two Armies at Cutton Moor, - Battle of the Standard, - Subsequent negotiations, - The Nonnan keeps the English Throne, .

Chapter 19. KING DAVID’ S ECCLESIASTICAL POLICY-ERECTION OF FIVE NEW BISHOPRICS-SUPPRESSION OF THE CULDEES. David’s two projects: Restoration of Saxon Line in England and substitution of the Roman for the Columban Church in Scotland, - Alexander I. leaves four Bishoprics, - David’s new Bishoprics, - Rossemarkie, - Aberdeen, - Caithness, - Suppression of the Culdees, - At Dornoch, - At Lochleven, - Continuity of Culdees in Lochleven Monastery, - Legend of Servanus, - Culdees of Monimusk, - Culdees of St.. Andrews, - Their Firmness and Fidelity, - Their Battle of Two Hundred Years, - Their Existence traced till the Reformation, .

Chapter 20. FOUNDING AND ENDOWING OF HOLYROOD. Abbey of Holyrood, - Edinburgh in King David’s Days, - David and the Wild Boar, - The King’s Vow, - Building of Abbey, - Its Monks Augustinian, - Its Endowments, - Numerous Benefactors, - Its Chapels and Altars, - The Monks at Breakfast, Dinner, Supper, - Evening Recreations, .

Chapter 21. INTERIOR OF ABBEY-ROUTINE OF DAILY SERVICESDUTIES OF THE SEVERAL FUNCTIONARIES-BENEFIT TO SOCIETY?

Divisions of the Monastic Day, - Monastic Discipline, - Tierce, - Sext, Nones, Prime, Compline, - Officers of Abbey: Abbot, Prior, &c., - Cellarer, Treasurer, Refectioner, &c., - Question of Benefits flowing from the Abbey, .

Chapter 22. FOUNDING OF ABBEYS CONTINUED-ABBEYS NORTH OF THE GRAMPIANS-IN VALLEY OF THE TWEED,MELROSE,KELSO, ETC.-VARIOUS ORDERS OF FRIARS-OUTLOOK OF SCOTLAND.

Scotland’s Aspect changing, - Inchcolm, Buildings, - Rich Endowments, - Drowning and Miracle, - Turned into a Lazaretto, &c., - Fertile and picturesque spots selected by Monks, - Build on Columban Foundations, - Monimusk, &c., - Abbey of Melrose, - Jedburgh, - Kelso, - Its Regalities, - Right of Sanctuary, - More Friars, - Houses for Women, - Rural Deaneries, - Worship of New Church, - Sermons of the Friars, - Examples, - Outlook of the Scots, - Coming purification, .

Chapter 23. DEATH OF DAVID-HIS CHARACTER. His latter Days darkened, - Death of his only Son, Prince Henry, - Arrangements for the Succession, - His Death, - His Character, -Difficult to estimate accurately, - His Character as a Ruler rested by Time, - His great Error his Ecclesiastical Policy, - Its Influence most Disastrous, - Scottish Patriotism benumbed, .

Chapter 24. REIGNS OF MALCOLM IV.-WILLIAM THE LIONALEXANDER II.-ALEXANDER III.-BATTLE OF LARGS. Malcolm IV., - Gathering Clouds, - Why called the “Maiden,” - Malcolm’s Softness with Henry of England, - More Religious Houses, - Accession of William the Lion, - Why styled “The Lion,” - Taken Captive by the English Barons, - Buys his Liberty with the Surrender of the Independence of his Kingdom, - A great Price for one Man, - Abbey of Arbroath, - Scotland under Interdict, - Richard Coeur de Lion gives Scotland back its Independence, - More Priests, - Independence of Scottish Papal Church, - Alexander II., - His Troubled Reign, - More Friars, - Alexander III., His Coronation, - The Comyns, - Alexander’s Marriage, - Founding of Abbey of Sweetheart, - Translation of Queen Margaret’s Relics, -Last Appearance of the Vikings, - Haco’s Armada, - Destructive Storm. - Battle of Largs, - Haco conquered by the Elements, - Battle of Largs, an Epoch in Scottish History, - Death of Alexander III., .

CHAPTER - A. D. 843- 860. UNION OF THE SCOTS AND PICTS- REIGN OF KENNETH MACALPIN.

THE middle of the ninth century saw the Scots and Picts united under the scepter of Kenneth, the son of Alpin. The advent of this union was Long deferred: it was at last consummated in A. D. 843; but even then it received no enthusiastic welcome from those to whom, as might have been foreseen, it brought great increase of power and prestige. The idea of mixing their blood to form one nation, and uniting their arms to establish one central throne, and so taking pledges for the maintenance of peace at home, and the acquisition of influence abroad, however meritorious it seems to us, does not appear to have approved itself to the two races that inhabited the one country of Caledonia. They entertained this idea only when it came to be forced upon them by the stern lessons of the battlefielda school in which it would seem the education of infant nations must begin.

This union was preceded and prepared by a series of great battles. The question at issue in these fierce conflicts was, To which of the two nationalities, the Scots or the Picts, shall the supremacy belong, and by consequence the right to govern the kingdom? The wars waged to determine this point ended in a supreme trial of strength on the banks of the Tay near Scone. F370 The engagement was a desperate one. Seven times the Picts assailed, and seven times were they driven back. Their king, Bred, fell in battle, and his armor, afterwards presented to Kenneth MacAlpin, was sent by him to be hung up at Icolmkill. F371 From that bloody field the Scots and Picts emerged one nation. Supremacy, which had been the object aimed at by the combatants till now, was abandoned for the more practical and wiser policy of union. Battle had swept away one of the two thrones which had hitherto borne sway in Caledonia, and the one throne left standing was that of the prince whose progenitor, Aidan, Columba had made to sit on the Lia- Fail, or Stone of Destiny, and anointed as the first really independent sovereign of the Scots.

The Picts closed their distinctive historic career when they lost this battle.

They were by much the earlier inhabitants of the country, and doubtless regarded the Scots as a new people. The Picts or Caledonians, if not the first, were among the first races that found their way to Caledonia after its plains and mountains had looked up from the waters of the flood. Yet this ancient people were content to lose name and record in the annals of a race whose arrival in the mountains of Argyllshire dated only five centuries back. The award of battle had decreed that the cider should serve the younger, and to that award they bowed.

Not Pictish blood alone, nor Scottish blood alone, but the two streams commingled, were to form the one blood which was to inspire the valor and fight the battles of the future. Scotland had made a great stride forward, and it was a happy omen of the future career of the united people that in making this new start they put the helm into the hands of that race in whose hearts glowed the faith of Columba.

We refuse to credit the legends which say that battle was succeeded by massacre, and that the glory of victory was dimmed and the fame of the victors tarnished by the utter and cruel extermination of the vanquished people. It is true, no doubt, that from about this time the Picts disappear, or nearly so, from the page of history. Some historians have been able to find no solution of this mystery, save in the supposition that they were swept from off face of their country by the unsparing and unpitying sword of the victorious Scot. “The extermination of the Picts,” says Fordun, “was total and final; not only were their kings and leaders destroyed, but their race and generation and even their language failed.”

F372 This is too ready and obvious solution of the problem to be the true one. It is inherently most improbable. If the Scots of that day were guilty of cringe so enormous, they had sat for three centuries to little purpose, verily, at the feet of Columba and his successors. The deed would have been as impolitic as it would have been cruel. The hour was near when a foe, which their fathers had not known, fierce as the vultures of the land from which he came, was to invade their country. Already the piratical fleets of the Norseman were beginning to be seen on their coasts. The Scots, in these circumstances, could have committed no more deplorable error than stamp out a valor which might on a future day do them good service on the battlefield. When the invader should be crowding, horde on horde, into their land, and the clash of swords rose loud, how sorely would the Scots miss those stalwart Caledonian warriors, who, if not locked in the sleep of death, would have contended by their side for a common country, and chased the Norse marauder to his galleys.

Besides, it must be taken into account that massacre in the circumstances would have swept off a full half of the population of Scotland, and left the surface of the country to a large extent unoccupied. Yet we are not conscious of any diminution of the population in the times subsequent to the victory of Kenneth MacAlpin. Scotland is as full of men as before. It has no lack of warriors to fight its battles. Whence come these armies? Not merely from the narrow territories of the Scots in Chron., Lib. iv. Buchanan limits the extirpation of the Picts to those who remained in arms against Kenneth after the great battle which gave him the crown. This would gain all the ends of the conqueror, and we may safely conclude that this was the whole extent of the slaughter.

The western border, but from the less mountainous and more thickly peopled districts on the east and north, the very regions which, on the supposition of massacre, had been converted into a desert. How came these parts to be again so quickly populated? Did the Scots, by some marvelously rapid process of increase, fill in that short time the empty land?

Or did new races spring from the ashes of the slain to repair the ravages of the sword? These considerations make the theory we are discussing wholly untenable, and force us to the conclusion, which is certainly by much the more agreeable alternative, even, that the Picts, although the more numerous people, loyally accepted the award of battle, and putting the good of country before the considerations of race, permitted the sword, which had already shed quite enough of blood, to be sheathed, and the wounds of their country to be closed. It is deserving of our notice, moreover, that the monarch under whom we see the united races beginning their career as the one Scottish nation, was the son of that King Alpin, whose bloody head had been affixed as a trophy of the Pictish arms to the gates of Abernethy. The dishonor put upon the father was wiped out when the son entered these same gates in triumph to fill the throne of an united people, and stretch his scepter from west to east across the entire country, and from the banks of the Forth to the great ocean stream that rolls betwixt the promontory of Cape Wrath and the precipices of the Orkneys.

It is not always that unions accomplished on the battlefield are lasting. It sometimes happens that when the pressure of the sword is removed the old rivalries and enmities break out afresh, and the nationalities united for a moment again fall asunder, to be parted, it may be, more widely than before. It was not so, however, in the union effected betwixt the Scots and the Picts on the battlefield on the Tay. Nor is it far to seek for the causes that gave that union permanency. In the veins of Kenneth MacAlpin there flowed the blood of both races. A Scot by the father’s side, and a Pict by the mothers, both people had a share in him. Moreover, he enjoyed the prestige of having been crowned on the Lia- Fail. With that stone were linked the traditions of dominion and rule. These traditions stretched back to the remote times of the Irish monarchs, who were said to have received consecration upon it. What is more, this stone was supposed to possess the mysterious power of imparting a peculiar sacredness and a kingly virtue to the man who was crowned upon it. It had been the privilege of no Pictish monarch to take his seat on that venerable stone. That honor was reserved for the kings of the Scottish nation alone. In our days the ceremony, though still practiced, does not count for much; but in that age it was the better half of the coronation. Where that stone was there was the legitimate sovereign, and there was the rock of the kingdom, in the popular belief at least.

There was another and mightier clement of cohesion in the union of which we speak, than either the blood that flowed in the veins of Kenneth MacAlpin, or the virtue of the august chair in which his coronation had taken place. The two peoples were by this time of one faith. When the northern Picts were converted from Druidism to Christianity by Columba, the way was opened for their becoming one with that nation of which the great missionary as a Dalriadan Scot was a member. Columba was the true apostle of union. Pict and Scot had sat together in the school of Iona. Pict and Scot had gone forth together in the same missionary band to evangelize in the fields of France and Germany; and if they could be members of the same church organization, and sit at the same eucharistic table, surely they could meet in the same national Council, and pay their homage at the foot of the same throne. After all it was the Rock of Iona rather than the Stone at Scone that was the bond of union between the Scots and Picts.

The work of the sword at an cud, the labors of the legislator must now begin. This second task, we may well imagine, was even harder than the first. During the fierce struggle for supremacy which had been going on during the previous reigns, many disorders had grown up, doubtless, which called loudly for correction. There had been a loosening of the bonds of society all over the land. In the Highlands especially the clans had enjoyed a larger than usual measure of license, and were not to be easily broken into orderly and settled courses. Yet the attempt must needs be made. The time was favorable, for the throne was stronger than it had ever before been, and around it was now a united nation. And Kenneth, the chroniclers say, did not let slip the opportunity that offered, but devoted the latter half of his reign to reforming the laws, repressing and punishing crime, and improving the administration of justice, than which no greater boon could he have conferred upon a people whose latent forces, which waited the great occasions of the future, would amply repay all the pains it might cost to discipline and regulate them.

In all ages the glory of the legislator has been held by the wise to Surpass that of the conqueror. A code, of enlightened jurisprudence is worth more than a hundred victories on the battlefield; though it may sometimes happen that the rough work of the sword must prepare the way for the quiet and patient labors of legislation. The old chroniclers credit Kenneth with being the author of a body of laws which they dignify by the name of the “Code MacAlpin.” The exploits of Kenneth on the battlefield are well authenticated, we can speak only hesitatingly of his labors in the Cabinet.

Without attributing to him the work and fame of a great or original legislator, we may concede, nevertheless, that before descending into the tomb he made it his study to leave behind him some monument of his juridical industry and wisdom. Kenneth could hardly avoid, one should think, making some rude essay towards framing laws for the altered circumstances of the now united nation, embodying what was best and wisest in the forms and administration of both peoples.

Of the laws of Scotland before the days of Kenneth we are altogether ignorant. They are said to have been composed by Ethfin, “son to Eugene with the crooked nose,” and that is all we know about them. But our ignorance is no proof that there was no code in Scotland till Kenneth came to the throne. “Wherever society exists,” says Mr. Cosmo Innes, “life and the person must be protected. Wherever there is property there must be rules for its preservation and transmission. Accordingly in the most ancient vestiges of the written law of Scotland we find constant references to a still earlier common law.” The laws relating to land must have been simple indeed, for in those days no one had any personal right in the soil; it was the property of the tribe. But as the people lived by the land, and the staple industry was agriculture, there must have been laws regulating and defining the extent to which the individual members of the tribe might use that soil which was the common property of all. The first approximation to the creation of individual right in the soil, so far as we can perceive, was the grants made to the Columban monasteries. When a Columban Brotherhood was established in a district, a certain amount of land was gifted to it by the King or the Mormaer. The brethren were to cultivate the portion assigned them with their own hands or those of their converts. The monastic glebe was both a means of subsistence to the monastery, and a model farm which served to stimulate and guide the rural industry of the neighboring population. They dotted the land with Christian nations in miniature, exhibiting to the surrounding pagan population the whole economy of Christian civilized life. These. grants created no individual rights in the soil.

The lands were the property of the Columbites, not as individuals but as a community. Still, as set apart from the tribal territory, and held by a distinct tenure, they were an approximation to the system of personal holdings, which afterwards came into use.

The jurisprudence of Ireland was more advanced than that of Scotland. Its political and social arrangements were settled at an earlier period. And what so likely as that the Scots, when they came across to Argyll, brought with them some of the Irish codes. Ireland was their mother country. They turned to it for their models in framing both Church and State. Columba worked on the same lines in evangelizing Scotland which Patrick adopted when, a century before, he crossed the sea to spread the light of Christianity in Ireland. We are safe, therefore, in assuming that the “Code MacAlpin” had its first beginnings on the other side of the Irish channel.

These beginnings were the foundation on which Kenneth built when, resting from his wars, he set to work to legislate for the united nation. Whatever in these ancient codes was adapted to the new circumstances of his subjects he would preserve; what was lacking in them his own wisdom would supply; and in this way doubtless the code that bears his name came into existence. Only part of it is his; much of it was in being before he began his legislative labors, and much has been added since. The code is the composition of no one man, nor the production of any one age. It reflects the image of various ages.

The spirit of the “MacAlpin Code” and the justice of its enactments may be best shown by a few examples. “I. That in every shire of the kingdom there should be a judge, for deciding of controversies, well seen in the laws; and that their sons should be brought up in the study of the laws.... III. He that is convicted of theft shall be hanged; and he that is guilty of slaughter, beheaded. IV. Any woman convict of a capital crime, shall be either drowned or buried alive. V. He that blasphemes God, or speaks disrespectfully of his saints, of his king, or of his chieftains, shall have his tongue cut out. VI. He that makes a lie to his neighbor’s prejudice, shall forfeit his sword, and be excluded the company of all honest men. VII. All persons suspected of any crime, shall suffer the inquest of seven wise and judicious men, or any number of persons above that, provided the number be odd. IX. All vagabonds, sturdy beggars, and other idle persons, that may, and do not, gain their livelihood by some honest calling, shall be burnt upon the cheek, and whipt with rods.... XIV. He that is injurious to his father, by any member of his body, shall have that member cut off, then hanged, and remain unburied above ground.... XVI. All witches, jugglers, and others that have any practiced with the devil, shall be burnt alive. XVII. No seed shall be sown till it be first well cleansed from all noxious grains. XVIII. He who suffers his land to be over- run with poisonous and hurtful weeds, shall pay, for the first fault, an ox to the common good; for the second, ten; and for the third, he shall be forfaulted of his lands. XIX. If you find your comrade and friend killed in the field, bury him, but if he be an enemy, you are not bound to do it. XX. If any beast be found straying in the fields, restore him, either to the owner, the Tocioderach, or searcher after thieves, or to the priest of the parish and whoever keeps him up for three days, shall be punished as a thief.... XXIII. If a neighbor’s kine fall a fighting with yours, and if any of them happen to be killed, if it be not known whose cow it was that did it, the homyl- cow (or the cow that wants horns) shall be blamed for it; and the owner of that cow shall be answerable for his neighbor’s damage.”

There was surely some occult reason for this law. Why the blame should be laid on the cow which nature had made incapable of committing the offense we cannot even conjecture unless it were that by way of compensating for her want of horns the cow had received a double dose of quarrelsomeness and pugnacity. The laws that follow are without doubt the product of the times subsequent to the reign of Malcolm Canmore. No Columban missionary needed the protection which they provide for the person and life of ecclesiastics. The Columbite Father could journey from north to south without the slightest risk of injury or insult. The reverence entertained for his character and office was a more effectual defense than any enactment could be. But when these laws had birth it is obvious that the state of matters had changed. They are a confession that the clergy were unpopular, that the Roman rites were liable to be contemned and scoffed at, and that the Columban feeling, whatever may be thought of this way of expressing it, still strongly pervaded the Scottish people. “XXVII. Altars, churches, oratories, images of saints, chapels, priests, and all ecclesiastical persons, shall be held in veneration. XXVIII. Festival and solemn days, fasts, vigils, and all other ceremonies instituted by the church, shall be punctually observed. XXIX. He who injures a churchman, either by word or deed, shall be punished with death. XXX. All sepulchers shall be held in great veneration, and a cross put upon them, that they may not be trampled upon. XXXI. The place where any man is killed or buried, shall be untilled seven years. XXXII. Every man shall be buried according to his quality. If he be a nobleman that has done great actions for the commonwealth, he shall be buried after this manner: Two horsemen shall pass before him to the church; the first mounted upon a white horse, cloathed in the defunct’s best apparel, and bearing his armor; the other shall be upon a black horse, in a mourning apparel; and when the corpse is to be interred, he who is in mourning apparel shall turn his back to the altar, and lamentably bewail the death of his master; and then return the same way that he came: the other shall offer his horse and armor to the priest; and then inter the corpse with all the rites and ceremonies of the church.” F373 The bulk of these enactments embody an admirable wisdom. Some of them are obviously borrowed from the great Hebrew lawgiver, with whose code the Columban teachers were, of course, familiar. The enactment which doomed the spot where innocent blood had been shed to lie for seven years untouched by the plough, was well fitted to deepen in the popular mind the abhorrence of murder. Waving with rank and noxious weeds, it warned the wayfarer not to pollute himself by treading on so accursed a spot.

Touching the statute against witchcraft, we shudder when we think that for this imaginary crime the terrible doom of burning was awarded and inflicted. But before charging our ancestors with cruelty, it may be well to reflect that up to the beginning or middle of last century, the highest judicial tribunal in Scotland held witchcraft to be a crime, and burned the poor unhappy creatures convicted of it at the stake.

So far this relic of the legislation of early days. Success in arms may be a glory, or it may be an infamy. Whether it is the one or the other, depends altogether on the use to which the victory is put. But the work of the legislator can hardly be other than beneficial, and therefore glorious. The man who establishes a great and righteous principle, and embodies it in law, is greater than the man who wins a hundred battles. He has done a work for all time. What the sword of one conqueror has set up, the sword of another casts down; but a Truth once established can never be lost. Even should the Gates of Error war against it they cannot overthrow it. It has become the possession of the race, and it goes down the ages ruling and blessing mankind.

The measures of Kenneth at this crisis were admirably adapted to make the two nations coalesce, and give stability to the throne by which henceforward they were to be ruled. The old seat of the Scottish kings was amid the Argyllshire mountains. This was by much too remote for the now enlarged kingdom of Alban. Its continuance there would have weakened the central authority, created impediments to justice, and delayed intelligence when, it might be, the safety of the kingdom depended on its quick transmission. Accordingly Kenneth established his capital at Forteviot, in the valley of the Earn. The spot was about equally distant from both seas. It lay betwixt the Highlands and the Lowlands. The Tay afforded ready access to the ocean. The watchers on the Red Head could espy the Norseman, and quickly notify his approach in the royal palace of Forteviot; and what perhaps was not the least of the considerations that weighed with Kenneth in fixing here the seat of his government, was that the site was within the Pictish dominions, and the residence of the king among them would naturally help to conciliate this brave and ancient race, still smarting from defeat, to the rule of the new dynasty.

The ecclesiastical capital, too, Kenneth removed to an inland and central position. The Rock amid the western seas, Memorials), and Chalmers (Caledonia). The more probable opinion is that stated in the text, even, that this code the is production of several ages, Kenneth adding what was required by his own times and the circumstances of his nation.

So long the headquarters of Scottish Christianity, was ex changed for a little valley in the southern Grampians, enclosed by woody crags, and watered by the Tay. Kenneth ordained that at Dunkeld should be the seat of the Scottish primacy (851). To impart to the second Iona something of the sanctity and prestige of the first, which the Vikings had made utterly desolate, Kenneth brought hither the relics of Columba. F374 What was of better augury for the renown of his new cathedral and the prosperity of his enlarged dominions, he transported across Drumalban the Columban clergy whose ancestors Nectan had driven out of his kingdom a century and a half before because they refused to conform to the Roman customs. These religious teachers he diffused through the Pictish territory, planting many of them in the places from which their fathers had been expelled. By this tolerant measure he did an act of reparation for a great wrong, and strengthened his own influence among his Pictish subjects.

One other symbol of authority and rule brought out and put conspicuously before the nation. This was the Lia- Fail, or Fatale Chayre as the Scots styled it. With the reverence due to so venerable a symbol of dominion, this stone was brought to Scone, that the kings of Scotland might receive consecration upon it, and possess that mysterious and awful sanctity which, in popular belief, belonged to monarchs who had sat in this august seat.

These three, the Throne, the Primacy, and the Stone of Consecration, were grouped at the center of the kingdom, and within the Pictish territory, that the new subjects of Kenneth might feel that the union was complete, and that the Scottish monarchy had crossed Drumalban, not to make a transitory stay, but to find a scat of permanent abode.

After these labors the Scottish nation and its monarch enjoyed a few years of peace. We see the good king living tranquil days in his palace of Forteviot, in the quiet valley which the Earn waters, and the heights of Dupplin on the one hand, and the swellings of the Ochils on the other so sweetly embosom. On the west, the long vista guides the eye to where Drumalban rears its summits, and looks down on the two nations which it no longer divides. We read, indeed, of some raids of King Kenneth in his latter years into the country of the Saxons beyond the Forth, for that river was still the southern boundary of Alban. F375 But the record of these incursions is so doubtful, and their bearing, even granting they took place, on Scottish affairs is so insignificant, that they hardly deserve historic mention. Kenneth reigned sixteen years after the union of the two nations.

He had served his country equally by his valor “in the field and his wisdom in the closet. He died in 860 in his palace at Forteviot. His mortal malady was fistula.

The tidings that King Kenneth was dead would fly far and fast over Scotland, and wherever they came they would awaken sincere and profound sorrow. There was mourning in Dalriada, which, sixteen years before, had seen the son of the slaughtered Alpin descend its mountains to begin that campaign which had ended in a union that decreed that there should no more be battle betwixt Scot and Pict. There was mourning in Pictavia, which, though compelled to bow to the sword of Kenneth, had found that his scepter was just and equitable. There was mourning amid the wild hills of the north onward to the strand of Caithness, for the clans had learned that the monarch win reigned in the hails of Forteviot was not a conqueror but a father. And now come his obsequies. What a multitude gathers at the royal gates of Forteviot! Mormaer and Tioseach, with their respective clans, from the Pentland to the Forth, are there, including warriors who aforetime, it may be, had mustered to fight against the man whose dust they are now carrying in profound grief to the grave. The vast procession is marshaled, and proceeds with slow and stately march, along the valley westward. The pibroch flings out its wail of woe, summoning dweller in hamlet and glen to join the funeral cortege and swell the numbers of this great mourning. The procession wends its way betwixt lakes and mountains which have since become classic, though then they were unsung by bard or poet. Many days the march continues, for the way is long to the royal sepulchers amid the western seas. At last the desolate and lonely isle is reached. Iona is still the proudest fane in Europe, despite that the Vikings have ravaged it with fire and sword, and left it nothing but its indestructible name. The greatest of the Scottish kings, and even monarchs of other lands, leave it as their dying request to be taken to Iona, and buried in the Isle which the memory of Columba like a mighty presence still overshadows. We see the funeral party arrive at Port na Churraich; they pass along the “Street of the Dead,” and they deposit the remains of Kenneth in the burial place of the kings who have sat on the stone of destiny. They leave him there, the thunder of the Atlantic singing his requiem, for psalm and chant have ceased amid the fallen shrines of Iona.

CHAPTER - A. D. 860- 877. DONALD- CONSTANTINFIRST BATTLE WITH THE DANES.

THE good king Kenneth has gone to his grave, and the light would seem to have departed with him. No sooner is he laid in the tomb than the shadow of an eclipse falls upon the historic landscape, and for some time we travel onwards in comparative darkness. Several successive reigns pass away before we can see distinctly what is passing on the soil of Scotland. The chroniclers who narrate the transactions of these dark centuries- and they are the darkest of Scottish history- were not eye- witnesses of what they record; they gleaned their information from a variety of traditional and monumental sources, and however painstaking and truth- loving they may have been, it was impossible for them to avoid being at times wrong in their conclusions, and mistaken as to their facts. F377 We are all Hector Boece wrote in 1533. His work is in classical Scotch prose. Great events bring their own light with them, and write their own history. This is especially true of events which have the spiritual for their basis, and which summon into action the souls rather than the bodies of men. Such epoch has an electric brilliancy which keeps it above the horizon despite ages of intervening darkness. How distinct and palpable is still the Scotland of the sixth and seventh centuries! We follow as vividly the voyage of Columba across the Irish Sea to the shores of Iona, as if we had sailed with him in the osier- ribbed vessel which carried him across. We watch from day to day the rising walls of that humble edifice within which he is to gather the youth of many lands, and there train them in a theology drawn from the pure fore, rains of Holy Scripture. We become his companions when he goes forth on his missionary tour among the Picts, and see him roll aside the darkness of Druidism from the north of Scotland, and revive the dying lamp of the faith in the Lowlands. Our interest in his labors grows as his work draws nigh its completion, and we see Scotland dotted with Columban brotherhoods, schools of Christian knowledge, and centers of Christian industry and art. We are parted from the men who accomplished this great work by thirteen centuries, yet we think of them as if they had been our contemporaries, and had only recently rested from their labors.

But with the Death of Kenneth MacAlpin, or rather with the decay of the Columban age, there comes a great change. Scotland hardly looks the same country as when Columba stood at the head of its scholars and Kenneth MacAlpin lead its armies. It has receded into the far distance, and we stand gazing into a haze. Scotland, it is true, does not lack kings. Kenneth MacAlpin has successors who have sat upon the LiaFail at Scone, but they pass before us like phantoms. Nor does Scotland lack warriors; at least it does not lack battles. The land rings incessantly with the clash of arms. But if the sword is busy, we fear the plough rests. The acres under tillage diminish instead of multiplying, and fields which had been redeemed from the wilderness by the skillful and diligent husbandry of men who had learned their agriculture as well as their Christianity from the elders of Iona, fail back again into the desert and become covered with bracken, while the wild boar, dislodged from his convert, comes back to his old haunt and lies in wait for the traveler. The lamp has waxed dim, and its flame sunk low in the schools of learning and in the sanctuaries of religion. We hear of armies crossing the Tweed to fight for the doubtful possession of Northumbria, and extend the Scottish, dominions to the banks of the Tyne, or even the Humber, but hardly do we hear of missionary bands in their home- spun woolen garments and sandals of cow hide, setting forth, as aforetime, from the Scottish shore to carry the name of Scot and the faith of Culdee to countries afar off.

The moment was critical. All that had been won- and much had been wonwas on the point of being lost. Scotland had begun to work its way back to its former condition of divided and warring nationalities. So would it have appeared to an onlooker. But no; Pict and Scot must now part company. If they would fulfill their destiny they must contend side by side on the same battlefield, and feel the purifying and elevating influence of a great common cause, prosecuted through toil, through painful sacrifices, through disheartening reverses, till, borne to victory, it has been crowned with complete achievement. It is not the success that comes with a rush, but the success that comes as the fruit of slow, patient, and persistent labors and conflicts that anneals, hardens, and at last perfects nations destined to rise to a first place, and to render the highest services to mankind. It is on such a process that Scotland is about to be taken. It is to be put upon the anvil and kept on it for seven generations, till Pict and Scot shall not only have mingled their blood but fused their souls, and for the narrow aims of Clan substituted the wider and nobler aspirations of Nation.

Even before Kenneth was laid in the sepulchral vaults of Iona, the Scots had warning that the clouds were gathering, and were sure to break in storm. They had seen what the sea could bring forth. Ships of ominous build, swift as the eagle, and as greedy of prey, had once and again appeared off their coast, and sent a thrill of terror along the sea- board.

These unwelcome visitors would retreat, and after disappearing in the blue main would suddenly return, as if they took pleasure in tormenting their destined victims before pouncing upon them. To come and see and go back would not always suit the purpose of these plundering sea- kings. One day they would strike. Already they had swooped upon the extreme northwestern parts, and struck their cruel talons into the quivering land. Iona gone, its monks slaughtered, and its buildings blackened with fire, remained the monument of their visit. These were the “hammers” which by long- continued and terrible blows were to weld into homogeneity and consistency the rugged and unruly mass of humanity that occupied Scotland.

The first to take his seat on the Stone of Scone and assume the government of the kingdom after Kenneth MacAlpin was his brother Donald. Had the nation forgotten the services of the father, seeing they pass by the son and place the brother on the vacant throne? No, Scotland is not unmindful of what it owes to Kenneth MacAlpin; but in those days the succession to the crown was regulated by what is known as the law of Tanistry. This was a wise law in times so unsettled as those of which we write, and must have largely helped to steady the nation. When it happened that a monarch died leaving a son to succeed him who was of tender years, it was held unwise to put the scepter into his hands. The vigor of manhood was needed to cope with the saucy and turbulent chieftains of the then Scotland, and in the hands of a child the scepter would have run great risk of being contemned. On the death of a monarch, therefore, his nearest collateral relative, or that one of the royal family who was deemed fittest for the office, was selected, and the son meanwhile had to wait till years had given him experience, and the death of the reigning king had opened his way to the throne. F378 As regards the prince now on the Scottish throne, nearly all we can say of him is that he wore the crown for four years. He stands too far off in point of time, and he is seen through too thick a haze to permit us to take his measure. Historians have given us two different and opposite portraits of King Donald, painting him, probably, as they wished him to have been, rather than as he really was, for they had hardly any better meansof judging of his true character than we have. Boece and Buchanan represent him as given up to all sorts of vicious indulgences, as governed entirely by low flatterers, and as neglecting the business of the state, and wasting his own time and the public revenue on “hunters, hawkers, and parasites.” The scandals of the court came at last to such a head that the discontented chieftains among the Picts thought that the time had come for asserting their independence and restoring their ancient monarchy. With this view they formed an alliance with the Saxons of England, assuring them that the northern kingdom was ready to drop into their arms would they only unite their forces with theirs iii the effort to wrest the ancient Pictland from the Scottish sway. The Saxons marched northward as far as the Forth. Had the raid succeeded it is probable that the Saxons would have kept the country to themselves, and left the mutinous and treacherous Picts to find a kingdom where they could. Happily the arms of Donald prevailed, and Scotland remained the united nation which Kenneth had made it.

In Donald, as the old chroniclers have striven to reproduce him from the mists of a remote time, we have, as we have said, a picture with two totally unlike sides. On the side which we have been contemplating there is shown us a profligate prince and a kingdom falling in pieces. Turn the obverse.

We arestartled by the grand image that now meets us. The voluptuary and trifler is gone, and iii his room is a prince, temperate, brave, patriotic, sustaining the state by his energy and virtues.

So have Fordun and Winton, both of whom wrote before Boece, represented Donald. They tell us, too, that not only was he careful to preserve the splendid heritage of a united people which his brother had left him, but that he was studious to keep war at a distance by cultivating friendship with neighboring kings. We make no attempt to reconcile these two widely divergent accounts. We see in them the proof that the real Donald is not known, and now never can be known. In a question of this sort it is the earliest authorities who are held to speak with the greater weight, seeing they stand nearest the sources of information; and as it is the earlier chroniclers that give us the more favorable portrait of Donald, he is entitled to the presumption thence arising in his favor. Donald closed his short reign of four years- too short if he was the virtuous prince which some believe him to have been, but too long if he was the monster of vice which others say he was- in the year 864. The rock in the western seas received his ashes.

On the death of Donald the succession returned to the direct line. We now see Constantin, the son of Kenneth MacAlpin, assuming the crown. The memories of the great father lend prestige to the throne of the son, and give authority to his scepter. And, verily, there was need of all the rigor which could possibly be infused into the government of the kingdom, for the hour was near when Scotland would have to sustain a severer strain than any to which it had been subjected since the days of the Romans. The tempest which had rolled up from England in the previous reign, and which had discharged itself on the southern shores of the Forth, was a summer blast compared with the hailstorms which were gathering in the countries on the other side of the North Sea. The battle with the Norseman was now to begin in deadly earnest. A few premonitory blows, sharp and quick, had the Viking dealt on the borders of the country, but now he was to assemble all his hordes, and come against the land like a cloud, and strike at the heart of the kingdom. For two centuries to come the kings of Scotland would have other things to think of than the wine cup and the boar hunt, and the Scots would do well to reserve their blood for worthier conflicts than a raid into Northumbria. Before the great battle opened Constantin found that he had a little war on his hands at home. The district of Lochaber suddenly burst into flames. This provincial conflagration had been kindled by a Highlander named MacEwan, whom Constantin had appointed to be governor of the district. The ambition of this man was not to be bounded by the narrow confine of his Highland principality. He had higher aims than he could find scope for in Lochaber.

A number of discontented men, who too doubtless thought that their great merits had been overlooked, gathered round him and offered him their help in his attempt on the throne. Constantin had timely’ notice of the tempest that was brewing amid the mountains of Lochaber, and without giving it time to burst, he crossed the hills and appeared on the scene of the disturbance. MacEwan, who did not dream that his treason had traveled as far as the valley of the Earn, and was known in the Palace of Fort- Teviot, was surprised to find himself face to face with his sovereign. His followers dispersing, left their leader to enjoy alone whatever promotion Constantin might be pleased to confer upon him. That promotion was such as his services deserved. He was hanged before the Castle of Dunstafnage, which he had made his headquarters, and the rebellion expired.

After this appeared a portent of even worse augury which struck alarm into the heart of both king and people. The tempest this time came not from the land but from the sea. The Danes had landed on the coast of Fife, and had already begun their bloody work. The tidings of what had happened sent a shock through the whole kingdom. Contrary to their usual custom the invaders had made their descent on the eastern coast, where they were not looked for, and as the Scotland of that age had no army of observation, their landing was unopposed. They held no parley with the natives, they offered no terms of submission, but unsheathing their swords, they began at once to hew their way into the interior of the kingdom. Their course lay along the fertile vale of the Leven, and its green beauty under their feet quickly changed into ghastly red. The cruel Dane was merciful to none, but his heaviest vengeance fell upon the ministers of the Christian Church. A considerable number of ecclesiastics is said to have made good their escape to the Isle of May, but their persecutors followed them thither, and remorselessly butchering them, converted the little isle into a horrible shambles. Possibly the Danes deemed their slaughter a pleasing sacrifice to their god Odin, for paganism in all its forms is a cruel and blood- thirsty thing.

King Constantin, assembling his army, marched to stay the torrent of Scottish blood which the Danish sword had set flowing. He found the Danish host divided into two bodies, and led by Hungan and Hubba, the two brothers of the Danish king. One corps was robbing and slaughtering along the left bank of the Leven, and the other was engaged with equal ardor in that to them most congenial work on the right bank of the same stream. Constantin led his soldiers against the Danish force on the left.

Recent rains had swollen the Leven, and the Danes on the other side durst not tempt the angry flood by crossing over to the assistance of their comrades. Left alone with the Scottish army they were utterly routed, and Constantin inflicted a sever chastisement upon them, cutting them off almost to a man. When the Danes on the right side of the river saw how complete was the victory of the Scots they fell back before them, and resolved to make their final stand in the neighborhood of their ships. Their fleet lay at anchor in Balcombie Bay, in the eastern extremity of Fife, two miles beyond the town of Crail. A sweet and peaceful scene is this spot, seen under its normal conditions. The blue sea, the bright sandy beach, the vast crescent of rocks and shingle, steep and lofty, that sweeps round it, a full mile in circuit, lying, moreover, in the bosom of a far mightier bay of which the southern arm finds its termination in the promontory of St. Abbs, and the northern in the precipices of the Red Head, make as fine a piece of coast scenery as is almost anywhere to be beheld. Yet dire was the carnage that day enacted on this usually quiet and secluded spot. The Danes strengthened their position by drawing round the bay atop, a bristling barricade of rocks and stones, with which the spot plentifully supplied them. They dug entrenchments on the level plain outside their bulwark, which further strengthened their camp. Immediately beneath, in the bay,- they might almost drop a pebble upon their decks,- were moored their galleys, ready to carry them across the sea, if the day should go against them, and they lived to go back to the country whence they had come. The Danes fought for life, the Scots for country, and both with fury and desperation. The battlefield was the open plain above the bay, in our day an expanse of rich corn fields, all the richer, doubtless, from the blood that then so abundantly watered it. The hottest of the strife would rage at the barrier of boulders thrown up to break the onset of the Scots. It was the object of the latter to drive the Danes over their own rampart, and roll them down the slope into the sea; but the invaders made good their footing on the level ground, and forcing back the body of their assailants, escaped the destruction that yawned in their rear. The slain lay all about, and the blood of Scot and Dane trickling down in the same stream dyed the waters of the bay, and gave terrible intimation to those in charge of the galleys of the desperate character of the struggle that was going on on shore.

The good fortune of Constantin did not attend him in this second battle.

This was owing to no lack of spirit or bravery on his part, but grew out of the fret and discontent that continued to smolder in the Pictish mind against the sway of the Scottish scepter.

A contingent of Picts is said to have left the field while the battle was going on, and their desertion disheartening their comrades, turned the scale in the fortunes of the day. When the battle had ended, Scotland was without a king. As Constantin was fighting bravely in the midst of his fast- falling ranks, he was surrounded by the Danes, seized and dragged to a cave in the rocks, and there beheaded. Ten thousand Scots are said to have perished in that battle. Of the Danes the slain would be even more numerous, for the entire force on the left of the Leven was cut in pieces in the first battle, and considering how desperately the second was contested, the Danish dead in it would count at least man for man with the Scots. The Danes sought no closer acquaintance with Scotland meanwhile. Making their way to their ships, they set sail, leaving behind them a land over which rose the wail of widow and orphan, to be answered back by an equally loud and bitter cry from the homes to which they were hastening, as soon as they should have arrived there with the doleful tidings they were carrying thither. F379 The body of the king was found next day. A sorrowing nation carried it to Iona, and laid it in the sepulchers of the Scottish kings. It was only twenty years since the funeral procession of Kenneth MacAlpin had been seen moving along the same tract, in greater pomp, it may be, but not in profounder grief. The father had died on the bed of peace, the son had gone down in the storm of battle, and now both rest together in the sacred quiet of the little isle. Constantin had reigned fourteen years, dying in A. D. 877. F380 Such was the first burst of the great storm. The clouds had rolled away for the moment, but they would return, not once, nor twice, but many times in years to come. Hence- forward the Scottish peasant must plough his fields and reap his harvests with the terror of the Dane hanging over him. At any moment this flock of Norse vultures might rise out of the sea, and swoop down upon his land and make it their prey. He must be watchful, and sober, and provident. He must care for the interests of his country, and know that his individual security and defense lay not in the strength of his clan, but in the strength of his nation; in the unity and power of all its clans, near and remo