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Another posthumous work
of the late Mr Ritson is now presented to the world, which the editor
trusts will not be found less valuable than the publications preceding
it.
Lord Hailes professes to commence his interesting Annals with the
accession of Malcolm III., because the History of Scotland, previous to
that period, is involved in obscurity and fable the praise of
indefatigable industry and research cannot therefore be justly denied to
the compiler of the present volumes, who has extended the supposed limit
of authentic history for many centuries, and whose labours, in fact, end
where those of his predecessor begin.
The editor deems it a conscientious duty to give the authors materials
in their original shape, unmixed with baser matterwhich will account
for, and, it is hoped, excuse, the trifling repetition and omissions
£hat sometimes occur.
ADVERTISEMENT
What has been, perhaps,
too rashly attempted as the subject of these sheets, is a chronological
account of the inhabitants of the country known, for the first time, by
the name of Caledonia, and, in successive ages, by those of Albany,
Pictland, Scotland, and North Britain, from the earliest period which
history affords, and from the most ancient and authentic documents which
time has preserved, and with that attention to truth and accuracy which
integrity and utility require.
The genuine history of the Caledonian Britons, or most ancient, if not
indigenous, inhabitants of this country, is to be found in the writings
or remains of Tacitus, Dio Cassius, and some few of less note, who were
Roman citizens, and wrote in Latin. Of the first we have, entire and
perfect, “The Life of Agricola,” a work of singular interest and merit;
the history of Dio is, unfortunately, defective. Some lights, however,
are thrown on this distant period, by one Richard, surnamed Corinensis,
or of Cirencester, a monk of Westminster, in the fifteenth century, into
whose hands had fallen certain collections of a Roman general; and whose
compilation, including a curious ancient map of Britain, was originally
printed by Charles Julius Bertram, at Copenhagen, in 1757.
That of the Picts and Scots, which is known to remain, consists, in the
first place, of some meagre notices, in two panegyrics, delivered by one
Eume-nius, an orator, before the emperors Constantius and Constantine,
in the years 292 and 301, and the exploits of the elder Theodosius, in
364, as related by Ammianus Marcellinus; secondly, of a few passages of
the old British and Saxon, or English historians, namely, Gildas,
Nennius, Bede, Ethelwerd, Ingulph, the Saxon Chronicle, William of
Malmesbury, Henry of Huntingdon, Simeon of Durham, and a few more of
later date; to which may be added the lives of saints Columba and Ken-tigern;
the Cronica de origine antiquorum Picto-rum et Scotorum, supposed to
have been written in 994, and, with another Cronica regum Scottorum,
first printed by father Thomas Innes, of the Scots College, Paris, from
an ancient manuscript, which had belonged to William Cecil, lord
Burghley, and was then in the king of France’s library, by way of
appendix to his “Critical Essay on the ancient Inhabitants of Scotland,”
in two volumes, 8vo, at London, in 1729- The treatise “De situ
Albania?,” published likewise by Innes, who thought there was “ground to
believe that the author of this description was Giraldus Cambrensis,”
whose words are, “Legimus in historiis et in chronicis antiquorum
Britonum, et in gestis et annalibus antiquis Scottorum et Pictorum" but
these, it is most probable, were nothing more than Geoffrey of Monmouth
or his followers. It may be likewise proper to notice the Cronica de
Mailros, printed in Rerum Anglicarum scriptorum. veterum, tomus I.
Oxonice, 1684, folio, by William Fulman, and a slight Chronicon ccenobii
sanctce-crucis Edinburgensis, in the first volume of Whartons Anglia
sacra; but, -before all, the Annales Ultonienses, or Ulster-annals, a
faithful chronology of great antiquity, a copy whereof was fortunately
discovered in the Sloane-library, now in the British Museum, within
these few years ; but has not been hitherto entirely printed, though, at
present, it is believed, with others of equal importance, in a state of
preparation.
The only books of any antiquity which profess, or pretend, to be general
histories, or chronicles, of Scotland, are the Scotrthronicon of John de
Fordun, a canon of Aberdeen, who flourished about 1377; and the
“Orygynale cronykil of Scotland", by Androw of Wyntown, priowr of sanct
Serfisynche in Loch-Levyn of Which an elegant and beautiful edition, in
two volumes, 8vo, was published at London, by the industrious and
accurate Mr David Macpherson, in 1795: but as both these writers are
only remarkable for their ignorance, invention, forgery, and falsehood,
neither of them deserves to be consulted, and still less to be quoted or
relied on. That the Scots, however, had ancient chronicles, long before
the time of Fordun, appears from the declaration of the Scottish clergy,
in 1309-10, touching the right of king Robert de Brus, in which are
these words .“Ut in antiquis Scottorum gestis magnificis plenius
continetur.” See Robertsons Index of records, Ap. p. 5. Whether these
were the chronica, or alia chronica, cited by him, cannot be
ascertained. It is, however, remarkable,'that he never mentions the name
of a single Scotish historian. But that every chronicle' was
deliberately destroyed by Edward, the conqueror, or usurper, is a
groundless calumny;, and if these “antiqua gesla” were extant in 1310,
how happens it that we have no further account of them? Hector Bois, who
lived at a later period, is, if possible, a still more wanton forger,
and, in every point of view, unworthy of credit ; a character which may,
with equal truth and justice, be extended to George Buchanan, who
imposed the fables of Fordun and Bois upon his countrymen as their
genuine history, interpolating, at the same time, a sufficient number of
his own. Even bishop Lesley, Maule of Melgum, in his despicable and
pretended “History of the Picts,” (Edin. 1706, 12mo,) Abercrombie, in
the first volume of his “Scots achievements,” and Doctor George
Mackenzie, adopt the falsehoods of Hector Bois to their utmost extent.
John Bale, bishop of Ossory, enumerates a work, intitled, “Regnum
Scotorum et Pictorum succes-siones, incerto authore,” which he affirms
to have left in Ireland when driven out by the’ papists; and Usher, at
the foot of a letter from Selden, dated September the 14th, 1625,
requesting what he had of the history of Scotland and Ireland, notes
that he sent him upon this (inter alia,) "Fragment. Scotic. Annal. ad
finem Ivonis Carnot.” But neither of these pieces has been further heard
of: and so much for. the history of Scotland.
Volume 1 |
Volume 2
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