but a page from St Patrick's Life (true or false as history of events) would have shown what Celtic life and Celtic Christianity were in essence. A book must be judged, we repeat, by its aim and scope-an author has a right to make his own selection; but we regret that, in Mr Hume Brown's selection, so much of what we cannot but think essential should be passed

over.

Picts, so styled, ceased to be a name in the making of Scotland after 844, the date of Kenneth MacAlpine, a Scot. We take it that he was a Scot on the sword side, a Pict on the spindle side, and by the spindle side the Picts arranged their Royal pedigrees. Thus Picts existed in force, though now merged in the name of Scots, who were Irish! History shows the Picto-Scottish realm dilapidated by Northmen, especially in the north and west: disturbed in the great province of Moray; acquiring a kind of hold over the Brythons of Strathclyde or Cumbria, and over the English province of Lothian (North Northumbria), while the claims of English over-lordship, which flowered under Edward I., are budding in various English claims to homage. Internally the Crown fluctuates at the end of each reign between representatives of the houses of

Constantine and of Aodh, both sons of Kenneth MacAlpine. Mr Hume Brown mentions the "law of Tanistry, which had prevailed among the Scots"; but what, precisely, was the law of Tanistry, and why did it procure alternate successions? We are not fully informed. It seems a more remarkable omission to make no allusion to the famous Commendation of Scotland to Eadward the Elder, by Constantine II., Mr Hume Brown's Constantin III. This is dated 924 by the English Chronicle, 921 by Florence of Worcester, who probably saw that 924 was an impossible date. Everybody knows how much Mr Freeman made of this affair. The topic is confused.1 If the submission made the vassalage of Scotland part of the law of Britain, it was important enough to deserve discussion. But not a word is given to the theme, nor to the alleged submission of 926, while a "temporary submission" to Ethelstan in his raid of 934 is recorded. On miracles wrought by Ethelstan at this juncture, Edward I. gravely based part of his claim. Is there good authority for any submission at this date? Three years later Constantine and his Northmen were well beaten at Brunanburh, which Sir James Ramsay locates at Bourne, in Lincolnshire.

Over another alleged event,

VOL. CLXV.-NO. MII.

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the appearance of Kenneth IIL in the eight-oar of Eadgar on the Dee (an event very dear to Mr Freeman), Mr Hume Brown passes in silence. Sir James Ramsay accepts Florence's legend of this service Mr Robertson did not, nor do we; but we think it deserved an allusion, for the English claims were based on things of this kind. Mr Hume Brown only alludes, very vaguely, to a recognition by Kenneth of Eadgar's superiority, as influencing Eadgar's nominal grant of Lothian. This on 66 a somewhat doubtful authority." Mr Robertson annihilates the "doubtful authority," we think. Malcolm took

Lothian in the days of Cnut.1

Now "all persons anxious to understand the nature of existing political conditions" (and to these earnest souls the editor appeals) may say that the grounds of the claims of Edward I. on Scotland do not matter. He did not get Scotland, so all the old controversy may go by the board. This is an opinion like another. But surely the anxious political reader of historical manuals will ask, "What does it matter how much white wine was drunk at Lincluden when Mary of Gueldres entertained the wife of Henry VI.?" If they had drunk a dozen pipes of white wine in place of three, the "existing political conditions" would be exactly as they are. Yet Mr Hume Brown finds room for the white wine and salt (which have docu

mentary evidence), though he does not find room for the Commendation of 921 (?), 924 (?), or the alleged submission of Celtic princes to Ethelstan in 926. Once more, the anxious student of the evolution of existing political institutions must pant for information about Celtic land - tenures, for, practically, they prevailed, in places, till 1748, and they are at the root of the Crofter Question of today.

But Mr Hume Brown does not venture into this thorny wilderness, any more than he explains in its length and breadth "the law of Tanistry." These things clamour for discussion, and are not discussed. Nevertheless Mr Hume Brown enables the inquirer to understand the importance of the definite undeniable conquest of Lothian, by Malcolm II., at the momentous battle of Carham on Tweed (1018). Lothian was the making of Scotland: English of Lothian was to become Scots, and the real Scottish language, Gaelic, was to cease to be the speech of Court, and law, and literature. In spite of Malcolm's victory at Carham, he, and two other kings, Jehmare and Maelbeth, are said to have become Cnut's men in 1031. Mr Hume Brown thinks them sub- kings so important that Malcolm did not "represent" them. But, says Mr Robertson, it is later MSS. that introduce these two kings, and, in 1031, Maelbeth (Macbeth) was not yet even a Mormaor, far less a king. If

Mr Hume Brown adds little that is new, or disputable, to our history between the battle of Carham, with the acquisition of Lothian, and the great Royalist revolution of David I., the feudalisation of Scotland, the abundant grants to the non-Celtic Church, and to Norman nobles, such as the Fitzalans, that is, the Stewarts, who got Renfrew and part of Kyle, or the Bruces, who got Carrick, which was under a Celtic earl about 1240. Here Mr Hume Brown raises, but does not solve, a problem which has puzzled every intelligent child who reads the 'Tales of a Grandfather.' How did David get the vast lands on which he settled his clergy and his Normans? Mr Hume Brown says, "We have no certain knowledge of the manner in which this transference was carried out by David or other kings." He might have referred to Mr Robertson's masterly argument against "The Theory of Displacement." We know that Bruce's disinheriting of the lords bequeathed to Scotland a generation of civil war and the never - sated feud of the evicted Gregara; we know that intrusions of Normans in Galloway caused the feuds which leave their mark in these "mounds of mystery," the motes, on which the Normans built their palisaded towers.2

forfeitures in Ross and Moray meant a century of war for the MacHeths and MacWilliams. Mr Robertson has shown how these evils were avoided, when David and William the Lion gave large grants in Lothian and Strathclyde and Scotia proper, and how the Celtic proprietors (as Jury lists prove) became the feudal Anglicised barons. By grants to the Church David gained the all but uniform and consistent aid of the Church to the cause of national independence. The clergy would not be subject to York or Canterbury, and stood for Scotland till Archbishop Hamilton was hanged. But the descendants of David's Norman nobles played the double part which we all know.

Mr Hume Brown's account of David's important reign is extremely lucid: he even manages to be clear and satisfactory about that amusing and enigmatic clerk and claimant, Brother Wimund, who entangled himself as a genuine "Pretender" in the "running plea" of the legitimist house of MacHeth. That Somerled married his daughter to Donald MacHeth we do not feel certain; Mr Robertson makes Somerled's sister hold this place. That Somerled fell by treason, in his invasion of Scotland (1164), we cannot accept on the authority of tradition in

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the mouths of the learned ministers of Killearnan and Kiltarlity, who regard the Celts as victors in "the sair fight o' Harlaw." The children of Somerled are not unbiassed historians.1

From David to Alexander II., Scotland was trying to acquire the north of England as a province. The result was the capture of William the Lion, and the Treaty of Falaise, which, for a few years, reduced all of Scotland but her indomitable Church to the abject condition which Edward I. revived for а year or two. Another result was the definite beginning of that sad and glorious Ancient League with France, to which Scotland owns her part in the fight of Baugé Bridge, and in the immortal victories of the Maid. About these names, Pathay, Lagny, Orleans, the most illustrious on our banners, Mr Hume Brown is so self-denying as to say nothing at all! He does not even touch on the crucial value of the Falaise treaty in its bearing on the question of English supremacy, except by remarking that Richard I. "restored the independence of Scotland." This, of course, implies that Scotland, save from 1174 to 1189, had been independent which is exactly what the English, and Mr Freeman, have denied. The troubles of William contained one element of progress. At

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various times he had to pay heavy ransoms and indemnities to England-or to refuse pecuniary aid. These were the occasions of great assemblies and assessments, and hence began, on the question of finance, the very scanty "Constitutional history" of Scotland.

The reigns of the Kings of Peace, Alexander II. and Alexander III. (1214-1286), show the Celtic rivalries diminishing, while factions among the nobles take their place, and the truly Scottish constitutional practice of kidnapping the king in the interests of a party begins. The English claims, too, show various signs of maturing and in the cells of monasteries fraudulent historical grounds of claim are quietly elaborated by monkish chroniclers. Into the delicate question of the homage of Alexander III. to Edward I. (1278), Mr Hume Brown, as usual, does not go, merely accepting the Scottish the Scottish as against the English version.3 Here economy of explanations is justifiable, we think, the Scottish case is so strong. The subjugation of Argyll and the Isles are the great successes of this period.

As to the formation of the Regency, after the death of Alexander III., Mr Hume Brown observes: "It is interesting to note that the dividing line of the Forth was still a practical consideration.” Of

this we can offer a picturesque proof. When Edward I., in 1296, took oaths from all Scotland, those of Stirling were attested by the seal of the burgh. It represents Stirling Bridge. In the centre (as at Orleans) is a crucifix. On the right are a group of spearmen; on the left a group of bowmen take aim at them. Above the spearmen we read the legend, Hic armis Scoti brut stant; over the bowmen, Hic cruce tuti. The Christian bowmen are the English-speaking race south of Forth; the spearmen are Scoti bruti, "brutes o' Hielanders." Not a very united Scotland is attested by this little monument of folk who were glad that "Forth bridled the wild Highlandman."

Mr Hume Brown justly says that the Treaty of Birgham "bears signal testimony to the sensitive patriotism of the Scots." But of what Scots? The noblesse had no patriotism: they had a foot in each country, and only wanted to keep estates in both. The burghs could not make themselves heard, much less the rural population. The patriots, who show their sensitiveness in the clauses of the Treaty, must have been the educated Churchmen, who had almost a monopoly of legal knowledge. They freely imperilled their immortal souls by desperate and repeated perjuries all through Edward's period of rule they spent their wealth; they gave their lives on the gibbet; and we know from a contemporary letter that they preached energetically for the cause of Scottish freedom, while

the nobles were sold, and the commons were dismayed. The clergy saved the national independence, with the aid of a sacrilegious assassin, whose crime they heartily condoned. Such were " Baal's shaven sort,' in the pretty phrase of Knox.

As to the War of Independence, Mr Hume Brown writes, may we say, unheroically. He not only omits all Bruce's adventures; he does not even give the battles of Loudon Hill and Glen Trool, early successes, in the first of which, if Barbour may be relied on, Mr Oman justly recognises the military genius of the king. These advantages were won when Edward I. lay no farther off than Carlisle, while Lorne and Aylmer de Valence, with many other knights, were weaving their nets round Bruce in Galloway and Ayrshire. The brutalities of Edward, his gibbets, cages, and deaths of men quartered at the heels of horses, turned Scotland against him, as we know from English sources, and these details are not brightly stated, any more than is the energetic preaching of a kind of national crusade by the clergy. Yet all these things did more than we can estimate towards the making of Scotland. In place of such convincing details we only hear vaguely of Edward's "harsh and imperious dealing," of the "execution" of Nigel Bruce and many others, and of the "testimony from the national Church," given by a Provincial Council at Dundee, in 1310. Bruce's triumph looks like a miracle. It is explained by