The object of this Appendix is to give a summary of the process by which Anglo-Norman feudalism came to supersede the earlier Scottish civilization. For a more detailed account, the reader is referred to Skene's "Celtic Scotland", Robertson's "Scotland under her Early Kings", and Mr. Lang's "History of Scotland".
The kingdom[94] of which
Malcolm Canmore became the ruler in 1058 was not inhabited by clans. It
had been, from of old, divided into seven provinces, each of which was
inhabited by tribes. The tribe or tuath was governed by its own chief
or king (Ri or Toisech); each province or Mor Tuath was governed by Ri
Mor Tuath or Mormaer,[95] and these seven Mormaers seem (in theory, at
all events) to have elected the national king, and to have acted as his
advisers. The tribe was divided into freemen and slaves, and freemen
and slaves alike were subdivided into various classes--noble and
simple; serfs attached to land, and personal bondmen. The land was
held, not by the tribe in general, but by the "ciniod"
or near kin of the "flath" or senior of each family within the tribe. On the death of
a senior, the new senior was chosen (generally with strict regard to
primogeniture) from among the nearest in blood, and all who were within
three degrees of kin to him, shared in the joint-proprietary of the
proceeds of the land. The senior had special
privileges and was the representative and surety of the "ciniod", and the guardian of their
common interests. After the third generation, a
man ceased to be reckoned among the "ciniod", and probably received a small personal
allotment. Most of his descendants would thus be landless, or, if they
held land, would do so by what soon amounted to servile tenure. Thus
the majority of the tribe had little or nothing to lose by the
feudalization that was approaching.
The changes of Malcolm's reign
are concerned with the Church, not with land-tenure. But the
territorialization of the Church, and the abolition of the
ecclesiastical system of the tribe, foreshadowed the innovations that
Malcolm's son was to introduce. We have seen that an anti-English reaction followed the deaths of Malcolm and Margaret. This is important because it involved an expulsion of the English from Scotland, which may be compared with the expulsion of the Normans from England after the return of Godwin. Our knowledge of the circumstances is derived from the following statement of Symeon of Durham:--
"Qua [Margerita] mortua, Dufenaldum regis Malcolmi fratrem Scotti
sibi in regem elegerunt, et omnes Anglos qui de curia regis
extiterunt, de Scotia expulerunt. Quibus auditis, filius regis
Malcolmi Dunechan regem Willelmum, cui tune militavit, ut ei regnum
sui patris concederet, petiit, et impetravit, illique fidelitatem
juravit. Et sic ad Scotiam cum multitudine Anglorum et Normannorum
properavit, et patruum suum Dufenaldum de regno expulit, et in loco
ejus regnavit. Deinde nonnulli Scottorum in unum congregati,
homines illius pene omnes peremerunt. Ipse vero vix cum paucis
evasit. Veruntamen post haec illum regnare permiserunt, ea ratione,
ut amplius in Scotiam nec Anglos nec Normannos introduceret,
sibique militare permitteret."- "Rolls Series edn", vol. ii, p.
222.
It was not till the reign of Alexander I (1107-1124) that the
new influences made any serious modification of ancient custom. The
peaceful Edgar had surrounded himself with English favourites, and had
granted Saxon charters to Saxon landholders in the Lothians. His
brother, Alexander, made the first efforts to abolish the old Celtic
tenure. In 1114, he gave a charter to the monastery of Scone, and not
only did the charter contemplate the direct holding of land from the
king, but the signatories or witnesses described themselves as Earls,
not as Mormaers.
The monastery was founded to commemorate the
suppression of a revolt of the Celts of Moray, and the earls who
witnessed the charter bore Celtic names. This policy of taking
advantage of rebellions to introduce English civilization became a
characteristic method of the kings of Scotland. Alexander's successor,
David I, set himself definitely to carry on the work which his brother
had begun. He found his opportunity in the rising of Malcolm MacHeth,
Earl of Moray. To this rising we have already referred in the
Introduction. It was the greatest effort made against the innovations
of the anti-national sons of Malcolm Canmore, and its leader, Malcolm
MacHeth, was the representative of a rival line of kings. David had to
obtain the assistance, not only of the Anglo-Normans by whom he himself
was surrounded, but also of some of the barons of Northumberland and
Yorkshire, with whom he had a connection as Earl of Huntingdon, for the
descendant of the Celtic kings of Scotland was himself an English
baron. We have seen that David captured MacHeth and forfeited the lands
of Moray, which he regranted, on feudal terms, to Anglo-Normans or to
native Scots who supported the king's new policy. The war with England
interrupted David's work, as a long struggle with the Church had
prevented his brother, Alexander, from giving full scope to the
principles that both had learned in the English Court; but, by the end
of David's reign, the lines of future development had been quite clearly laid down. The Celtic Church had almost disappeared. The bishops of St. Andrews, Dunkeld, Moray, Glasgow, Ross, Caithness, Aberdeen, Dunblane, Brechin, and Galloway were great royal officers, who inculcated upon the people the necessity of adopting the new political and ecclesiastical system. The Culdee monasteries were dying out; north of the Forth, Scone had been founded by Alexander I as a pioneer of the new civilization, and, after the defeat of Malcolm MacHeth and the settlement of Moray, David, in 1150, founded the Abbey of Kinloss. The Celtic official terms were replaced by English names; the Mormaer had become the Earl, the Toisech was now the Thane, and Earl and Thane alike were losing their position as the royal representative, as David gradually introduced the Anglo-Norman _vice-comes_ or sheriff, who represented the royal Exchequer and the royal system of justice. David's police regulations tended still further to strengthen the nascent Feudalism; like the kings of England, he would have none of the "lordless
man, of whom no law can be got", and commendation was added to the
forces which produced the disintegration of the tribal system. Not less
important was the introduction of written charters. Alexander had given
a written charter to the monastery of Scone; David gave private charters to individual land-owners, and made the possession of a charter the test of a freeholder. Finally, it is from David's reign that Scottish burghs take their origin. He encouraged the rise of towns as part of the feudal system. The burgesses were tenants-in-chief of the king, held of him by charter, and stood in the same relation to him as other tenants-in-chief. So firmly grounded was this idea that, up to 1832, the only Scottish burgesses who attended Parliament were representatives of the ancient Royal Burghs, and their right depended, historically, not on any gift of the franchise, but on their position as tenants-in-chief. That there were strangers among the new burgesses cannot be doubted; Saxons and Normans mingled with Danes and Flemish merchants in the humble streets of the villages that were protected by the royal castle and that grew into Scottish towns; but their numbers were too few to give us any ground for believing that they were, in any sense, foreign colonies, or that they seriously modified the ethnic character of the land. Men from the country would, for reasons of protection, or from the impulse of commerce, find their way into the towns; it is certain that the population of the towns did not migrate into the country. The real importance of the towns lies in the part they played in the spread of the English tongue. To the influence of Court and King, of land tenure, of law and police, of parish priest and monk, and Abbot and Bishop, was added the persuasive force of commercial interest.
The death of David I, in 1153, was immediately followed
by Celtic revolts against Anglo-Norman order. The province of Moray
made a final effort on behalf of Donald Mac Malcolm MacHeth, the son of
the Malcolm MacHeth of the previous reign, and of a sister of Somerled
of Argyll, the ancestor of the Lord of the Isles. The new king, Malcolm
IV, the grandson of David, easily subdued this rising, and it is in
connection with its suppression that Fordun makes the statement, quoted
in the Introduction, about the displacement of the population of Moray.
There is no earlier authority for it than the fourteenth century, and
the inherent probability in its favour is so very slight that but
little weight can reasonably be assigned to it. David had already
granted Moray to Anglo-Normans who were now in possession of the
Lowland portion and who ruled the Celtic population. We should expect
to hear something definite of any further change in the Lowlands, and a
repopulation of the Highlands of Moray was beyond the limits of
possibility. The king, too, had little time to carry out such a
measure, for he had immediately to face a new rebellion in Galloway; he
reigned for twelve years in all, and was only twenty-four years of age
when he died. The only truth in Fordun's statement is probably that
Malcolm IV carried on the policy of David I in regard to the
land-owners of Moray, and forfeited the possessions of those who had
taken part in MacHeth's rising. In Galloway, a similar policy was
pursued. Some of the old nobility, offended perhaps by Malcolm's
attendance on Henry II at Toulouse, in his capacity as an English
baron, joined the defeated Donald MacHeth in an attempt upon Malcolm,
at Perth, in 1160. MacHeth took refuge in Galloway, which the king had
to invade three times before bringing it into subjection. Before his
death, in 1165, Galloway was part of the feudal kingdom of Scotland.
Only once again was the security of the Anglo-Celtic dynasty seriously threatened by the supporters of the older civilization. When William the Lion, brother and successor of Malcolm IV, was the prisoner of Henry II, risings took place both in Galloway and in Moray. A Galloway chieftain, by name Gilbert, maintained an independent rule to his death in 1185, when William came to terms with his nephew and successor, Roland. In the north, Donald Bane Mac William, a great-grandson of Malcolm Canmore, raised the standard of revolt in 1181, and it was not till 1187 that the rebellion was finally suppressed, and Donald Bane killed. There were further risings, in Moray in 1214 (on the accession of Alexander II), and in Galloway in 1235. The chronicler, Walter of Coventry, tells us that these revolts were occasioned by the fact that recent Scottish kings had proved themselves Frenchmen rather than Scots, and had surrounded themselves solely with Frenchmen. This is the real explanation of the support given to the Celtic pretenders. A new civilization is not easily imposed upon a people. Elsewhere in Scotland, the process was more gradual and less violent. In the eastern Lowlands there were no pretenders and no rebellions, and traces of the earlier civilization remained longer than in Galloway and in Moray. "In Fife alone", says Mr. Robertson, "the Earl continued in the thirteenth century to exercise the prerogatives of a royal Maor, and, in the reign of David I, we find in Fife what is practically the clan MacDuff."[96] Neither in the eastern Lowlands, nor in the more disturbed districts of Moray and Galloway, is there any evidence of a radical change in the population. The changes were imposed from above. Mr. Lang has pointed out that we do not hear "of feuds consequent on the eviction of prior holders.... The juries, from Angus to Clyde, are full of Celtic names of the gentry. The Steward (FitzAlan)
got Renfrew, but the "probi homines",
or gentry, remain Celtic after the reigns of David and William."[97]
The contemporary chronicler, Aelred, gives no hint that David replaced
his Scottish subjects by an Anglo-Norman population; he admits that he
was terrible to the men of Galloway, but insists that he was beloved of
the Scots. It must not be forgotten that the new system brought
Anglo-Norman justice and order with it, and must soon have commended
itself by its practical results. The grants of land did not mean
dispossession. The small owners of land and the serfs acquiesced in the
new rule and began to take new names, and the Anglo-Norman strangers were in actual possession, not of the land itself, but of the
"privilegia"
owed by the land. Even with regard to the great lords, the statements
have been slightly exaggerated; Alexander II was aided in crushing the
rebellion of 1214-15 by Celtic earls, and in 1235 he subdued Galloway
by the aid of a Celtic Earl of Ross.
* *
* *
*
We have attempted to explain the Anglicization of Scotland, south
and east of "the Highland line", by the combined forces of the Church,
the Court, Feudalism, and Commerce, and it is unnecessary to lay
further stress upon the importance of these elements in twelfth century
life. It may be interesting to compare with this the process by which
the Scottish Highlands have been Anglicized within the last century and
a half. It must, in the first place, be fully understood that the
interval between the twelfth century and the suppression of the last
Jacobite rising was not void of development even in the Highlands. "It
is in the reign of David the First", says Mr. Skene,[98] "that the sept
or clan first appears as a distinct and prominent feature in the social organization of the Gaelic population", and it is not till the reign of Robert III that he finds "the first appearance of a distinct clan". Between the end of the fourteenth century and the middle of the eighteenth, the clan had developed a complete organization, consisting of the chief and his kinsmen, the common people of the same blood, and the dependants of the clan. Each clan contained several septs, founded by such descendants of chiefs as had obtained a definite possession in land. The writer of _Letters from a Gentleman in the North of Scotland in 1726_, mentions that the Highland clans were "subdivided into smaller branches of fifty or sixty men, who deduce their original from their particular chieftains, and rely upon them as their more immediate protectors and defenders".
The Hanoverian government had thus to
face, in 1746, a problem in some respects more difficult than that
which the descendants of Malcolm Canmore had solved. The clan
organization was complete, and clan loyalty had assumed the form of an
extravagant devotion; a hostile feeling had arisen between Highlands
and Lowlands, and all feeling of common nationality had been lost.
There was no such important factor as the Church to help the change;
religion was, on the whole, perhaps rather adverse than favourable to
the process of Anglicization. On the other hand, the task was, in other
aspects, very much easier. The Highlands had been affected by the
events of the seventeenth century, and the chiefs were no longer mere
freebooters and raiders. The Jacobite rising had weakened the
Highlands, and the clans had been divided among themselves. It was not
a united opposition that confronted the Government. Above all, the
methods of land-tenure had already been rendered subject to very
considerable modification. Since the reign of James VI, the law had
been successful in attempting to ignore "all Celtic usages inconsistent
with its principles", and it "regarded all persons possessing a feudal
title as absolute proprietors of the land, and all occupants of the
land who could not show a right derived from the proprietor, as simple
tenants".[99] Thus the strongest support of the clan system had been
removed before the suppression of the clans. The Government of George
II placed the Highlands under military occupation, and began to root
out every tendency towards the persistence of a clan organization. The
clan, as a military unit, ceased to exist when the Highlanders were
disarmed, and as a unit for administrative purposes when the heritable
jurisdictions were abolished, and it could no longer claim to be a
political force of any kind, for every vestige of independence was
removed. The only individual characteristic left to the clan or to the
Highlander was the tartan and the Celtic garb, and its use was
prohibited under very severe penalties. These were measures which were
not possible in the days of David as they were in those of George. But
a further step was common to both centuries--the forfeiture of lands,
and although a later Government restored many of these to descendants
of the attainted chiefs, the magic spell had been broken, and the
proprietor was no longer the head of the clan. Such measures, and the
introduction of sheep-farming, had, within sixty years, changed the
whole face of the Highlands.
Another century has been added to Sir
Walter's _Sixty Years Since_, and it may be argued that all the
resources of modern civilisation have failed to accomplish, in that
period, what the descendants of Malcolm Canmore effected in the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries. This is true as far as language is concerned,
but only with regard to language. The Highlanders have not forgotten
the Gaelic tongue as the Lowlanders had forgotten it by the outbreak of
the War of Independence.[100] Various facts account for this. One of
the features of recent days is an antiquarian revival, which has tended
to preserve for Highland children the great intellectual advantage of a
bi-lingual education. The very severance of the bond between chieftain
and clan has helped to perpetuate the ancient language, for the people
no longer adopt the speech of their chief, as, in earlier days, the
Celt of Moray or of Fife adopted the tongue spoken by his Anglo-Norman
lord, or learned by the great men of his own race at the court of David
or of William the Lion. The Bible has been translated into Gaelic, and
Gaelic has become the language of Highland religion. In the Lowlands of
the twelfth century, the whole influence of the Church was directed to
the extermination of the Culdee religion, associated with the Celtic
language and with Celtic civilization. Above all, the difference lies
in the rise of burghs in the Lowlands. Speech follows trade. Every
small town on the east coast was a school of English language. Should
commerce ever reach the Highlands, should the abomination of desolation
overtake the waterfalls and the valleys, and other temples of nature
share the degradation of the Falls of Foyers, we may then look for the
disappearance of the Gaelic tongue.
Be all this as it may, it is
undeniable that there has been in the Highlands, since 1745, a change
of civilization without a displacement of race. We venture to think
that there is some ground for the view that a similar change of
civilization occurred in the Lowlands between 1066 and 1286, and,
similarly, without a racial dispossession. We do not deny that there
was some infusion of Anglo-Saxon blood between the Forth and the Moray
Firth in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; but there is no evidence
that it was a repopulation.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 94: In this
discussion the province of Lothian is not included.]
[Footnote
95: Ri Mortuath is an Irish term. We find, more usually, in Scotland,
the Mormaer.]
[Footnote 96: _Op. cit._, vol. i, p. 254.]
[Footnote 97: _History of Scotland_, vol. i, pp. 135-6.]
[Footnote
98: _Celtic Scotland_, vol. iii, pp. 303, 309.]
[Footnote 99:
_Celtic Scotland_, vol. iii, p. 368.]
[Footnote 100: It should of
course be recollected that the Gaelic tongue must have persisted in the
vernacular speech of the Lowlands long after we lose all traces of it
as a literary language.]
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