Bygone Scotland: Historical and Social. David Maxwell
he attacked Argyle, and reduced the whole western highlands. The Strathclyde Britons were assailed by a brother of Angus, in 756, and their chief town, Alclyde, destroyed. In the beginning of the ninth century, the seat of the Pictish government appears to have migrated from Inverness into Perthshire—Scone becoming its political capital.
The history of the Dalriadan Scots, although interwoven with that of the Picts, and meeting at many points with the histories of the Britons of Strathclyde, and the Angles of Northumbria, is yet misty and legendary. True, there is a list of kings, and their stalwart portraits hang in the great hall of Holyrood; so extensive is this list, that if they had reigned for anything like an average period, it would carry the history back to about three hundred years B.C.
We find something like a trustworthy beginning in Fergus, the son of Earac, in 503. From this date for upwards of two hundred years, down to Selvach, who was conquered by the Pictish King Angus Mac-Fergus, there is from the Irish Annals, and the Church History of Beda, a reasonable certainty. After this there is another century of hazy legend. If, as seems probable, Dalriada continued through the latter seventy years of the eighth, and the first half of the ninth century, under Pictish rule, it is not easy to see how, in the middle of the ninth century, Kenneth Mac-Alpine, called in the Irish Annals a king of the Picts, founded, as there is no doubt he did, a line of Scottish monarchs on the throne of Scone. One hypothesis is, that Kenneth was the son of a Pictish king by a Scottish mother, and by the Pictish law, the mother’s nationality determined that of the children. Whatever the circumstances of the case, the accession of Kenneth Mac-Alpine represents an era in Scottish history. There was thenceforth such a complete union of Scots and Picts, that as separate races they lost all distinctiveness. But it certainly appears that, both by numerical superiority and historical prestige, the country should have been Pictland, rather than Scotland.
The kingdom of Kenneth included central Scotland from sea to sea, Argyle and the Isles, Perthshire, Fife, Angus, and the Mearns. Lothian was still Northumbrian. The Vale of the Clyde, Ayr, Dumfries, and Galloway, were under a British king at Dumbarton. There were several independent chieftains in Moray and Mar; and Orkney and the northern and north-western fringes of the country, were dominated by Norsemen.
The Danish Invasions of Britain.
In the first quarter of the ninth century, invaders from lands farther north than Jutland—hence called Norsemen—played broadly the same parts in Britain as the Angles and Saxons had played three hundred years previously. These Norsemen, in their war galleys, prowled over the Northern Seas, plundering the coasts, and making first incursions and then settlements in Muscovy, Britain, and Gaul. They discovered and colonised Iceland. Many centuries before Columbus, they had sailed along the coast of North America, and even attempted settlements thereon. On the northern coast of France, Normandy, under its powerful dukes, had become almost an independent state.
In their English invasions they are commonly called Danes, but in their own homes they formed three kingdoms, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Probably the invaders of England were mainly Danes. They were still “heathens,” i.e., of the old Scandinavian faith; and they held the Christian faith in supreme detestation. They were daring, fierce, and cruel; but still people of a kindred race, speaking dialects of the same Teutonic tongue; and when they settled in the land and became Christians, their language and manners differed so little from those of the Anglo-Saxons, that they did not remain a separate nation, as the Anglo-Saxons did from the British. It was more as if another Teuton tribe had come over and become joint occupants of the land. But, to begin with, they came as plunderers, taking their booty home. They ravaged Berkshire, Hampshire, and Surrey, destroying churches and monasteries. They invaded and took possession of East Anglia. They penetrated into Mercia; at Peterborough they burned the minster, slaying the abbot and his monks. They made extensive settlements in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire.
In 876, the Danes invaded Wessex, of which Alfred—one of the grandest names in old English history—was then King. Alfred had to fight the invaders both on sea and land. In and about Exeter there were several engagements, resulting in the Danes agreeing to leave Alfred’s territories. Two years later they broke truce, made a sudden incursion to Chippenham, and became for a time masters of the west country. This is the time assigned to the neatherd-cottage negligence of Alfred, in allowing the cakes to burn in baking, whilst sheltering amongst the wood and morasses of Somersetshire. After a time he organised a sufficient army to meet, fight with, and beat the Danes—they gave him oaths and hostages against further disturbance, and their King Guthrum—thence called Athelstan—with thirty of his chief followers were baptized. But the Danes now held East Anglia, Northumbria, and large portions of Essex and Mercia—indeed more than one-half of what is now England. Alfred being in peace during the latter years of his reign, devoted himself to works of governmental utility, he made a digest of the laws, and saw that justice was impartially administered; and he was the father of the English navy. His mind was cultured with the best learning of the times, and he made Anglo-Saxon translations of the Psalms, of Æsop’s Fables, and of Bede’s Church History.
In the first year of the tenth century, Alfred’s son, Edward (styled the Elder, so as not to confuse him with later Edwards), began a reign of twenty-five years. He was a strong king; through all his reign he had conflicts with the Danes, who had settled in the north and east of England; always beating them, and then having to quell fresh insurrections. And he made himself Over-King of the Scots and Welsh; so he was the first Anglo-Saxon king who became lord of nearly all Britain. Wessex, Kent, and Sussex he had inherited, Wales, Strathclyde, and Scotland acknowledged him as Suzerain. His son, Athelstan, succeeded him in 925; and the King of England now held such a high place among the rulers of Western Europe, that several of his sisters married foreign kings and princes. In 937 a great battle was fought in the North, when a combination of Scots under Constantine, and Danes and Irish under Anlaf, were defeated with much slaughter by Athelstan. It is called by the old chroniclers the Battle of Brunanburg, but the locality is uncertain. Constantine and Anlaf escaped; but Constantine’s son was killed, as, says the old chronicler, were “five Danish Kings and seven Jarls.”
Athelstan died in 941. Two of his brothers, and one brother’s son occupied the throne successively during the next eighteen years. Then, in 959, Edgar, a grandson of Alfred, then only sixteen years of age, was by the Witan made King. He was called The Peaceable; during his reign of sixteen years, no foe, foreign or domestic, vexed the land. Northumbria, extending as far north as the Forth, with Edwinsburh its border fortress—garrisoned by Danes and Anglo-Saxons—having long been a trouble to the Kings of Wessex, Edgar divided the earldom. He made Oswulf Earl of the country beyond the Tees—including the present county of Northumberland; and Osla, Earl of Deira, where the Danes had ruled, with York for his chief town; but the Danes were allowed to live peaceably under their own laws. And Edgar granted Lothian, containing the counties of Linlithgow, Edinburgh, and Haddington, to Kenneth, King of Scots, to be held under himself. And thus Lothian was ever after held by the Scottish Kings, and its English speech became the official language of Scotland. With Strathclyde, west of the Solway, under a Scottish prince, the map of the Kingdom of Scotland was now broadly traced out.
Edgar commuted the annual Welsh tribute to 300 wolves’ heads. He appointed standard weights and measures, maintained an efficient fleet, and was altogether a fine example of a man who—although of small stature and mean presence—by vigour of mind and will, ruled ably and well in rude times. He was really Basileus—lord-paramount of all Britain. After his coronation at Bath, which was not before he had reigned thirteen years—he sailed with his fleet round the western coasts. Coming to Chester, it is related that eight Kings, viz.: Kenneth of Scotland, Malcolm of Cumberland, Maccus of the Western Isles, and five Welsh princes did homage to him. They are said to have rowed him in a boat on the Dee—he steering—from the palace of Chester to the minster of St. John, where there was solemn service; and then they returned in like manner.
But these halcyon days for England of peace and settled government ended with Edgar. He died in 975, leaving two sons—Edward by a first wife—Ethelred by a second. Edward succeeded, but reigned only four years, being assassinated