why is he our only King whose shoulders appear surrounded with the Ribband Was the Collar of St. Andrew inconsistent with the penitential Girdle of his Father but what should have impeded his other Predecessors to use it or if he perfected the Order who were his Companions it is not so long since but some of them might be remembred And why did his Daughter and Grand-child lay this his so much hugged Order so soon aside I shall little doubt but here you might from the suggestions of some alledge I have run my self in a gross if not dangerous Praemunire But I write to one who knows the difference betwixt Badges and Arms. Far be it from me to rob the Royal Atchievement of that its honourable tho extrinsick Badge of St. Andrew pendulous to the Collar which I never see but it equally minds me of the Destruction of the Picts gallant Resolution of the Great Steward and reverential Duty of our Robert the 2. to the memory of His Fathers Family And beyond peradventure had James the 6. or any of the Charles's lookt upon this as the Badge of an Order they would have worn it at least when they were in Scotland And to alledge the French and English Writers gives it so is but to gratifie their mistakes to the prejudice of our true and more martial antiquities for our Kings never wanted power to confer Knighthood but as they did it most in Procinctu to the deserving so did they little value those prescribed Orders that creept but in upon designs inlater times the Knights of our Antient Kings being truly Milites tho of no formal Order beyond that of merit But me fears I have provoked your patience to be a little out of Order to the hazard of losing my solitary Walter and Allane To prove then my Second Walter I first instance Skeen in that his Table of the Kings from Malcolm the second printed with the Acts of Parliament and which I also repeat for proving him the first Great Steward where to be sure that we do not mistake the Malcolm by misfiguring 4. for 3. he adds the word the Maiden for he Prints expresly Walter made Great Steward of Scotland by Malcolm 4. the Maiden And Skeen being Clerk Register he hath been doubtless from the Records of the Kingdom sufficiently instructed for his so writing him the first Great Steward And though he mistook the sending of his son Allan to the Holy Wars if he means these of Godfrey de Bulloigne yet is he abundantly fortified in his Walter by Fordon in the 25. chap. of his 8. Book saying Walterus filius Allani Dapifer Regis qui Pasletum fundavit obiit Anno 1177. And if Walter the son of Fleance who was more then twenty years old ere he came to Scotland to his Cousin Malcolm Canmoir lived to this time expressed by Fordon as he was Senescallus so should I well allow him to be Magnus for his Age since upon the most Sober computation that can be he behooved to exceed an hundred years at least For himself being twenty before he frequented the Court of his Grand-father in Wales and which was before he came unmarried to Scotland what years will you allow to his son at Antioch 1099. who being the eldest probably left also a son behind him when he departed the Kingdom But Oh this Walters father is Allan not Fleance and but yet Dapiser to Fordon whose Grand-father then could not have been the first Magnus Senescallus Scotiae Moreover this my second Walter is further astructed by a Charter which I have seen granted by Malcolm 4. confirming the Church of Falkirk and certain Lands thereunto belonging to the Abbacy of Haly-rude-house bearing Date at the Maiden Castle where the witness next after the Bishops and Earles is Waltero filio Allani And this Charter which must be before the year 1165. and after the year 1153. for in the one did Malcolm the Maiden succeed and in the other did he die does unanswerably make out from their own concessions another Walter then he of Dundonald For the Father of this Walter is expresly in the Charter named Allan Will you then say Walter of Dundonald who lived till the year 1241 would be insert as a probative witness to a deed of Malcolm the 4. when the witnesses ingros'd in the Charters of our Kings were and yet are men of years and offices seing they interpose Alexander who builded Pasley to be his Father whose father yet notwithstanding was even our second Allan of whom Fordon in the 56 chap. of his 9. Book sayes obiit Walterus filius Allani junioris Anno Dom. 1241. And justly was he Junior because Allan the Grand-child to Fleance was Senior And most truly might Fordon write him Father to Walter of Dundonald seing I have seen him in a Charter from King Alexander the 2. to the House of Sutherland Dated at St. Andrews 26. of Decemb. the 22. year of his Reign which answers to the year of Christ 1234. or 1235. insert a witness next after Patrick Earle of Dumbar in these words Waltero filio Allani Senescallo justitiario Scotiae And in another Charter yet in my hands granted by the said King Alexander the 2. at Traquair the first day of June in the twenty first year of his Reign confirming to the Abbacy of Cowper two Carrucats and a half of Land measured in Feodo de magno Blair in Excambion for the Common Muir of Blair per easdem divisas sayes the Charter per quas Walterus filius Allani Senescallus noster Scotiae alii probi homines nostri dictam terram iis ex parte nostra assignaverunt tradiderunt Now choose you whether this Walterus filius Allani ingrossed in the bosom of the Charter in the Nominative Case be the son of the first or the second Allan I do not much reguard it though it may be more probable he was the Son of the first Allan and my second Walter because this Kings Uncle who builded the Abbacie of Cowper might have employed his Cousin the Steward to divide these Lands to the Monks And that he hath not the office of Justitiary which is here given to one of the Witnesses who are William Bishop of Glasgow the Chancellor Clement Bishop of Dumblain Patrick Earl of Dumbar and then follows as in the Earl of Sutherlands Charter VValtero filio Allani Senescallo justitiario Scotiae So be the Witness and Person ingrost here one and the same or distinct importeth nothing seing Fordon and my three Charters still prove Allan a father of a Walter and Walter the son of an Allan and that in distinct times and Generations And thus you see Sir how I have cleared my second Walter and my second Allan the leaving out of whom has flow'd I suppose from a defect in the first concoction in not exactly observing the Walters and the Allans which because they could not well clear they have choosed rather first to
of the good Tutelar Saint could not but strangely and more then once and again at one and the same instant be miserably grated with the cries of many thousand Scots Sancte Andrea ora pro nobis re-echoed with as many groans from the Picts Dive Andrea ora pro nobis What could be left to the tender hearted Apostle but to sit dumb and let the Lord God of Hosts from the justness of the cause and the valour of the Combatants alone decide the quarrel I know and do grant you that the valiant Kenneth the second did not assume but as well by the Law of Arms as right of blood justly claim'd and Possest himself of the Pictish Badge being equally their lawful Prince and their fortunat Victor who because of their undutiful refusing and resisting of his father and himself scorned to quarter their Arms with those of Scotland yet for a trophie of his success and from a respect to the Religious memory of the Apostle Andrew did Politickly reserve the Badge of his Cross to be born in his Martial Banner thereafter whereof Boes sayes mansit Pictis to wit after Hungus victorie post eos deletos Scotis exinde hoc institutum in perpetuum To which Lesly agrees in his Cum hostibus congressurus semper postea gestabat id quod Scoti omnes in memoriam victoriae a Pictis etiamnum religiosissime observant That wise King divining perhaps that the English-Saxons conform to the tradition once falling under the sign of S. Andrew would be apt to fear the like thereafter But that the Scots Kings used it further then in their Banners of War untill thir later Centuries would be proven ere I trust it For who can upon any ingenuous acknowledgement say he any wayes ever saw or from authentick Authors read the Effigies of St. Andrew or his Cross by what ligament or Collar soever pendulous to the Coat of Scotland before the Stuart came to the Crown not to discourse when those more modern methods of Double Supporters pendant Medalls from Chains and Collars of Orders with Epigraphs came to be first from a proud vanity embraced and thereafter from an ambitious emulation affected cherished and entertained amongst the Independant Monarchs Allowing then the Scots after Kenneths exstinguishing of the Picts to have born the Cross and Badge of St. Andrew on their Standart Royal or Field-Banner as in the present Banner Azure of Scotland imbraced by the supporting Vnicorn in the Royal Atchievement which Banner was necessarily given and intrusted to the Magnus Senescallus Scotiae as the Kings Lieutenant in his Armies and which Badge being equally the Ensign of the Kingdom and Symbole of his Office he most probably hath according to the custom of other Officers of that nature worn about his body on a Medal in a Ribband Richly wrought with an interwoven Collour of Thistles and Rue with the emphatick and comprehensive Ditton Nemo me impune lacessit Not me as the word is interpret to a person the glorious St. Andrew who am now beyond the concerns or provocations of Mortalls Eternally taken up in the beatifick vision of the Trin-une Jehove But me the Captain General of the Forces of Scotland and Thesaurer Chamberlain Steward and Collector of the Rents and Revenues of the Crown for the support of the King and Government And such a Magnus Senescallus might very justly and nobly and conform to the Rules and allowances of Herauldry very warrantably too have given such a Callour to a Medal for St. Andrew with the Nemo me as I have explained it impune lacessit If it be but minded that our first Great Stewards Grand-fathers Grand-father Bancho when Thane of Lochaber and Regionum Thani sayes one plerisque in locis Stuarti vocantur was so sorely wounded for discharging his duty in the collecting and in-bringing of the Kings rents that Buchanan sayes of him in his 7. Book Initium spernendi Imperium natum in Abria adversus Banchonem ejus Regionis Thanum hominem acrem aequitatis unicum cultorem cujus in animadveriendo severitatem cum non perferendam ducerent mali conspiratione adversus cum factâ bonis direptis vulneratum ac semivivum expulerunt Or if the Insurrections and Commotions raised mostly upon that same account as well against his Grand-father before he was made Summus Oeconomus as against himself before he came to be Magnus Senescallus be not wholly as yet forgot with which if you take into consideration Buchanans Character of King Duncan that he was Vir majore erga suos indulgentiâ quam in Rege opus est And speaking of the stirs set on foot by Angus of Galloway in the Reign of Malcolm the Maiden he continues his Discourse with Qui plus tamen spei in Regis ignavia quam suis viribus collocaret might not then from thir grounds our first Magnus Senescallus upon his being inaugurat and entred in his Office cause some Herauld proclaime or intimat in his name as follows Ye the Vassals Rentallers and Subjects of the Scottish Crown although some of you and your Predecessors have by Rebellions refused your dues and shaken off your Loyalty and therein also abused Bancho my Grand-father and my self which yet with dutiful services to our Prince we did so far overcome as these outbreakings tended but to your loss and to the greater advantage and rising of our Family as this day you see me by the blessing of God and the favourable bounty of my Royall Master install'd the Kings Lieutenant and the Great Steward of the Kingdom Therefore I exhort you all to Loyalty and obedience otherwise I will tell you be you of whatever degree higher or lower I have here an Unicorns Horn to push the one and a Thistle to prick the other and be assured however that your Rebellions will but prove to you bitter as Rue in the end and never offer to presume upon the good nature of my King to whose honour and interest I will be still so faithful as you must understand Nemo me impune lacessit Yea such fortunat experience have I of the Divine assistance that blest Bancho my Grand-father and my self with success against those obstinat Rebels when we stood but in lower stations that being now by my Sovereign advanced to and fortified in a higher preferment I shall not dispair but that under his Royal Banner and the luckie omen of St. Andrew be able as Generalissimo of the Kingdom without any vain ostentation to obtrude to all and whosoever the Enemies of my Lord the King Nemo me impune lacessit where whatever shall be wanting of successe in the event shall not fail to be supplied by my heartie prayers backed I hope with no despicable courage And therefore do I now take thir Symbols to be constant and lasting monitors to me and my successors as well of our faithfulness and dutie to our Master as towards our fellow-Subjects And which Symboles so chosen by the Great
lay these two aside that they might thereafter be altogether left out And how strangely does Skeen abuse his first Walter For if his Allan was with Godfrey of Bulloigne surely he could not be the Son of his own first Walter For how can it be supposed that the son of a man contemporary but with Malcolm the Maiden who came not to the Crown till the year 1153 could be of vigour and valour to undertake so long tedious and dangerous a Voyage to go and fight against the Infidels in Jurie-land Anno 1099. for of what age can you suppose him to have been when he went away and of what a vigorous constitution behooved his Father to be if he was the Son of Fleance who was thought fit to be intrusted with such a Military Charge as to be made in his Office of Magnus Senescallus the Kings Lieutenant and Captain General of all the Forces in the Kingdom by Malcolm the Maiden And the same mistake so pinches another how handsomely to conjoyn Alexander the First with Allan the Frist that he makes Alexander to have been begotten the very year his father was at the Siedge of Antioch and counts as if at Cards a just hundred and all made making him with a French Fortaage to die in the year 1199. Whereas this my second Walter and second Allan so clearly proven as aforesaid salves all these Phoenomena from so many idle contradictions and moral impossibilities And if any man shall here cavil and say that I cite Fordon wrong when I make him alledge a Walter was the founder of Paisley when it is known it was Alexander I answer that Fordon in the Liberary of Edinburgh will attest me just to him in the Citation And for Fordons Vindication know that my second Walter witnessed as much true piety at home as did his wandering Father of blind Zeal abroad when upon his being advanced to the Office of Great Steward of Scotland he erected if not primarily founded Paisley in a Collegiat Church considerably doting the same which the Devotion of his Son Alexander extended and inlarged to an Abbacie And in a Book yet extant in Pasley commonly called the Register not the Black Book of Pasley The first Benefactor next to the Founder of the Abbacie stands inrolled Allan which Allan cannot be thought the first Allan Grand-Father to the Founder but must be the Second Allan Son to Alexander and Father to Walter the third commonly called of Dundonald As for the other Persons in the Descent they are all clear by the Histories of the Kingdom and the Writes of the House of Lennox fully down to our own Memory and Times And now from the Premisses I suppose I have proven my Position even His Majesties Descent in a true Line Male from Father to Son in Princes or true Princely Cadets from the Loines of the first Ethodius for fifteen hundred years and that by as strong Proofs as the nature of the Subject allows or in such cases are required For the Descent of the House of Lennox of which was His Majesties great Grand-Father on the Father side is uncontroverted from Walter of Dundonald as Walter of Dundonald is known whatever be the persons from Bancho and to men that are not prejudicat and who are free to allow Kings to be Gentlemen I need to say no more then what is before-mentioned for Bancho from K. Ethus and our Historians are my Vouchers for Ethus from Ethodius and when any Genealogy of equal Antiquity shall be better Documented saving still such as are in the Sacred page then let not this be believed But I fancy some will rashly and with confidence enough say what will I do with Queen Mary Nay may even her soul praise God and her bones rest in peace with those of Marjory Bruce the Daughter of Allan of Galloway David of Huntingtoun and K. Malcolm the second I have not been so idle as to aver that in this Descent Male all his Majesties Progenitors were Kings satisfying my self that they were either Kings or true Princely and undoubted Cadets from the Stock Royal. Although I have honoured my self to deduce in the Tree aftermentioned all the Kings from Marjory Bruce to Queen Mary parallel to those of the House of Lennox that it may appear it may be more justly said of His Majesty then of the Roman Deus est in utroque Parente But when I designed a Letter loe it swells to a Book And trust me the Singularities in His Majesties Line might challange a Volume in its Antiquity whether you view His Scotish British or Irish Extract preferable to any now extant in the Vniverse unless they go higher then Fergus Cassibilane or Gathelus a Line singularly blest to show to the World the first two Christian Kings with the first Christian Emperour Fortunat even in its losses for when the straight Line was broke off to make way to Collaterals even such lopped Branches Ornamented the Stock with better names then those of Sons and Daughters Witness that Great Light Levir Maure or the British Lucius with our first Donald and Constantine the Great a Briton by his Mother Helena Daughter to King Coilus To which we may add the Gallantry of Arthur which listed him one of the nine Worthies of the World The Devotion of Cadwallader with the Chastity of our Maiden King And to take in both Sexes their Virgin Queen a Line which next to that of Judah's stands the liveliest Commentary I know upon Solomons Per me Reges regnant a Line whose Crowns from Gathelus down are all but acquests in the right of Succession by the common road of Justice and Equity For whether Gathelus entred into Possessionem vacuam or compacted with the Natives when he first came to Ireland Quis rem tam veterem pro certo affirmet But sure his authority was from Heaven For what Fanatick can have a forehead to refuse that the Spirit of God assisted the Penman of nI faLLat fatuM sCotI qVoCVnque LoCatVM InVenIent LapIDeM regnare tenentVr IbIDeM Where the four M's the two D's three C's four L's six visible V's with the seven I's by a strange numerical Prophesie holds to the Year of the World 5537. in which was born K. James the sixth who found the fatal Chair at Westminster before him Fergus was called in by his Kinsmen the Scots and by them of their own consent lawfully constitute their King Kenneth the Second did but recover the Possession of the Pictish Kingdom due to him in right of his Grand-mother Ferguisiana Sister to Hungus King of the Picts after the death of her Nephews Dorstolorgus and Ethanus from which Crown Kenneth and his Father Alpin were debarred by Usurpers of the peoples Election So that Kenneths attaining the Crown of the Picts was not a Conquest but a severe example of Gods just indignation against Rebells in secluding the righteous Heir from his Inheritance the Picts after that never regaining the face or name