we had against the Romans in conjunction with the Picts the Victories we then got are chiefly to be ascrib'd to us And to crown all we have generously contributed all that was in our power to support that Ancient and Royal Family so unparallell'd for its antiquity by which we were animated and instructed to do all those great Actions till they are now become the Monarchs of the whole Isle having by a happier way extinguished those Wars and Animosities and may he be unhappy who revives them For clearing how this Tradition might have been and was preserv'd Our History tells us of a probable way among many others which was That at the Coronation of our Kings one appeared and recited his whole Genealogy I shall trouble my Reader only with a proof of this Custom which is such as confirms also the Genealogy of King Alexander the 3d in the year 1249 prior to Fordon's time or to the view of any such Debate and is related by Fordon and Major in the Life of that King and being so memorable a Fact and so near Fordon's own time his Relation cannot but be credited His words are That the King being plac'd in the Marble-Chair the Crown upon his Head and the Scepter in his Hand and the Nobility being set below Him a Venerable old High-landed Gentleman stept out and bowing the Knee express'd himself to the King in the High-land Language thus God bless you King Alexander Son of Alexander Son of William c. And so carried up the Genealogy to Fergus the First Which Custom was most solemnly us'd at the Coronation of King Charles the Martyr at which time their Pictures were expos'd and noblest Actions recited As also the reciting of their Genealogy was usual at the Burial of ours Kings a written Proof of which Tradition is to be seen in a Manuscript of Baldredus Abbas Rynalis for that which is the Abbacy of Melros was so called before King David's time who designs them so in the Foundations of the Lands of Melros which he gives to them and is related verbatim by Fordon consisting of eighteen Chapters mentioning the memorable Actions of King David upon whom the Lamentation is made who died 1151 and running up the Genealogy of the said St. David to Fergus the First dedicated to Henry Prince of England Grand Nephew to St. David who came to the Crown of England Anno 1154 under the name of Henry the Second In both which at least Fordon is to be believ'd having sufficient Vouchers This also being ordinary in our High-land Families to this very day not only at Burials but Baptisms and Marriages and in which Families Men continue still to be design'd from their Fathers Grandfathers and very many Generations upwards as is a sufficient Historical Proof of Tradition tho we had no other Warrant for those few Ages Before I come to clear that we had Manuscripts and Records it is fit to consider that is very probable that as the History of most Nations was preserv'd by their Priests and Church-men so ours would be very ready to oblige the Kings under whom and the People among whom they liv'd by writing their Annals And therefore we may reasonably conclude that since we were very early Christians we had therefore ancient Histories written by our Church-men besides those which we may pretend to have been transmitted to them by the Druids And the Bishop himself acknowledges that the Monastery of Hy call'd by us Icolm-kill that is Hy the Cell of Columba was founded about the year 560 and it is undeniable that 48 of our old Kings were buried and our Records were kept there since its Foundation until the Reign of Malcolm Canmore and it is also certain that our Annals were written in our Monasteries such as Scoon Pasley Pluscardin and Lindesfern govern'd by three Scotish-Bishops Aidan Finan and Colman and Abercorn mention'd by Beda and Melross the Chronicle whereof begins where Beda ends as their History now printed shews though certainly that English Manuscript is very unfaithful for most of the things relating to our Nation are omitted as particularly about the beginning in the year 844. Our Manuscript observes which the English has not That Alpin King of the Scots died to whom succeeded his Son Kenneth who beat the Picts and was declared first King of all Scotland to the Water of Tine and after it expresses in his Epitaph Primus in Albania fertur Regnasse Kenedhus Filius Alpini praelia multa gerens And it observes that he was called the first King of Albany not because he was the first who made the Scotish Laws but because he was the first King of all Scotland And each of our Monasteries had two Books the one call'd their Register or Chartulary containing the Records relating to their private securities and another call'd their Black-book containing an account of the memorable things which occur'd in every Year And as it is strongly presumable that our Historians would have compil'd our Histories from those So this being a matter of Fact is probable by Witnesses and I thus prove it in such a way and manner as is sufficient to maintain any History Verimundns a Spaniard Arch-deacon of St. Andrews in Anno 1076 as is remarked by Chambers of Ormond declares in the Epistle to his Book of the Historians of Scotland dedicated to King Malcolm call'd Can-more That albeit there are many things in the said Histories which may seem to the Readers to be a little difficult to be believed because they are not totally confirmed by Foreign Historians Yet after have they heard how the Scots were setled in the North Part of the Isle of Albion separated by the Sea from the firm Land and so seldom troubled by Strangers to whom they give no occasions to write their Actions and also that they have not been less happy in having almost always among them the Druids Religious People and diligent Chroniclers before the Reception of the Christian Faith and continually since Monks faithful Historians in the Isles of Man and Icomkill where they kept securely their Monuments and Antiquities without giving a sight or Copy of them to strangers they will cease to wonder This Chambers was a Learned Man and a Lord of Session who wrote anno 1572 and in his Preface says That he had those principal Authors Verimund a Spaniard Turgot Bishop of St. Andrews John Swenton John Campbel and Bishop Elphinstoun c. and many great Histories of the Abbacies of Scoon called the Black-book and of other like Chronicles of Abbacies as that of Inch-colm and Icolmkill the most part whereof he took pains to consider as much as was possible for him He cites Verimund for an account of the Scots and Picts and after he also cites him for the Miracle of St. Andrews in Hungus's time and he gives an account of the tenor of the League betwixt Charles the Great and Achaius and asserts that
heard of it nor with one even of these few who had valu'd it and so this Author may be said rather to have suggested a new Argument than to have answered an old One For they urge now nothing to us save places of Scripture resolving to have their Presbytery Iuris Divini knowing that nothing less can secure them in opposing the Laws of the Kingdom And what can the Presbyterians think of their other Arguments which they value much Since this which they valu'd so little is thought of such force by a learned Bishop as to deserve a whole Book the cutting off of 44 Kings and the offending a Nation of Friends It is also very remarkable that the learn'd Doctor Hammond a great Champion of Episcopacy owns the Antiquity of our Nation and answers fully that Argument without overturning the truth of our History or wronging the Antiquity of our Royal-Line whereas Baxter the Presbyterian urges this Citation and yet agrees with this Author in opposing the Antiquity of our History approving what is said by Cambden and Vsher and in a Letter to the Duke of Lauderdale asserting the lateness of our settlement here Which shews that there is no necessity lying upon such as own Episcopacy to wrong the Antiquity of our Kings and Nation But how the necessity of a private corner of a remote Country in Ecclesiâ constituendâ could wrong the general practice of the Church is as little to be understood as it is undenyable that many thousands in Iapan and China were converted by Presbyters before Bishops were sent thither And since it cannot be deny'd but that those who ordain'd our Presbyters were Bishops it necessarily follows that Episcopacy was settl'd in the Christian Church before we had Presbyters or Culdees or else if these who ordain'd our Presbyters were not Bishops the practice of that Church whereby our Presbyters were ordain'd should have been impugn'd and not the Authority of our Histories and the Antiquity of our Royal-Line overturn'd And though this Reverend and Learn'd Author could prove that we were not setled here before the Year 503 yet that could not answer the Argument for the Culdees might have been settled before that time in this Country where we now live though amongst the Picts for it cannot be deny'd but the Picts were setled in this Country before that time And when our Historians say that the Abbots of Icolm-kill had Jurisdiction over all the Bishops of the Province that is to be understood as Beda observes more inusitato and my Lord St. Asaph himself well remarks these words and gives a full and clear vindication of the passages of Beda in the 173 and following Pages and might have rested therein and needed not to have been driven to seek a new Answer in overturning the Antiquity of our Nation Many examples can be given of Jurisdiction of Presbyters and even of Deacons over Bishops in the Canon Law and History So that this instance from our Historians makes nothing against Episcopacy And latter Historians meeting with these ambiguous words in our Annals De signatus Electus Ordinatus were by a mistake induc'd to appropriate these words to the formal Ceremony of Ordination and Imposition of Hands And I find by the Bishop's Concession that the Abbess Hilda did elect and send forth such of her Monks as she thought fit to be ordain'd which is all that our Guldees and ancient Monks did Thus a King may be said to make one a Bishop or a Mother to have made one of her Sons a Church-man which answer the learned Nicol a zealous friend to Episcopacy thought sufficient to elide Blondel's Arguments from our Historians without denying the Antiquity of our Nation or troubling himself with our Culdees And if Beda had heard that the Presbyters did ordain Bishops he had remark'd it as a most unusal thing having marked that the Abbots had jurisdiction over Bishops they being but Presbyters such an Ordination being much more extraordinary than such a Jurisdiction And might not my Lord St. Asaph as well have inveigh'd against Gildas and the British Historians because he says that Church-men were ordain'd by the consent of the Bishops and the rest of the Presbyters from which Presbyterians and particularly the same Blondel infers a parity betwixt Bishops and Presbyters And from which it appears that dangerous Consequences should not be drawn from the dubious and heedless expressions of old Authors living in rude Times and Places and from all which we might have been secure that my Lord St. Asaph would have concur'd with the wise answer which Spotswood Arch-Bishop of St. Andrews with whom the learn'd Hammond agrees gave to that silly Argument without affronting him as a betrayer of the Episcopal Cause and caressing our Fanaticks by that unwarrantable and dangerous assertion that in consequence thereof they might reasonably conclude that when they covenanted against Episcopacy they had only us'd their own right and thrown out that which was a confess'd innovation in order to the restoring of that which was their primitive Government For it does not follow that because our Church in its infancy and necessity was without Bishops for some Years that therefore it was reasonable for Subjects to enter into a Solemn League and Covenant without and against the consent of their Monarch and to extirpate Episcopacy settled then by Law and by an old prescription of 1200 Years at least 3. Precedency being one of the Jewels of the Crown and one of the chief Glories of Princes and all who treat on that Subject confessing that the King of Great-Britain as King of Scotland is the most ancient Monarch in Europe the Line of other Kingdoms having been often interrupted whereas ours never was it seems a great injury to our Kings to have their Line shortened so as thereby to postpone them to many others and if this Author's Arguments prove any thing they must prove that our Kings cannot instruct their Antiquity till Malcolm the 3d's Time and so our Kings will be amongst the last of all Crowned-Heads Nor is it one of the least Arguments which prevail with us to hazard all for our Royal-Line that we have been so long Subjects to it and happy under it and therefore whoever shortens it lessens though without design the influence of our Kings and endangers the Succession And since Luddus owns that he durst not deny the British Descent from Brutus lest he might thereby wrong the Majesty of the English Nation I admire that any of the Subjects of Great Britain did not think it a degree of Lese-Majesty to injure and shorten the Royal-Line of their Kings 4. If this injury had been done to Kings or to a Nation when they were Enemies to Episcopacy as the Obligation was so the fault had been less But to inveigh against our Royal-Line after King Iames had made the settlement of Episcopacy his business King Charles had died for it and our late Soveraign of
that Edinburgh was the chief Seat of the Kings of the Picts and derives the names of Louthian Edingburgh and Pictland from Pictish words From all which it clearly appears that no weight is to be laid on such irreconcileable Authors and yet by these only is the Antiquity of of our Kings and Nation controverted But to confirm fully our History from Iulius Caesar's time and to shew that the British Historians do not only contradict one another but do contradict the two only ancient Historians who could understand any thing of our Origine as being the eldest and most deserving of all their own Authors viz. Gildas and Beda I do appeal to them And I begin with Beda because he is most full and interprets the other The venerable Beda tho a Saxon himself and so an Enemy to us having written an exact Chronology according to the periods of time does in his first cap. de priscis incolis tell us that God was praised in five languages in this Isle that of the English Britains Scots Picts and Latines and then proceeds to tell that the Britains were the first possessors and possest the south parts after which came the Picts to the northern parts and the Scots under Reuda thereafter made a third Nation in that part belonging to the Picts getting the western part of Scotland North from the Picts called Dumbriton or Alcluith And he inculcates their fixing here by three several but concuring Expressions 1. Progressi ex Hibernia they left Ireland 2. Sedes vindicarunt in Britannia they setled in Britain 3. In Britannia Britonibus Pict is gentem tertiam addiderunt they added a third Nation to the Britains and Picts And that this was very ancient is clear for he fixes them in Britain in that Chapter wherein he treats de priscis incolis and having thus setled the Scots and Picts in his first Chapter with the Britains he proceeds in the second Chapter to settle the fourth Nation viz. the Latines or Romans beginning with these words But this Britain was unknown and not entred upon by the Romans till Julius Caesar ' s time And having describ'd the Wars betwixt these three Nations and the Roman Emperours in a due gradation marking every period of time through the Reign of their consecutive Emperors and how at last the Romans had abandon'd the Island and Aetius the Roman Consul had refus'd the Petition of the miserable Britains so often defeated by the Scots and Picts he in the 14 Cap. relates how the Britains upon deep consultation brought in the Saxons and from thence continues the Saxon History This being the tract of Beda's History Is there any place to doubt but that the Scots were setled before the Saxons For the Wars betwixt the Romans and Scots are related exactly before any mention is made of the Saxons and at last they are only brought in to assist the Britains against the Scots and Picts because the Britains were deserted by the Romans and consequently the Saxons having been brought in Anno 449 it unanswerably follows that the Scots were setl'd here and made a third Nation long before the 503 as the Bishop of St. Asaph alledges at which time he makes us to have setl'd here very cunningly but not sincerely upon design to make us later than the English As also it appears very clearly that the Scots setl'd here even before Iulius Caesar's time for after Beda who proceeds exactly according to the Periods of Time had setl'd us in Britain he tells that this Britain was unknown to the Romans and describ'd what these Romans did in the Isle and how they fought with the Picts and Vs under their subsequent Emperors without ever speaking again of the entry of the Scots as having setl'd them in the first Chapter before Caesar's time Nor is the time alter'd in any other Period and he is so careful of the Period of time that he subjoyns to his Work a Chronological Recapitulation which is very exact And he being a Saxon had certainly told as the Bishop now does that the Saxons were elder than we if this had been true which is a demonstration according to the Rules of Chronology against the Bishop of St. Asaph It may be some may wonder why Beda mentions not our coming under Fergus the first and some may object that in this we go higher than Beda To which it is answered That our History confesses that the Scots came over from Ireland at several times Once under Fergus the first but not being numerous enough Reutherus brought over another recruit and thereafter Fergus the second brought over others after his Predecessor Eugenius was expell'd by the Romans and Britains And in so old Antiquity it 's much for Beda even to know the Descent under Reuda And whereas the Bishop quarrels Beda that he gives no Authority for this The Reply is that if it were requisite then one Author behov'd to give another and he a third sic in infinitum Nor did ever any Man before him require an Authority in so ancient an Author and this Answer is a full proof of the Bishop's Conviction who being absolutely gravel'd here he grows as angry at Beda as at our Historians and tells disdainfully that this might be true for ought Beda knew and adds that the Scots were indeed here in Beda's time and he speaks according to his own time which were to make Beda speak great non-sense For Beda speaks here of the preterit and not the present time viz. The first Vastations spoke of by Gildas and we shall see that others who lived in the time agree with him The second Citation I shall bring from Beda shall be from the 5th cap. l. 1. Eccl. Hist. where he says that Severus built a Wall to defend against the other unconquer'd Nations and in the 12 cap. he tells that Britain was vex'd by the Scots and Picts two over-Sea or Transmarine Nations and thereafter as if he had been afraid that this word Transmarine might have been mistaken he adds that they were not call'd Transmarine because they liv'd and were setled out of Britain but because they were separated from that part of Britain by the two Seas which did almost meet And in this he agrees exactly with Tacitus who in the Life of Agricola says that there being a Wall built betwixt these two Seas the Roman Enemies were closed up as in an Isle By this place of Beda it is also very clear that the Scots were setled in Britain whilst the Romans fought against the Picts and Scots and consequently before they were call'd by the Picts to defend them against the Saxons as is alledged by the Bishop If the Scots had not been living in this Isle at that time the explication of Transmarine had been both ridiculous and untrue And as it is not presumable that the venerable Beda would have asserted this if he had not certainly known it so it
Tacitus says that the third Year opened new Nations whereas Agricola knew the Britans before and these must have been the Scots and Picts for they could not be any other being beyond the River Tay. And Galgacus could be no Pictish King for we have a Manuscript bearing all the Names of the Pictish Kings 2. From this passage it is clear that Cambden does err grosly in making the Horesti to be a People in Eskdale which is a Scotish Country on the Borders of England For beside that all Authors agree that they are known to be the Inhabitants of Angus and Merns it is here demonstrated by Tacitus that after the Romans past Forth they came to Tay which is known to be the Marches or Boundary of Angus and from thence they marched to the Grampian Hills where they fought with Galgacus And from which he return'd to the Borders of the Horesti where finding the Fleet in the Frith of Tay where he had left it he Embarqu'd the Hostages and sent the Fleet back to that part of Britain whence they came And how could all this be in Eskdale That being very remote from the place of Battel and Eskdale an inland Country very remote from all Sea 3. Tacitus writing of us under the name of Caledonians mentions the Marishes of those who fought which were appropriated to us by Eumenius and Pacatius as I formerly observ'd By all which we may observe how little English Writers are to be credited when they write upon design to lessen our Country or magnify their own And all this is confirm'd by the learned Ferrarius a stranger And to this I may add that we have to this day a Barony call'd Galdgirth or the Girth of Galdus and ten great Stones in Galloway called King Galdus's Monument Marks of Antiquity far preferable to any Manuscript as the testimony or consent of a whole Nation is to that of one privat Person Two of which Arguments are us'd by Chambers in the Life of Galdus and he had seen Verimund and our old Manuscripts And should he not then be our King Galdus who reigned at that time and who as all our Histories relate fought against the Romans in this place which was within the Scotish Territories The third Citation shall be from Seneca and is a clear testimony for us in the judgment of the great Scaliger Ille Britannos ultra noti littora ponti Et caeruleos Scoto-Brigantes dare Romuleis Colla catenis jussit ipsum nova Romanae Iura securis tremere oceanum To which Cambden answers That for Scoto-Brigantes we should read Scuta-Brigantes But this is very ridiculous for we read that the Picts were call'd Picti for painting their Bodies but never for painting their Shields I know likewise that Hadrianus Iunius reads Cute-Brigantes but this would be ill verse for the first syllable in Cute is by it's own nature short but according to this reading it would be long I might to this add that Answer made by Florus the Poet to Adrian in Spartianus Ego nolo Caesar esse Ambulare per Britannos Scoticas pati pruinas For why should we read Scythicas since Adrian was never in Scythia but did fight against the Scots and caus'd make the vallum Adriani 2. Why should not rather Scotia than Scythia be joyn'd to Britannia as Vsher argues most justly upon the like occasion 3. the Pruinae Scoticae were famous about that time for Claudian hath Ille Caledoniis posuit qui castra pruinis And Claudian does so expresly and so frequently speak of the Scots as setled here and describes them to be those People who constantly fought against the Romans with the Picts that the citing him against us may convince the Reader that our Adversaries are not serious Which will appear when I have cited and illustrated him In his Panegyrick upon the third consulat of Honorius he complements him upon the victory of his Gandfather Theodosius who behov'd to come into Britain long before the Year 382 wherein Theodosius his Father was chosen Emperour Facta tui numerabat avi quem littus adusti Horrescit Lybii ratibusque impervia Thule Ille leves Mauros nec falso nomine Pictos Edomuit Scotumque vago mucrone secutus Fregit hyperboreas remis audacibus undas And in the fourth Consulat of the same Honorius Ille Caledoniis posuit qui castra pruinis maduerunt Saxone fuso Orcades incaluit Pictorum sanguine Thule Scotorū cumulos flevit glacialis Ierne And de bello Getico he speaks of the Roman Legion that return'd from fighting with the Picts and us of which Beda makes express mention Venit extremis legio praetenta Britannis Quae Scoto dat fraena truci ferroque notatas Perlegit exanimes Picto moriente figuras That all this is applicable to us is clear because 1. We had War with the Romans and the Irish had not And all these Verses in Claudian are spoke to magnify the Roman man Conquest 2. Since we have prov'd by other Authors that the Scots were setled here it is proper and suitable to common sense to apply the same to us only as being the only Persons concern'd in those Battels and to the Isle in which it is known that the same were fought And these Passages are attributed to us by Selden l. 2. c. 8. Mar. Claus. 3. Have the Irish made any mention of this War in any of their Histories and consequently though Scotia had been a common Name to Scotland and Ireland in those days yet the Circumstances of the Action related by the Poet determine which of the two is here meant This is yet further clear from the Panegyrick of Sidonius Appollinaris Victricia Caesar Signa Caledonios transvexit adusque Britannos Fuderit quamquam Scotum cum Saxone Pictum As to which all that cambden much better acquainted with citing than reasoning can answer is 1. That the Poet here wrote a Complement according to the vulgar Opinion of his own Times which cannot be true as he says because the Saxons were not then come to Britain But he should have considered that 1. If this was the Opinion in Sidonius's Age who liv'd Anno 480 as Gesner affirms which was very near to Claudian's Time who liv'd in 497 as the Bishop of St. Asaph calculates we must conclude that it is the rather to be believ'd that then the Scots liv'd here for that is not inconsistent with History as the other is and so should be believ'd though the other be not 2. There were Saxons living then in Zetland or Orknes tho they were not setled in Britain as is clear by Claudian himself who says Maduerunt Saxone fuso Orcades And whereas it is said that Flevit glacialis Ierne Does make the same applicable to Ireland since Ierna is call'd Ireland To this it is answered that 1. It is clear that there is a Country in Scotland call'd Ierna near to which the Romans
Scots as well as the Picts had been setled in the Isle at that Time For a vagrant Company of Robbers could not be call'd a Nation or esteem'd a Church And this Author writes of British Nations we must therefore have been a Nation and Church as the rest were and therefore since they were setled so must we have been Nor can this be meant of the North and South Picts though it were prov'd that the Picts were distinguish'd into Northern and Southern For these could no more be consider'd as different People than the Northern and Southern English can now be said to be different Nations 2. That sense was not so much for the honour and extent of the Christian Religion And the Jews might have lookt upon Tertullian as a Jugler for making one Nation appear two 3. Our sense agrees better with Beda who asserts positively that from Reudas's Time the Scots made a third Nation in the Isle of Britain with the Britans and Picts 4. Selden l. 2. c. 8. confesses that the Scoti Pictique were the Gentes non subjacentes Romano Imperio Ammianus Marcellinus who wrote about the Year 360 tells us That the Scots and Picts harrased the Country But the Bishop unjustly adds that then they first harrassed it But this cannot be for Ammianus speaks of their Fear as occasion'd by a Tract of bygon Defeats and this he elegantly expresses by the words congerie praeteritarum Cladium which shews that these he speaks of in the 360 were not the first of many overthrows that the Brittains had got from the Scots and Picts And so our being here must be much ancienter than the 360 which agrees well with the word assueti in Eumenius And our having fix'd and known Limits demonstrates to all who understand the Roman Antiquities that we were then a fix'd and setled Nation in the same Island with the Roman Provinces of the Britans the Sea or any part of it being never signified by their word Limes St. Ierome in his Epistle to Iovian cites Porphire who liv'd in the third Century under Dioclesian and so above 200 Years before the 503. His words are Neither Britain a Province fertil of Tyrants and the Scotish Nation and all the Barbarous Nations dwelling around the Ocean knew Moses and the Prophets By the Scotish Nations Vsher understands not the Scythians but the Scots because they are in this place joyn'd to Britain but tho both he and the Bishop of St. Asaph would apply this citation to Ireland yet this Gloss is most absurd for by the former Argument the word Scots should be apply'd to us for we are join'd to Britain but Ireland is no more join'd to Britain than Scythia And the same Ierome in the next Citation calls the Scots a Nation of Britain where he says That when he was young he saw the Scots a Nation of Britain feed upon Mans Flesh. From which it is clear that the Scots at that time dwelt in Britain which agrees very well with Beda who calls the Scots the third Britannick Nation And Selden calls the Scots and Picts Gentes Britannicas l. 2. c. 8. And this is further clear'd by his asserting that Pelagius was of a Scotish Race in the Neighbour-head of Britain which proves clearly as the learn'd Baronius observes that there were Scots then in Britain who were Christians else how could they have been Pelagians Nor can this eating Man's Flesh be thought any just reflection on the Nation for certainly these had been some Rogues who had fled out of the Nation because they knew they would have been punish'd for this Crime Nor can their eating Man's Flesh in France be charg'd on us but on the French where this is said to be so publickly done that St. Ierome could have seen it and there is no Historian that ever charg'd this on our Nation nor any part of the Isle even in our most barbarous Times And if it had been any ways common there would have been a Law made against it And Boethius relates that there was one mean Man guilty of it who was thereupon executed examplarly And in what Nation are there not some Monsters Another of the Reverend Fathers of the Primitive Church enumerating the Nations which were descended from Iaphet mentions the Britons and Scots whose Isle is Britain This shews that there were Scots living in Britain in Epiphanius's Time and so he proves not only our Antiquity by his own Authority but confirms and explains what was formerly urg'd from Ierome in whose Time he liv'd and to whom he wrote Letters Orosius who in Anno 417 says That Severus thought fit to secure that part of the Isle which he had by a Wall from the other unconquered Nations And that We and the Picts were these unconquered Nations appears from Beda wherein he describes those very Actions in those very words And all these Authors agreeing with Beda and writing of the Times wherein themselves liv'd are sufficient Testimonies according to the Bishop's own strictest Rules And they prove how unkind the Bishop is in lessening Beda's Testimony when it makes for us by saying he spoke then according to the Times wherein these Actions happn'd for we see that they who wrote and liv'd in the Time of those Actions agree fully with him as they speak clearly for us Having thus made plain the Antiquity of our Kings and Nation from the Historians both within and without the Isle I now proceed to clear these from the Principles of sound Reason As to which let us consider That it being acknowledg'd by Vsher and the Authors he cites that Ireland was peopl'd by the Scots before Iulius Caesar's Time and by their own Authors whom that Bishop cites they are said to have been so anciently there that we do not know how many Ages they possess'd that Isle before Iulius Caesar. And they being a very broody People as all Northen Nations and particularly they and we are could not but have multiply'd so exceedingly as to need relief and evacuation by Colonies And it can never be pretended that the Irish did settle any other Colony save in Britain though it be undenyable that all those Northen Nations were very desirous and concern'd to extend by Colonies the Empire of their whole Nation and thereby the Possession and Property of every particular Man in it Nor do we ever read that the Irish had any Wars with Strangers whereby they might have either wanted Men to send into Foreign Colonies or have been forc'd to keep them at home for their own defence Whether then are our Histories more probable which make this Colony to have come over before Iulius Caesar or the Bishop of St. Asaph's account who makes us not to have settl'd here till 503 Years after Christ. And tho I esteem the Irish yet I must remark that our humour differs so much from theirs that it may from thence appear that we stay'd
Apology against Edward the first of England about the Year 1300 we assert the Tradition of a wonderful Victory obtain'd by our King Hungus against the Saxons by the Relicts of St. Andrew the Apostle by virtue whereof the Scots first receiv'd the Faith of Christ. To which it is shortly answer'd that every Contradiction does not overturn the Truth of a whole History otherwise we need not be troubled to give any other answer to the Bishop's own Book nor is this pretended to be a Contradiction amongst our Historians for they all agree that King Donald was our first Christian King but in that Apology which is alledg'd to contradict our Histories our Predecessors design'd as most Pleaders do and this Eloquent Author does in his Book to gain their Point at any rate For understanding whereof it is fit to know that King Edward the first having upon the Competition betwixt Bruce and Baliol interpos'd with design to make himself Lord Paramount of Scotland he caus'd his Parliament write to the Pope to whom afterwards he wrote himself in which Letter of his it is pretended that we were Vassals to England as descended from Albanactus the second Son to Brutus 2. Because several of our Kings had become Vassals to his Predecessors in the Times of the British Saxon and Norman Kings To which we answer in our Apology That without debating whether the first Inhabitants of the Isle were descended from Albanactus or his Albanians it is asserted that we came from Spain by Ireland and conquer'd the first Inhabitans for which we cite Beda and so tho they had been Vassals we were free not being lyable to the Conditions of the People we conquer'd and as such fought constantly against the Britons who were forc'd to build Severus's Wall against us And as to any homage made by our Kings it was either for the Three Northen Countries of Cumberland Westmoreland and Northumberland confirm'd to us by the Britons to defend them against the Saxons and thereafter again confirm'd by both Saxons and Britons to assist them against the Danes Or was extorted by force from one or two young Captive Kings upon which heads the Popes had declar'd us free which Bulls Edward himself had robb'd unjustly out of our Treasure with other Records which he could not deny but to cajole the Pope their Judg they insinuate that though they were not Tributaries to his Holiness as England was yet they ought to be protected by the Pope because they had been converted by St. Andrew his Predecessors Brother-german St. Andrew having in Hungus's reign obtain'd for them a Victory over the Saxons and so became subject and subservient to the Pope in having converted the Saxons by Aidan Finan and Colman From this Matter of Fact I observe 1. That we own'd the same origination there that our Historians do to this day and so our Ancestors differ'd not from our Historians much less are they irreconcilable as St. Asaph alleadges 2. That the English acknowledg'd us to be as ancient as the Britons they and we being descended from two Brothers 3. That what we said of St. Andrew must needs be upon design to have oblidg'd the Pope meaning certainly either that we were then first effectually converted to the Church of Rome from the Oriental Observations in which we were very long very obstinate and that Rome consider'd that as the true Conversion or that after that time we first became subject tho not feudatary to the Pope as these forecited words subjoyn'd do insinuate But that our conversion from Paganism was more than 400 Years before the Saxons is positively asserted in that same Apology Nor can this have another meaning for it is undeniable that we were Christians long before the reign of Hungus who reign'd 800 Years after Christ and Colman c. liv'd long before that King Nor was Hungus our King we being only Auxiliaries to him then as King of the Picts after which Apology King Robert the 1st being crown'd and having defeated King Edward at Banock-burn where he gain'd a most signal Victory over the English they then being low made application to the Pope and he having discharg'd us by a formal Interdiction to pursue the Victory into England the Nobility to pacify that Pope and to remove the Interdiction at the desire of the King wrote Letter wherein they own the Antiquity of our Nation and Religion and Royal-Line mentioning when we came from Spain as our Historians do with whom they agree exactly Vt ex antiquorum gestis libris collegimus says the Letter which being prior to Fordon proves that all this was not Fordon's Dream and that our History is well founded on old Records prior to Fordon And lastly it appears that our Kings were not Vassals to England for their Crown but only for these Provinces as my Lord St. Asaph confesses and as I have prov'd in my Treatise of Precedency albeit our Independency was as much controverted of old as our Antiquity is now and I hope that the one will shortly appear as unjust a Pretence as the other is already confest to be From this it appears that there is rather a Harmony than real Contradiction here and that any seeming Contradiction is far less than the real ones betwixt Beda and the Bishop of St. Asaph and the following Contradictions wherein he differs from himself For clearing whereof observe That the Bishop says he questions not the truth of any thing that is said to have been within 800 nay within 1400 Years but so it is that this would bring us to be setled here before the Year 300 after Christ for substract 1400 out of 1684 which is the Year in which the Bishop prints his Book his Lordship can controvert nothing except what was done within 284 Years after Christ And yet he decryes our Historians for saying that we were settl'd here before the Year 503 and denies our being Christians for many Years after the Year 300 and to improve this learn'd Bishop's just Concession I must remark that all our Historians agree that Gregory the great King of Scotland who died Anno 892 added Northumberland to the Merse and having defeated the Britons at Lochmaben he forc'd them to renew their ancient League and to confirm to him the former Right his Predecessors got from them to Cumberland and Westmorland for assisting them against the Picts and Saxons which shews also what great things we could do not only alone without but even against the Picts All which being said by our Historians not only within the 1400 Years but the 800 are not controvertible by the Bishop's concession and therefore I understand not why he asserts that we had nothing but the Kingdom of Argyle before the beating and extirpating of the Picts who gave us their possession beyond Drumalbain Nor can I reconcile how the Bishop asserts all alongst and particularly that the Picts had nothing besouth Grahams-dyke or the
A DEFENCE OF THE ANTIQUITY OF THE Royal Line OF SCOTLAND WITH A true Account when the Scots were govern'd by Kings in the Isle of Britain By Sir GEORGE MACKENZIE His Majesty's Advocate in Scotland London Printed for Ri. Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-yard 1685. To the KING SIR DIvine Providence having suffered these Kingdoms to destroy one another for many Ages in divided Monarchies reserv'd their happy Union for the Merciful Royal Family of which Your Majesty is now the Head and mingl'd lawfully in their Veins all those many and different Bloods-Royal which pretended to any Soveraignty in these your Dominions designing thereby at once to reward the Vertue of Your Majesty's Predecessors and to endear that Union to us in preventing future Debates In King Iames Your Royal Grand-Father these Nations got a Monarch who was acknowledg'd to be the Solomon of His Age who excell'd all His Contemporary Princes in King-Craft all his Ministers in Prudence and all His Doctors in Learning None of his Subjects understood the Law better or observ'd it more and who knew as well all that was done at Council-Tables abroad as they who sat at them To Him succeeded Your Majesty's Royal Father whose Life was the best Law a King could make who knew no use of Power save to do good by it who was less careful of His own Blood than of that of his Subjects And I may justly say that Heaven only was govern'd by a better King After we had shown our selves unworthy of such Monarchs the Divine Goodness to try us once more gave us Your Gracious Brother whose Clemency after so many and so great Injuries was as great a Miracle as His Restoration who knew every thing save to be severe and could bear every thing save to see His People in trouble who after the abuse of His Goodness had made his Enemies so insolent that His Servants concluded all was lost did by His extraordinary parts with a gentle easiness peculiar to Himself dissipate those execrable Combinations to our great satisfaction and amazement But Sir the Conscience of His Enemies will far exceed in His Praises the Eloquence of His Servants and so my trembling Hand leaves this Melancholy Subject His Throne is now fill'd with Your Sacred Majesty whose Abilities Your Royal Brother esteemed so much that He shar'd with You the Exercise of the Government before His Death gave you the Possession of the Crown In You Sir Your People have a General to their Armies an Admiral to their Fleet a Treasurer to their Mony whose Courage can lead them as far as theirs can follow and raise the Glory of these Kingdoms as high as they can wish So that if they be not happy they will have this Addition to their Misfortunes that the World will see that they themselves are only to be blam'd for it Our Country Sir does not boast of a rich Soil or a hot Sun but it may that it has given these happy Islands those Gracious and Glorious Kings In return whereof we might have expected kinder Rewards than that any of their Natives should debate its Antiquity and the Veracity of those Histories wherein the great Actions of Your Royal Predecessors were recorded And since the Honour of the Ancient and Royal Race of our Soveraigns is the chief thing wherein we Glory it is hard to deny us a Favour so just on our part and so easy on theirs However Sir since I presume that those of Your other Subjects who controvert this do so rather from want of information than from unkindness I who am resolv'd to make the defence of Your meanest Priviledges my greatest Honour have thought it incumbent to me as Your Advocate to undertake the defence of that Antiquity which makes Your Majesty the most Ancient Monarch upon Earth Which Argument I hope I have manag'd with that Candour which becomes an honest Man and that Zeal which is the Duty of SIR Your Majesty's most Dutiful Loyal and Obedient Subject and Servant Geo. Mackenzie A LETTER to the EARL of PERTH Lord High Chancellor of SCOTLAND Upon his having sent to the Author the Bishop of St. Asaph's Book With some Reflections upon the Design of that Book My Lord I Have read the Book you sent me with that delight I did of old a Play which one may think it resembles more than our Histories do a Romance For what is truly related is so disguised and transposed as may best suit with the Author's Design and with a Rhetorick so Polite and Comical that if the Reasons do not convince yet the Humour and Stile may charm and please even some of those against whom it is design'd This made me unwilling at first to undertake to answer a Book which I suppose might have more Admirers than Proselytes but finding upon a second perusal that the Author had not fully examined the Grounds upon which our Historians proceeded or had suffered himself to be byass'd by Zeal for his Order or Partiality to his Country And that this whole Kingdom take it as an Injury done not only to the Antiquity of the Royal Family but to this our Nation in general I was at last prevailed with to enter the Lists with a kind Design by a sober and candid Information rather to convince and satisfy the Author and those he may have misled than to acquire the vain glory of such a Victory especially over one who bears the Character of a Bishop for which I have so great a Veneration Altho for the Reasons following I cannot but dislike his unnecessary Undertaking and unseasonable and partial Management of a National Debate which we are prohibited to enter upon under pain of a Sedition 1. I am sorry that while these Kingdoms are unhappily divided not in Nations but Opinions the old Animosities amongst Scots English and Irish being forgot and buried and the modern Differences between the Episcopal and Fanatick and Cavalier and Republican or as some term it Whig and Tory are so violent and turbulent the Author should have diverted our just and dutiful Zeal by imploying it in defence of an important right of State unkindly as well as unnecessarily invaded so as the other of near concern to the Church may in some measure come to be neglected 2. The pretext for writing this Book wherein the Antiquity of our Kings and Nation is so much disparag'd being that the Presbyterians and particularly Blondel urg'd from our Historians that we had a Church for some Years without Bishops it seem'd neither just nor fit that any Episcopal Author should have magnify'd so highly the meanest Argument that ever was us'd by a Presbyterian as for it to cut off 44 Kings all preceding Coranus who began his Reign anno 501 and to expose on a Pillory as Forgers our many and grave Historians And that it is a weak Argument appears from this that I have met with very few Laicks in all our Country who had
these Druids having been converted from the Pagan Religion whereof they were the Priests became our first Monks being thereto much inclin'd by the severity of their former Discipline as the Therapeutae did for the same Reason become the first Anchorits in Egypt and so it was easie for them to inform the Monasteries of what they knew so well And this Hint is confirm'd by a very clear passage in Leslies Preface to his History who being a Bishop himself should be believ'd by another of the same Character in a probable matter of Fact Nor can there be a clearer Confirmation of our having had the Druids amongst us than that in several places of the Irish Version of the New Testament the wise Men or Priests are translated Druids and so where the English Translation saith That the Wise Men from the East came to worship our Saviour Our Irish Translation has the Druids c. Our Predecessors also being descended from the Spanish Gallicks or Galicians as is acknowledg'd by Historians and they having had the use of Letters and of Grammar long before this time as Strabo confesses it cannot be imagined but that we as a Colony of them would have likewise a part of their Art and Learning Our Predecessors also had their Sanachies and Bards The first whereof were the Historians and the latter the Poets of their Traditions as Luddus himself acknowledges and by either of these means the Memory of our Kings and their Actions might have been preserv'd until the 5th Century at which time we got Monasteries in which as I shall hereafter prove were written and preserv'd the Annals of our Nation And since nothing but great Improbabilities and fundamental Inconsistencies should be allow'd to refute a History already receiv'd I shall offer these Considerations for clearing that this way of preserving the Memory of our Kings is as probable a mean as any can be in History 1. It is probable that our Nation as all the rest of Mankind who are warlike and in constant action would be desirous to preserve the memory of those Actions for which they had hazarded their Lives and by which they design'd to preserve that Fame which they preferr'd to Life it self And that the Kings likewise whose Authority and Right was much reverenc'd for its Antiquity would be as careful to preserve those Marks of their ancient Dominion 2. We do not in this serious Debate pretend to such ancient Originations and Descents as might through Vanity tempt Men to lie as those do who endeavour to derive themselves from the Trojans All that we pretend to in this Debate being only that we are a Colony who probably came first from Greece to Spain but settled certainly in Ireland for some time and that we came from them after the time in which Cambden and Vsher acknowledge that the Nation of the Scots whose Name we only now bear were long settled there Would not our Accusers have us trust the British Antiquities for 2500 years and the Irish for a longer time than our own without any written History or Manuscript now extant before Gilda's time And tho Lycurgus would not suffer his Laws to be written yet they were preserv'd in the Memories of Men for more than 600 Years as Plutarch observes and we and other Nations have preserv'd some Laws for much longer time without the help of writing And the only Points here controverted being the first Settlement of our Nation and that we continue Subjects to the same race of Kings these are matters so remarkable that most Nations know when such Changes happened to one another As for instance tho there were no History yet extant we should easily have known that the Saxons Danes and Normans conquer'd the Britons and alter'd the Race of their Kings That Ireland had many little Monarchs till they were swallow'd up by Henry the 2d of England And that Edward Bruce Brother to our glorious King Robert the first was chosen King of Ireland with universal Consent there and might have continued in that Government if from too great a love to Fame and to gain a Victory without his Brother he had not lost it and himself And though all these controverted Points fell out in a time after the use of Letters was known to most Nations and particularly to the Druids and Romans the one whereof were our Priests and the other our Neighbours very long yet there remains not the least vestige of a doubt that our Scepter was ever sway'd by any other Race 3. Though we had wanted the use of Letters as most probably we did not Yet the Tradition controverted is at most of about 800 years For after that time it shall be proved that we had Records and Annals And the things said of our Kings during that time are so few and so remarkable that Men might have taught the same to their Children in a weeks time And Men lived so long at that time that ten or twelve Men might have transmitted the Tradition to one another As also since private Families do preserve to this day their Tradition for as long time as this it was much more easy for a Nation and their Kings to preserve theirs Nor can I tell why my Lord St. Asaph in his Preface can controvert our Tradition though we could not produce Writers who lived in those Times wherein these Actions are said to be done since he thinks it reasonable to judge that there was the same Government here in Britain though for want of Ancient Writings there could be produced no plain Instances of it And if this be allowed to Episcopacy in these times why should he not have allow'd the same favour to his Monarch's Predecessors in the same and more ancient Ages 4. It was much easier for us to preserve our Traditions than for the English we being all descended from the same Race and being still the same People living under the uninterrupted succession of the same Royal-Line Whereas they were oblig'd to suppress the Traditions and Memorials of the People whom they had conquer'd 5. As no Man is presum'd to lie or cheat without some great Temptation so the most glorious things that are said of us are true beyond debate As our having defended the Ground in which we setled against all opposition to this very day Our having put the first stop to the Roman Greatness our having beat the far more numerous Britans though defended by strong Walls and stronger Romans All which cannot be deny'd to have been done by us and are equally noble whether we were setled here or not when we did them After those controverted Times it cannot be deny'd that we carried our Conquests further into Britain than formerly That we fought long with success against the Saxons and Picts and did at last extirpate the latter And when we were alone we continued and extended our former Conquests against the Danes and Normans which proves also that in the Wars which
was very easy for him to know it that being so publick a thing which concern'd his own as well as his Neighbour Nation But if the Scots had setled in anno 503 Beda could not have call'd them Prisci incolae and reckon'd them amongst the ancient Inhabitants For a Man living in his time might have told him that his Father saw the Scots call'd over by the Picts and that they settled here in his time Beda being thus clear to a Demonstration as far as Chronology and History can allow I desire to know how what Gildas says can contradict our History since he copies Gildas and liv'd within 200 years of him and since both wrote the same Actions in almost the same words Or how can it be imagin'd that if Gildas had known our Origin to be so late he would not have told it to our disadvantage whereas on the contrary he speaks of Scots and Picts as living in this Isle after the same manner as Transmarine in the same sense in which Beda interprets it which is because they liv'd not without the Isle but on the other side of the Wall which made an Isle From which it follows necessarily that in Gildas's time the Scots dwelt not without the Isle of Britain and Gildas having been born in Anno 493 as is said in the Calculation prefix'd to that Edition which himself relates it is clear that he was born 10 Years before that Year in which the Bishop of St. Asaph pretends we first settled here and so certainly he could not but have taken notice of the settlement of a Nation in which he was so much concern'd And albeit he says once speaking of us that Hiberni revertuntur domum Yet that was spoke of us as settl'd here and as being Irish by extraction as shall be hereafter clear'd Nor must our Histories which are so positive and unanimous be overturn'd by Clenshes and Equivocations and remote weak Consequences without Authors living at the time and mentioning expressly so remarkable an Accident Before I enter upon Foreign Citations without the Isle I must observe that we having kept the Romans the only writing Nation that had any knowledg of these our Isles from entering our Kingdom they could not know our Antiquities as they did those of England or France whom they had conquer'd But our being engag'd in a constant War with them is so universally related by all their Historians that to deny our being a Nation and in Britain when they so frequently and unanimously writ of us as Gens Gens etiam Britannica fighting here cannot but seem Railery to any Serious Man and the being able to controvert it is rather a mark of nimbleness of Wit than skill in Antiquity But however I shall produce some few Foreign Authors whose Testimonies seem to me unanswerable being joyn'd with and illustrated by what I formerly said from the venerable Beda and the Historians within this Isle My first Author is Eumenius in his Panegyrick to Constantine in praise of his Father Constantius who preferring the Victory Constantius had over the Britains to that which Iulius Caesar had over them says that the Britains at the time Caesar conquer'd them were a rude Nation being only us'd to fight against the Picts and Irish of the British Country Enemies half naked and so easily yeilded to the Roman Arms and Ensigns By which Citation we contend that it is prov'd that in the time of Iulius Caesar there was another Nation beside the Picts who then inhabited Britain and were a Colony of the Irish and these must certainly have been the Scots For it cannot be pretended that ever there was another Colony of the Irish in Britain besides us And it is uncontroverted on all hands that we are that Colony of the Irish who only us'd to fight with the Picts against the Britains and therefore that answer made by the Bishop that this place relates only to the Irish and not to the Scots is of no moment But he has another Answer which his Lordship insists more upon and for clearing whereof I must cite the Latin Ad hoc natio etiam tunc rudis soli Britanni Pictis modo Hibernis assueta hostibus adhuc seminudis facile Romanis armis signisque cesserunt His Answer is that the words Soli Britanni are the Nominative and not the Genitive and his Lordship confesses that if the words be in the Genitive they are clear of Buchannan's side And that they are of the Genitive all disinterested Men who understand the Latin will confess And Cambden himself tho a learned Schoolmaster and in other Citations about our Antiquity somewhat more humourous than so worthy a Man needed to be trusts to no other Answer but that the Panegyrist spoke here according to the Conception of the Age wherein he liv'd But as any Citation may be thus answered so if he had not spoken with relation to the time of Iulius Caesar the Comparison and Complement had no great force The Learned Vsher likewise objects not this to Buchannan which shews also his Acquiescence 2. If this Natio Rudis had been the same thing with Soli Britanni and if the sence must be as his Lordship says a Rude Nation the Britains then not only it had been superfluous but inconsistent with true sence For how can the same thing be copulated with it-self and tho it may be said Natio rudis Soli Britanni assueta hostibus yet certainly assueti had been more elegant for an Orator if Soli Britanni had been the Nominative And the great Ioseph Scaliger one of the best Judges both for that kind of Learning and Disinteressedness exclaims against Luddus for misconstructing so the words and therefore the Bishop might have spared the saying that Cambden ought to have given Buchannan correction for the great Ioseph Scaliger and Buchannan that incomparable Humanist are fitter to give than receive Correction from any in the Isle or Age. I must also observe that the Bishop has pointed these words otherways than they are in the Author for in the Author of Paulus Stephanus and Plantins Editions who were the most learned and exact of all Printers there is no Comma immediately after tthe words Soli Britanni and it is pointed as I have set it down here and even Luddus is just here But the Bishop has very wittily added the Comma after these words Now without the Comma it is clear that the Panegyrist meant Pictis Hibernis Soli Britanni and if the Panegyrist had design'd his words should have been construed as the Bishop has constru'd them so great an Orator would certainly have said Soli Britanni Natio ad hoc etiam tunc rudis c. And in this case the words had been clear and the ingenious Bishop needed not in translating them to have been forc'd to use the word Nation twice because the sense was hard and unnatural according to his
had a noble Camp and whereof the Vestiges are very remarkable to this day and in which there are Stones found with Roman Inscriptions designing the Stations of the Legions And certainly it is more proper to say the loss was lamented in that Country where the Battel was fought than in that Kingdom where the Romans never fought any And why did the Poet join Ierna in the same lamentation with Caledonia if he had not design'd by it to express Ierna as a part of our Scotland And this is more proper than to make the Poet join part of one to another different and remote Kingdom As also Starthern in Scotland is indeed a place where the Frost is strong and continues long as being very near the Hills But Ireland was known to be and is yet a Country much freer from Storms and Ice and was believ'd by the Ancients to be so as is most clear by Beda 2. Though the Poet had understood Ireland by Ierne yet it does not follow that because Ireland lamented the loss of the Scots who were kill'd here that therefore the Scots that were kill'd were not the Scots that were planted in Scotland since certainly Ireland could not but have lamented even the death of Scots who were setled here as Scotland and as the Scots here did lament very much the death of the Scots who were kill'd in Ireland in the late Massacre And as the Bishop himself argues in the Case of the Panegyrick above-cited I may far more justly argue here that this sense agrees better with the Poet 's noble flight who makes the loss that the Scots sustained to be so great that it was lamented even in Ireland Selden also l. 2. c. 8. Mar. Claus. applys this to us and not to the Irish. And these Verses in the same Author design'd likewise to the praise of the same Theodosius Pictos Edomuit Scotumque vaga mucrone secutus Fregit hyperboreas remis audacibus andas Are only applicable to the Scotish Colony setled in Ireland For he magnifies Theodosius Grand-father to Honorius for having pursued so far his Victory that he beat the Northern Seas with his bold Oars Now beside all the other Arguments formerly us'd can it be said that Theodosius's Souldiers ever went to Ireland that Ireland lies North-west from Clyde or Severus Wall Whereas it is certain they were in Scotland and it is very probable that they would follow the Scotish Colony into the North-west Isles or over Clyde where it 's formerly prov'd the Scotish Plantation first setled The Third Testimony shall be that of Hegisippus where he brings in Ben-gorion disswading the Iews to fight against the Romans the Conquerors of all the Earth whom the unsearchable Places of the Ocean and the furthest places of India obey What shall I say of the Isles of Britain divided from the rest of the World by Sea and reduc'd by the Romans to be a part of the World who makes Scotland to tremble which owes nothing to any part of the Earth To which Cambden answers That this must be interpreted of Ireland because the words Quae terris nihil debet must be interpreted as if the Scotia here spoke of were joyn'd to no other place and that is only applicable to Ireland and not to Scotland But what a hard shift is he here driven to for none can interpret Quae terris nihil debet in that sense there being nothing more different than these two expressions which is not joyn'd to the other Parts of the Earth as Cambden would interpet it and which owes nothing to any part of the Earth as the Author expresses it There is nothing more ordinary than for one who thinks he depends not upon another to say I owe you nothing And certainly it agrees much more with the Author's Intention to interpret these words so Scotland which ow'd homage to no place does tremble at the Roman Arms. 2. It cannot be said that ever the Romans did attack Ireland And to clear this beyond answer in the same harangue cited out of Ben-gorion himself by Vsher Ben gorion says to the Iews that when the General of the Nations only came these Nations resisted them but when the Roman Emperours themselves came they submitted to them And I desire to know if ever Ireland was invaded by the Romans So that what is said in the harangue is not applicable to the Scotia Hibernica as they pretend but to that Country wherein we now live As also by the same Ben-gorion it is clear that Nero being discourag'd upon the rebellion of the Iews and Vespasian comming to him comforted him by remembering him that some of his Captains had conquer'd all the Western World France Scotland and the land of Tubal And whereas Vsher to lessen this Authority is forc'd to alledge that Hegesippus's Works were spurious This contradicts Eusebius who makes him to have liv'd Anno Christi 160. And tho Vsher contends that both these Authors must be late because Hegesippus who only cites Ben-gorion names Constantinople which chang'd not the name of Bizantium till about the beginning of the 4th Century Yet the Answer is easie viz. That this being a Translation from the Greek the Translator has us'd the name that was best known in his own Time And the English and other Nations have acknowledg'd this to be the Work of Hegesippus and translate it as such Vsher himself indeed is inclin'd to think that this was the Work of St. Ambrose but even that is sufficient for us for not only is St. Ambrose himself older than the 503 Year and so proves that our Country was before that time called Scotland but St. Ambrose relating this Speech made in Vespasian's Time must prove that this Country was call'd Scotland in Vespasian's Time who was elected Emperour 72 Years after Christ. Tertullian who died in the Year 202 and so must have written some time before that and could not have written of us as Christians and a Nation if we had not been so for a considerable time for Informations did spread slowly in that Age when there was so little Commerce and at so great a distance This great Doctor of the Primitive Church writing against the Jews who he knew would examine the truth of the matter of Fact alledg'd against them says for the honour of the Christian Religion which he was defending That those Inhabitants of Britain which could not be subdu'd by the Romans yet willingly yielded to the Yoke of Christ. From which it is urg'd that in Tertullian's Time there were Nations in Britain which had never submitted to the Roman Yoke but yet submitted to the Yoke of Christ. But so it is that could not be meant of the Britains for all the World knows and the Bishop confesses that long before that Time they had submitted to the Romans And therefore it is plain that there were other Nations in the Isle and that could not be true except the
not long amongst them but that we came from thence very early 2. By all the tract of the Roman Histories as well as by Beda's Gildas's and ours it is clear that the Scots and Picts fought joyntly against the Romans in this Country which we now possess That the Walls built by Adrian and Severus were built here to defend them against them That Complaints were made to the Romans by the Britons of them and that Succours were crav'd against them That the Saxons were call'd in to defend the Britons from the Scotish and Pictish Incursions That they were call'd jointly unconquer'd Nations All which points prove that they were equal in every thing and why not then in their being equally settl'd here And therefore except it were clearly prov'd that the Scots were not settl'd and fix'd here as the Picts were and that there were Authors produc'd who living in these Times declar'd that in the Year 503 the Scots were first call'd to defend the Picts as the Saxons are clearly prov'd to have been call'd in against the Scots and Picts in the Year 449 very near to the Year 503 which is said by the Bishop to be our Entry It must be necessarily concluded that the Scots were here at the time wherein all these things are told of them joyntly with the Picts The third Argument shall be that it 's undeniable that the Scots and Picts were such constant and formidable Enemies that the Romans and Britans who then possest the Southern part of this Isle were forc'd to build two Fences against them The first betwixt Tyne and Solloway which was call'd Adrian's Wall And the second by Severus who having enlarg'd the Roman Conquest built a second betwixt Forth and Clyde and called it by his own name How then can it be imagin'd that the Scots did not live on the other side of that Wall for if they had liv'd in Ireland the Wall had not been necessary or useful against them This common sense would declare to a Stranger upon first reading the Story and much more ought it to be believ'd if we consider that if the Scots came from Ireland in Corroughs as the Bishop of St. Asaph alledges from Gildas then they might have landed upon the Britons side of the Wall nay and which is more they could not conveniently have landed on the other side except they had gone too far about and cross'd a very broad and dangerous Sea 4. Tho People come once or twice from a Foreign Nation by Sea to rob and pillage yet it is against sense to think that for many hundreds of Years the Irish would have come over to make War against such powerful Enemies and return once a Year And it appers clearly that this was a constant War from before Iulius Caesar's Time for above 600 Years and in those Ages it is known that there were not very convenient means fall'n upon for transporting Men much lesse Armies they having only Corroughs as the Bishop of St. Asaph himself acknowledges And these are a miserable little kind of shapeless Boats made of Leather streatch upon Timber as we find them and the Irish Sea describ'd by Solinus who liv'd near those Times and writes that Mare quod Iuvernam Britanniam interfluit undosum inquietum toto in anno nisi aestivis pauculis diebus est navigabile navigant autem viminiis alviis quos circumdant ambitu tergorum bubulorum And how these could transport an Army every Year to fight against such powerful Enemies as the Romans and Britons And how they could carry back in them the great Booty worthy to be fought for especially over such broken Seas that are yet terrible in the best Season to the best of our Boats and the stoutest of Seamen is left to be considered by Men judicious or disinterested in any measure Especially seeing they behov'd to return in the Winter-time for it 's presum'd they fought all Summer and even then they had not the chusing of their own fair Weather but had just reason to be afraid that they would be chas'd away as Robbers usually are and as the Bishop of St. Asaph asserts they often-times were But as all this is absurd and incredible according to the Bishop of St. Asaph's Hypothesis so it is most consistent with ours in which we assert that the Scots setled on the other side of Clyde from which they might come every Year which agrees also well with Beda's saying That the Scots setled ad partem septentrionalem sinus Acluith or Dumbriton a narrow Sea and call'd one part of the Mare Scoticum by the English Authors and particularly by Holinshed and Polidore as by our Major and was so design'd in the forms of holding Circuits as is clear by the 4 Chap. of the Laws of King Malcom 2. and by 5th Act P. 3. I. 2d And since in the said Laws of Malcom 2. who reign'd Anno 1004. The Frith of Forth is call'd Mare Scotiae the Sea of Scotland and that is mention'd as a Law in old observance it must be concluded that this Country where we live was call'd Scotland long before the Year 1000 as Bishop Vsher asserts For since Tacitus and Beda say That we were inclos'd by that Sea and the Wall as in an Isle it seems that this was call'd the Sea of Scotland then it being our March at that time Nor are these Friths improperly call'd Seas being 40 miles broad in some places And this also agrees with our being transmarini or on the other side of the Sea which are the words us'd in the said Statute but not out of the Isle and it is strange that the Visigoths should have setled in France and Spain the Ostrogoths in Italy shortly after they had made their inroads and yet we should have return'd yearly for above 600 Years notwithstanding of the former difficulty 4ly The Scots coming over to this Isle could not but know that the southern Parts of it were very rich and the People there very cowardly even to admiration as the Bishop of St. Asaph himself relates from all their Historians and there was place enough for a Colony of them in this Isle or else how could they have planted themselves after when the Picts became more numerous and both the Scots and the Picts had good reason to expect every Year new additions of Land and it is probable that our Ancestors being a Colony of a more southern Nation strangers in Ireland and but lately setled there left their confinement in the Irish Isle as soon as they could to inlarge their Victories and Possessions in this larger one which afforded greater Glory How then can it be imagin'd that they would not have setled a Colony here which was far less dangerous and more noble and advantageous than to be constantly robbing for small Booty to the danger of their Lives But that they fought for Land and not for Booty is very clear not only from
the practice of others but from Sabellicus gliscere indies id malum augebatur duarum gentium audaciâ apparebatque brevi totam insulam alienatam iri nisi ejusmodi conatibus maturé iretur obviam 5. How it is imaginable that the Picts finding themselves in so great danger from the Romans and Britons the one very considerable for their Valour and the other for their great Numbers would not have intreated the Scots to stay constantly with them for tho they had been equal to their Enemies when the Scots and they were together yet they could not be but much more inferiour to them when the Scots left them once every Year 6. If the Irish had constantly sent in Auxiliaries to assist against the Romans it is not to be believ'd but the Romans would have resentted this Injury against the Kingdom of Ireland which they never did except once when the Irish gave the Scots Supplies endeavouring to re-establish themselves after the expulsion of Eugenius And if this War had been carried on by the Kingdom of Ireland and not by the Scots in Scotland we had certainly heard that the Kings of Ireland had been mention'd both in the Roman English and our Histories for it is not to be imagin'd that so long and so great Wars could have been carried on by the Subjects without the consent of the King and Kingdom 7. If they never had been call'd in by the Picts to stay as a Colony till the Saxons had beat the Britons who had lately call'd them in to their Assistance How is it imaginable to think that the Picts would have call'd them in as Auxiliaries at that time having so lately seen how dangerous Auxiliaries might prove especially considering that the Scots had been us'd many hundred Years to robbing as the Bishop of St. Asaph would have us believe and that they were part of a numerous near Nation from whom they might expect suddenly great Supply or that they would have not only run this risque but have divided with them their little Country and yet not have employ'd their Assistance for the Ends for which they call'd them in For the Bishop tells us that the Scots did nothing for 100 Years after they were call'd in 8. It cannot be deny'd but that about the Year 792 there was a League entred into betwixt Charles the Great call'd Charle-Maigne King of France and Emperor of the West and Achaius King of Scotland call'd by all the French Historians the Famous Alliance In which the King of Scotland did send over 4000 Men to the assistance of Charles the Great And this is testified by Aeginardus who wrote the History of those Times and was Secretary to Charles the Great and who is cited by Vsher at which time the King of Scotland sent over very many famous learn'd Men who founded the incomparable University of Paris All which is clear by Favin in his Theatre of Honour and Paulus Aemilius in that King's Life From which I raise two Arguments 1. How can it be imagin'd that if the Scots had not setled in a Colony till the 503 that their King could have been so famous that in about 280 Years time this small Colony which the Bishop of St. Asaph represents to have been but pilfering barbarous Robbers would have become so famous that Charles the Great then Emperor of all the Western World would have entred into a League with them especially since they had not for 100 Years after their settlement done any memorable Action as the Bishop of St. Asaph alledges 2. If our Kings and Nation had only then Dalrieda or the Kingdom of Argile as the Bishop contends how could this Prince of Argile which is after all improvement but an Earldom have been worthy not only of the Alliance of the great Emperor of the West but to be able to send 4000 Men especially having such dangerous Enemies at Home and being himself but a Stranger newly entred into a Foreign Island and living in a small part of the Isle with the Picts the more powerful and ancient possessors And that there were 4000 Men sent by virtue of that League is clear not only from Verimundus out of whose 2d Book Chambers cites the whole League but by Sansovin an Italian who writes the History of the Douglassii or Scoti whom he derives from William Douglas who was Lieutenant at that Time to Prince William Brother to Achaius For which Sansovin cites another viz. Vmberto Locato more ancient than himself And this is so far acknowledg'd by the French Kings that upon it we got very great Privileges in France and all the Heraulds in Europe acknowledg that the double Tressure was the Badg of that Alliance 9. How can it be conceiv'd that the Scots could in so short a time after their Settlement have been able without any help to extirpate the Picts who must be presum'd to have been very strong having been so long setled in this Isle and having possest in effect all that we have now benorth Forth except the Shire of Argyle if we believe the Bishop of St. Asaph Our Tradition is fortified and the former Authorities cited by us are clear'd from the receiv'd Laws of our Nation for first all our Histories bear That after King Fergus ' s death the Nobility finding his Son too young and the Wars in which they were engaged very dangerous they declared that the Vncle should govern Which Custom continu'd till it occasion'd many bloody Civil Wars betwixt the Uncles and Nephews and therefore was justly abrogated by a Parliament holden by Kenneth the Third which Kenneth the Third reign'd Anno 970. And it were very ridiculous to think that since these Matters of Fact are true viz. That there were bloody Civil Wars betwixt the Uncles and the Nephews and that all this hath been much debated in posterior Parliaments betwixt such as were for the Crown and such as were for popular Elections without ever controverting the Truth of the Matter of Fact and long before we could have any apprehension of such a debate as this and so that all this was a meer fiction calculated for maintaining an Antiquity which was never controverted It can as little be deny'd that there were Laws relating to the merchetae mulierum since many of our old Charters relate to them and discharges of them are incorporated in our Charters and which Styles are a part of our old and Traditional Law These merchetae mulierum were thereafter abrogated by King Malcom Canmor's Laws many hundred Years before the starting of this Debate And that there were such Laws is also acknowledged not only by Baker and others within the Isle but even by Solinus and Ierome c. And that these Laws were made by Evenus the Third who liv'd twelve Years before Christ is a part of the same Tradition and so cannot but be believ'd since Laws are one of the probablest
multitude of English Writers cited by Bishop Vsher who deriv'd his birth from Greece and describes the particular Actions of his Life and his Martyrdom with which also the modern English Writers agree as Baleus Holinshed Speed all which English and thousands of other Testimonies do far weigh down Bishop Vsher's Conjectures that Amphibalus was not a Man but a Vestiment from the silence of Gildas Beda the Martyrologies and Breviaries of Salisbury and Ieffrey who do not mention him for Gildas could not mention him writing concerning the Conquest and Destruction of Britain Beda tells the Passage relative to St. Alban and albeit he names him not in the Dioclesian Persecution yet he tells that many more suffer'd than the three he names We have not seen the Martyrologies and Breviaries nor does it import whether they mention him or not and it is not so much to be wondered at that some English Writers do not mention him as that he is mention'd by so many seeing he was a Greek and a Bishop in the remote Isles of Britain and in all likelihood would have been buried under silence had it not been for that Passage with St. Alban My last Argument for confirming our History shall be that the best Critiques Historians and Antiquaries of other Nations who had occasion to mention our Histories and particularly the great Baronius Scaliger Salmasius Lipsius Carolus Sigonius Favinus Selden and others of the first Rank too many to be nam'd have passionately defended our Antiquity and not only sustain'd but prais'd our Histories and so the Arguments and Grounds whereupon I have proceeded are already asserted by the best Judges and that too after Luddus publish'd his Objections against the same and almost the very same Objections which are now urg'd and which are treated with great contempt by Scaliger Since then there is nothing now urg'd that could have escaped the observation of these learn'd and curious Authors who could not but have discover'd as soon as the Bishop of St. Asaph that our Historians did not mention any Warrants which were written in the Time or did contradict the Roman History or one another I admire why now these our Histories should be controverted And tho something might be pretended if my Lord St. Asaph did in this Book produce Manuscripts unknown to those learn'd Criticks yet could they have been so blind and ignorant especially in that subtile and laborious Age wherein all Men were by a noble emulation contending who should discover most as not to have seen defects which if they had been real they had been obvious It is also very remarkable that since all Nations are emulous of one another in Matters of Antiquity yet they by yielding to ours have thereby acknowledg'd that ours was beyond all debate and to this day none controvert it notwithstanding of all the pains taken by Luddus Cambden and Vsher further than to gratify their own Country And therefore as Cicero argues that the Romans were the bravest because every Nation commended them next to their own I may contend that we are the most ancient because every Nation confesses us to be next to themselves in Antiquity I shall cite for confirming this some few Instances Saxo Gram. Swaningius Albertus Krantzius own our Name and Nation to have been before Christ though after the Danes Mezeray shortly after Pharamond and my Lord St. Asaph himself who brings us in but 50 Years after the English Since it is probable that the Bishop of St. Asaph and I will not agree well in the decision of this Debate were it not just that we should both rest in the decision of learn'd Strangers who understood Antiquities exactly these being the subject Matter of our Controversy And where can we find more qualified Judges than those great Antiquaries whom I have named But yet to shew how much I trust to the strength of that Truth which I assert I dare appeal to Selden that English-man who was so affectionate to his Country and that Antiquary who understood best of all Mankind the Antiquities of his own Nation and even to him also in his Mare Clausum written for the Defence and Glory of his Country who lib. 2. cap. 8. Maris Clausi has these words speaking of those famous Lines in Claudian to the praise of Stilicho Inde Caledonio velata Britannia monstro Totam cum Scotus Jernam Movit infesto spumavit remige Tethys As the Palmes and the River Tagus were peculiar to Spain as the Ears of Corn and Ivory to Africa so he would have it understood that the Province of Britain had the Sea of the same name peculiar thereto But yet it is to be conceiv'd that the Dominion of the Romans was so limited in this Sea according to their possession of the Shore that they had little power in that part of the British Sea which bordered upon the Shores of those British Nations who were not under their Obedience This is to be taken chiefly of the Irish Sea and the rest that lies North-west for when the Roman Empire began to decline not only in Ireland but in the Isle of Man also and the other Isles of the Western Sea and a great portion of the more Northerly parts of Britain was possess'd by the Scots and Picts so that we have sufficient ground to conceive that they also had an ancient Dominion of their own in the neighbouring Sea From which Passage I argue thus 1. That Selden consider'd the Scots and Picts as Nations not subject to the Romans Gentes iis viz. Romanis minime subjacentes No manner of way subject to the Romans and looks on us as the most considerable of these two Nations for the words run A Scotis tenebatur Pictisque and very justly for we were able to defend them while they were just to us and to extirpate them when they became Enemies 2. This great Antiquary asserts that the Scots and Picts possest not only in Stilicho's Time who was Guardian to Honorius and so liv'd about Anno 400 a great portion of the Northern part of Britain as well as the Isle of Man and the rest of the Western Isles and consequently if we possest them then it cannot be said that we were only here by way of incursion till the Year 500 or were confin'd to Argile till after the Year 500 as my Lord St. Asaph contends 3. That we were not only possest then but that we had avitum Dominium ancient Dominion and had right prisco jure and nothing is so inconsistent with the being Proprietors as to be Robbers coming only by way of Incursion and if we had the Dominion of our Seas jure prisco and per Dominium avitum we were certainly ancient Possessors before the Year 400 and so must have been not only far older than the Year 500 but even to have been prisci incolae as Beda l. 1. c. 1. says before the Romans entred this Isle and so before Christ. Selden also
Frith of Forth and Clyde and yet he confesses that amongst the South-Picts there was a Monastery of St. Martin at Whit-horn founded by St. Ninian in honour of that Saint and Whit-horn is in Galloway in the furthest south point of our Scotland near eighty miles besouth Forth and himself also confesses Whit-horn to be in Galloway The fourth Objection being that our Historians have followed Ieffrey of Monmoth in many rediculous inventions which were purely his own and particularly in the History of Bassianus who being Emperour is by him pretended to have been kill'd in Britain by Fulgentius which tho Buchannan does not exactly follow yet he still makes Bassianus to have been a Roman Lieutenant and to have been kill'd in Britain whereas it appears not from any Roman Authors that there was any Roman Lieutenant here To this it is answered That no Man comparing our Histories with Ieffrey of Monmouth can think so for we bring not our Nation from Brutus as he does against common sense and tho Ieffrey tells a story of Bassianus the Emperour being kill'd in Britain which contradicts the Roman Story yet Fordon does expresly say it was not that Bassianus who was Emperour but a Captain sent here and so does not follow but contradict Ieffrey And Buchannan to shew that he does not follow him and he understood too well the Roman Story to do so only relates that there was a Bassianus kill'd which no Roman History contradicts and which is not to be presum'd Buchannan would have made since there is nothing in it for the advantage of his Nation and as it is probable the Emperour would not have suffer'd Carausius to make such great preparations without sending a considerable Captain especially since Eutropius tells that after many Wars attempted with Carausius he at last concluded to send a Captain against him without naming who that Captain was It were a hard thing therefore to conclude so great Authors were forgers because they condescend not upon an Author for every indifferent Circumstance and the Notitia Imperii is so far from having taken notice of every Lieutenant in a Legion that I can prove by many Texts of the Civil Law that even Consuls themselves have been forgot when they were only chosen to succeed to those who died during their Consulship But the great Objection used by the Bishop against our Antiquity lyes in the 4th § of the Bishop's first Chapter wherein he asserts That Ireland was peopled by the Scots and was the only Scotland before these times viz. before the Year 503 And in the 5th § That there were no Scots in Britain before the said Year 300. And in the 6th and 8th § That the Scots betwixt the 300 and 500 Years were indeed here but not setled and only by way of Incursion And in the 9th § he asserts That about the Year 500 they first setled here and erected the Kingdom of Argile And in the 12th and 13th § he asserts That after the Year 900 we got the rest of the Country and then only it came to be called Scotland For clearing all these Mistakes without partiality or humour I shall sum up my Answers in these distinct Propositions First It is undeniable in it self and acknowledged by our Adversaries that the first special Names under which Ireland was known were Ierna among the Greeks and Hibernia among the Latins both of which are as I said acknowledg'd by Bishop Vsher himself My second Position is That before the Year 300 there is no Foreign Author produced by either Nation that mentions Scotia Scoti or Scoticae gentes except Seneca who mentions the Scoto-brigantes and Florus the Scoticae pruinae and Hegisippus who mentions Scotia and Porphyrie who mentions Scoticae gentes And tho I have prov'd formerly all these Authors and Passages to be genuine and applicable to us alone yet tho they were only spurious Authors or the conjectural Readings of new Criticks as Bishop Vsher whom my Lord St. Asaph follows alledges Porphyrie only excepted whose Testimony is admitted by him to be in the third Century It clearly follows that my Lord St. Asaph has without sufficient Warrant asserted in the forementioned place that Ireland was called Scotland before the Year 300 he admitting no Author for this save Porphyrie whose Book he acknowledges not to be extant but to be only cited by Ierom who liv'd long after the Year 300. 3. My chief Design in this Book is not to debate the Antiquity of the Names of Scotia or Scoti but only when we first setled under Kings in this Isle And consequently though Arch-bishop Vsher and the Bishop of St. Asaph could prove that the words Scotia and Scoti were not known the first 300 Years except in Porphyrie yet that cannot prove that we were not setled here before that Time For it is undeniable that many Nations have had peculiar Names before those Names can be found in History as Scaliger very well proves and they could not be known in Histories till other Nations had commerce with them and wrote of them which was a thing very accidental And Foreigners do oft-times design Nations by Appellatives which they themselves invent And it is asserted by Bp Vsher that the Scots inhabited Ireland long before the Year 300 tho till then he cannot give an Author for that word And who can deny that the Picts liv'd long here before Eumenius who first mention'd them and liv'd long after Porphyrie who mentions the Scots And it is very observable that to this day neither the Irish nor we are call'd Scots in the true Irish Language for they call their own Country-men Erenach from the word Ierna or Ibernia and us Albanach from Albion and Albania Which also clears that we got that name long before Iulius Caesar's Time since before that time the word Albian was run into desuetude and was succeeded to by the more known name of Britannia And these Originations are the more confirm'd that to this day the same Irish and our Highlanders know no other names to the English save Sassanach because of Saxony from which they came as they call'd us Albanach to distinguish us from themselves from the Country to which we came Which may give us likewise a hint how by Names without Histories most ancient Monuments of Antiquity may be preserv'd And it is fully prov'd before that time we were known in this Country under the name of Dalreudini and Caledonii 4. All those uncontroverted Testimonies that make first mention of the Scots and of Scotland are only applicable to us such as Claudian Pacatius Ammianus c. as has formerly been fully prov'd And since Hegesippus is the first Author produc'd by the Bp of St. Asaph who mentions Scotia and that it has been formerly prov'd that these Passages relate to Us and not to Ireland it follows clearly that the name Scotia was given to Us before it was given to Ireland or
that the Irish were call'd Scoti Albeit it were admitted that the Works ascribed to Hegesippus were really St. Ambroses who flourished before the Year 400. And Cambden acknowledges that the Name of Scotland came over with the Scots to Britain cap. 1. Hibernia And therefore since I have prov'd that the Scots came over before Iulius Caesar's Time it follows from Cambden that the name of Scotland was ascribed to us before them 5. Tho it be true and acknowledg'd on all hands that Ireland was inhabited by the Nation of the Scots as is written by Orosius in the Year 417 and that it be true that our Colony came from Ireland as Beda and our Historians commonly assert and that thence it may be said that Hibernia est proprie Scotorum Patria It will not follow that either We or the Irish were called Scots before that Time or that because We have deriv'd our Colony from the Irish that therefore We have deriv'd the Name of Scoti from them But on the contrary supposing with Vsher that the Nomen Scoticum had been first given in the third Century then the Name behov'd to have been ours originally who were more known and consider'd in the World than they because of the honour we had in the Roman Wars whose Authors do first mention Scoti and Scotia and our early conversion to the Christian Faith And by our frequent intercourse of Colonies with the Irish as about the time of Fergus the second It is probable we did communicate the Name of Scoti to these Inhabitants in Ireland from whose Ancestors we were descended and among whom our Colonies that were returned setled as at this day the Scots in the North of Ireland do retain the Name and as we had the name of Hibernia communicated to us from them which is abundantly clear'd from what is said out of Eumenius and Gildas So that these names of Hiberni and Scoti have become common to both People but with this difference that as the Irish were originally called Hiberni so our Scots were originally Scoti For of all the Passages produced by Archbishop Vsher or Bishop of St. Asaph to prove the Irish to be called Scoti that of Orosius is the first that is applicable to them for those from Claudian Ammianus Pacatius and Hegisippus do not at all agree with them nor yet that Passage from Prosper as has been proved nor these from Gildas for tho he calls those People who are said to return home Hiberni or Irish yet he calls the same People who return'd home Scots and not Irish. And the Actions to which these Passages cited against us relate are uncontrovertedly by Beda Gildas and all the Roman Authors applicable to Us and not to the Irish being the three Vastations made by the Picts and Vs in the British Territories And Marianus whom the Bishop likewise cites against us does expressly apply this to the Scots for he uses the word Scoti in speaking of all the three Vastations And whereas Gildas useth the word Scoti speaking of the first two Vastations and says Hiberni revertuntur domum speaking of the last Marianus repeating the same passage says Scoti revertuntur domum By which also I infer by a far better Consequence that the Scots must be said to return to the place where they were formerly settled but so it is that the place where the Scots were formerly setled was the West of Scotland and therefore when they return'd home they return'd not to Ireland as the Bp of St. Asaph alledges but to our North-west Country as we contend for the word in Gildas is à Gircio which signifies North-West and Ireland lies South-West from Grahams-Dyke near which these Actions were done But Argile and those Isles which We possessed lies indeed North-West from it And if they had return'd to Ireland they had been Trans-marine as living in another Isle contrary to Gildas's own express assertion as it is interpreted by Beda cap. 12. lib. 2. 2. Why should the Picts and Scots being spoke of as to their going home together the one to the North and the other to the West not be thought to have gone home to the same Isle since different Isles are not mentioned and if I said I were going to the West that in common sense could only be understood of the West of that Kingdom or Island where I then were and not of any other Kingdom lying to the West thereof And both the Picts and Scots being equally called Trans-marine Nations if the Scots went out of the Isle it must follow that the Picts left it also which never any was so ridiculous as to alledge By all which it clearly follows that the words Scoti Hiberni were before these Times promiscuously ascribed to us And tho Beda may speak of the Scots coming from Ireland and setling a third Colony in Britain long before Iulius Caesar's time yet that doth only prove the Antiquity of the Settlement of the People that are call'd Scoti but not the Antiquity of their Name concerning which Beda was not treating for he rather seems to insinuate the contrary when he says Aquo viz. duce Reuda usque hodie Dalreudini vocantur 6. The Passages produced by the Bp of St. Asaph Vsher for proving that Ireland was called Scotia after the Age that Hegisippus or Ambrose liv'd in and within the 1000 Years are very few and many of them from Legendary Writers But I shall glance at the most material The first is Isidor Hispalensis who liv'd in the 7th Century and who says Scotia eadem Hibernia proxima Britanniae Insula spatio terrarum angustior sed situ faecundior The same words are used by Orosius whom he follows except that Orosius calls the Inhabitans Scoti but does not call the Country Scotia but Hibernia so that Orosius having first call'd the Inhabitants of Ireland Scoti in the Year 417 Isidor by an ordinary derivation calls their Country Scotia and is the first that Arch-bishop Vsher or the Bishop of Saint Asaph does produce to prove Hibernia to be call'd Scotia and is in the Year 620 and so is too late to prove their Design since it is clearly prov'd that our Country was called Scotia in St. Ambrose's Time even by their own concession And whereas the same Isidor speaking of Ireland says haec est proprie Scotorum patria beside what has been formerly urged it is observable that the word proprie does imply as if it might have been justly doubted and that it was not true in all senses especially since Beda uses the very same expression after that he has fully cleared that we were settled here long before that time and therefore it doth necessarly follow that these words are consistent with our being settled here and consequently that they must not be so interpreted as to infer that Ireland was the place where We then liv'd but only the place from which We came And such as understand the
Civil Law the best Standard of the Latine Language must acknowled that there is Patria Originis as well as Incolatûs domicilii And it may be justly said of those of Virgina and other English Plantations that Anglia est proprie illorum patria And generally it is observable that the Authors relating both to us and them do first call the People Scoti and then the Country Scotia but still the more ancient Authors call us Scoti before them and our Country Scotia before theirs As to the Citations out of Adamnanus in vita Columbae and Beda It is certain that Adamnanus is lately publish'd by an Irish Hand as appears by the Marginal Notes the Publisher still adding Hibernia in the Magin where Scotia is in the Text. But however it is certain that Adamnanus was Abbot of Hy which is Ikolmkil among the Scotish West Islands so that in dubio he is presum'd to be a Scots-man and not an Irish and Balaeus and others positively assert him to be a Scots-man Nor is there any reason for their calling him an Irish-man but because all Authors who speak of him call him Scotus and to assert a Man to be an Irish-man because he is called Scots-man is rather a Bull than a Reason But because he is mention'd by Beda who liv'd shortly after him and is an Author of far greater Authority What I shall observe from Beda will serve to clear the Citations out of both And first Beda relates That Ecgfrid King of Northumberland having sent an Army into Ireland under Bertus he wasted the Country and the innocent People And the next Year having sent an Army to waste the Province of the Picts contrary to the advice of his Friends and of St. Cuthbert God suffered that Army to be destroy'd because the former Year he had rejected their Advice That he should not invade Scotland which did not wrong him And to clear that the Scotia here express'd was not Ireland he adds The English and Scots who abide in Britain This Passage as well as the others which I have cited and shall cite proves 1. That Scotland then was promiscuously express'd by the names of Hibernia and Scotia For the same thing is said first to have been done in Hibernia and thereafter it is said to have been done in Scotia And this answers the Objection Hiberni revertuntur domum and where could their Home be but in Ireland 2. It proves that this our Country was call'd Scotia in Beda's Time and so long before the Year 1000 which the Bishop denies Nor can it be prov'd that the King of Northumberland went to make War in Ireland nor speaks Beda of any War with Ireland The next Passage from Beda is where he says That Columbanus an Abbot and Presbyter came in the year 565 from Ireland to Britain to preach the Word of God to the Provinces of the North-picts and converted them and got from them possession of the former Island for founding a Monastery where he was buried Out of which Monastery meaning Hy many other Monasteries were propagated in Ireland and Britain in all which the same Island-Monastery was the chief And he takes notice that the Successors of this Abbot differed in the Observation of Easter from the Church of Rome till the Year 716. And thereafter he says That Aidan was sent from this Island for instructing the Province of the English Now he had said before Aidan who was sent from the Isle which is called Hy which is the chief of the Scotish and Pictish Monasteries and belongs to Britain And thereafter he says That Colman seeing his Doctrine slighted and his Adherents despised returned to Scotland So that we see that that which at the first is called Ireland afterward is called the said Island and the Monastery in it the Island-Monastery and thereafter it is called the Isle of Hy and thereafter it is called Scotland I shall cite a third Passage from Beda where speaking of a great Plague in Britain he adds This Plague also wasted Ireland with the same destruction at which time there were there many of the Nobility and Commons of England who in the time of the Bishops Finan and Colman having left their own Native Island for the greater convenience either of Divine Studies or a more strict Life had retired thither All whom the Scots kindly entertain'd and furnished with all things necessary and gave them freely Meat and Books to read and Learning And thereafter speaking of Egbert who was among them he adds That he was a good Example to his own Nation and to the Nations of the Picts and Scots among whom he liv'd retiredly by which passages it is evident that that which is here called Ireland is really our Scotland first because it is said they came from England upon the occasion of Finan and Colman who were our Countrymen and whose chief residence was the Isle of Hy or Icolm-kill from which they came which did then and does still belong to us only and which the Bishop of St. Asaph also confesses and then because in their Monastick Life it is said they resided among the Scots and Picts and it is said before that the Island where the Monastery was belonged to Britain But for further clearing the former Citations from Beda I shall offer these following Considerations 1. That Beda treats only the Actions of these five Nations that did inhabite Britain and if he do speak of France or Ireland it is but upon occasion of them as of the situation of Ireland from whence the Scots came or of some Monasteries depending upon Icolm-kill which perhaps were situated near us in the North of Ireland and therefore unless all these passages were clearly applicable to Ireland they must be understood of Scotland 2. It being certain that Beda in the beginning of his Book treats concerning the Scots in Britain the Roman Wars with them and Palladius's being sent to them it necessarily follows that the rest of the Book mentioning the Scots or that part of the Isle possess'd by them is to be understood of us whether the Country be called Hibernia or Scotia or We Hiberni or Scoti especially since Beda mentions a King call'd Aidan and we had a King of that Name in that time which the Irish cannot pretend Beda treats also concerning the Abbots of Hy which is Icolm-kill as is clear by that passage where he says Columba Founder of the Monastery in the Isle of Hy venerable to the Scots and Picts which by a compounded name from Columba and Cell is called Icolm-kill And that the Monks sent from this Monastery or Island were the Converters of the North-Saxons and the first Bishops of Lindasfern or Holy-Island Predecessors of the Bishop of Durham 3. He makes frequent mention of little Islands which never did belong to Ireland but to Sotland and are still called Hebrides And so
as the chief of these Isles where the Abbot resided the Records were kept and the Kings were buried might probably be called Insula Hiberniae or Hibernia and that Scotia might be the Ordinary name to all that part of the Isle of Britain benorth the River of Clyde so that the going from Hiberniâ or Scotiâ in Britanniam is nothing but the going to the other side of Clyde by which and Graham's-Dyke that part of the Isle was distinguished from the rest as if it had been a distinct Island 4. The great Controversy at that Time being about the keeping of Easter Laurentius Mellitus and Iustus Bishops did write a Letter to us of the following Tenor. Laurentius Mellitus and Justus Bishops Servants of all the Servants of God To our dearest Brethren the Bishops and Abbots through all Scotland Whileas the Apostolick Sea according to the custom it hath observ'd in the rest of the World did send us to preach the Gospel unto the Heathens in these Western Parts and that it happened to us to come into this Isle which is called Britain we held in religious reverence both the Scots and Britons believing that they did walk after the Custom of the Universal Church But after we had known the Britons we judg'd the Scots to be the better minded Yet now we perceive by Dagamus the Bishop who is come hither and by Columbanus the Abbot in France that the Scots differ nothing in their Observations from the Britons for Dagamus being here refused not only to eat with us but even to stay in the same Inn or Lodging Now that this is only applicable to us and not to the Scots in Ireland the Subject doth prove being Exhortatory Letters to conform in the Observation of Easter wherein the British Scots who follow'd Columba differ'd from the Roman Church 2. The Letter is written to the Scots and relates to other Letters written to the Britons in the same Isle and who needed the same Exhortation And it is to be remembred That Vsher generally concludes that where the Scots and Britons are mention'd in Conjunction by Scots there are to be understood the British Scots 3. Camerarius cites Georgius Newton who about the Year 1500 being then Arch-deacon of Dumblain did write the Acts of that Church and relates that he had seen the Antographum of that Letter among the Records of that Church and so it must necessarily have been written to the Scots in Britain else it had not been in the custody of our Church-men and at Dumblain I could produce many other Citations to prove Scotland to have been call'd Hibernia in those Ages but it is sufficient to add to these unanswerable Proofs already produced the authority of the Roman Martyrology wherein Sanetus Beanus is design'd Episcopus Aberdoniae in Hibernia at the 16 of December To which Vardaeus an Irish-man in vita Rumoldi answers That there might have been a place in Ireland call'd Aberdeen because Aber is an Irish word signifying a Marish and there is a Town call'd Doun in Ireland situated near a Marish A pretty Witticism indeed especially as he proposes the Objection and answers the same as you may see upon the Margin But to take off all Debate Beanus is nam'd in our Chartularies as well as Histories as the first Bishop of Aberdeen and the Mortifications granted to him by our King Malcom 2d in the Year 1010 of the Lands of Murthlack Cloveth and Dounmeth are yet extant and his Tomb is yet to be seen in the Cathedral of Aberdeen at the Postern Door of the Church To the former Passages I must also add That albeit our Country was promiscuously call'd Scotia and Hibernia as has been prov'd yet Scotia even in that Time was the more frequent Name of our Country and which to keep close to Beda appears for when he speaks of the Isle Hy to which the former Citations chiefly relate and which was the place of our Country in which his History being Ecclesiastick is chiefly concern'd as being then one of if not the most famous Monastery in the Western World he expresses it to be in Scotia as where he tells That Ceollach of the Nation of the Scots leaving his Bishoprick in England returned to Hy where the Scots had their chief Monastery And thereafter he tells That the same Ceollach having left his Bishoprick return'd to Scotland And the same Beda writing of Adamnanus calls him Abbot and Presbyter of the Monks that are in the Monastery of Hy. And mentioning the same Adamnanus he tells that he returned to Scotland after his Embassy in England And how can it be denied that Hy is in Scotland since Beda calls it Scotland and says That it belong'd to Britain and is by all Geographers nam'd one of our Hebrides and lies locally within our Country and was one of the first places which we planted and far remoter from Ireland than Kintire and others of our Islands and in which our Kings were buried and our Records kept To conclude this Proposition I shall add these Reflections 1. That it is not so easy for the Bishop of St. Asaph to explicate himself as to these Passages concerning Scotia and Scoti and to make them signifie Ireland and Irish since the 500 Year as before for admitting that the Terms were anciently applicable to Ireland and that the Scots when mention'd here were but by Invasion from Ireland Yet it being acknowledg'd that after the Year 500 we were settled here It follows that when Scotia and Scoti are mention'd in relation to British affairs and in conjuction with the Inhabitans of Britain they must be understood of us and our Country 2. Beda mentioning our Country to be call'd Scotia as well as Hibernia from Columba's Time to his own it is not only an evidence that it was so call'd in that Time but that the Name had not been then first given otherwise he could not have been ignorant of the Change nor would he have failed to remark it so that we may reasonably conclude in his sense the Name of Scotia is as ancient in Britain as the Time he mentions the Settlement Wars and Religion of the Scots there 3. It is evident That the Bp of St. Asaph's Proposition is faulty viz. That when we settled here after the Year 500 our Kingdom was call'd Argyle or Dalrieda for if this had been true this name being so recent could not but have been noticed and used by Gildas and Beda and yet it is never so much as once mention'd by either of them tho Beda upon the occasion of the Monastery of Hy or Icolm-kill and of the Bishops sent thence to England doth frequently mention the Names Hibernia and Scotia and that St. Asaph doth not controvert but that these Bishops were sent from our Isle of Icolm-kill to England 4. We may observe how warrantable Arch-bishop Vsher's Position repeated by the Bishop of St. Asaph
thereof wherein I shall vindicate the Right and Dignity of our Country and assert these worthy Persons controverted to be ours I shall not insist much against Stanihurst he being solidly confuted by Camerarius and with that severity by Dempster that his Nephew Bishop Vsher as the Duke of Lauderdail remarked in some Judicious Reflections of his upon this occasion did highly resent it and in this Matter hath exceeded his usual Temperament and Moderation And yet Stanihurst never speaks injuriously of our Nation for though he mistakes many things and applys them to his own Country yet it appears to be rather of Design to magnifie it than injure ours for he acknowledeth ingenuously That he doth not clearly see from what time the Name of Scotland commenced And though thereafter he taxeth Boethius upon the Subject of Gathelus and Scota and that he mixeth Fables and Vain glory with his History yet he neither disapproves of Buchannan nor follows he Luddus both of whom he cites and who were immediatly before him his Book being printed at Antwerp in the Year 1584. In his Appendix also Commenting upon Giraldus Cambrensis a Welsh-man and Scretary to King Henry 2d of England and flourished before the end of the 12th Century He translates Cambrensis who describes Ireland by the name of Hibernia and makes frequent mention of our Country under the name of Scotia as when he speaks of the extent of Ireland he says as Stanihurst interprets it that it is equal in largeness to Wales and Scotland And elsewhere he says that Scotland is called the North part of the Isle of Britain And afterwards he tells the Story of Moreds six Sons and that from them the Inhabitants of the North part of Britain by a specifick word were called the Scotish Nation And Stanihurst in his Annotations on these two Chapters contends that before St. Patrick's time our Country was called Scotia and brings for proofs St. Ierome who asserts that the Scots were Gens Britannica but with great concern he vindicates us from the calumny of eating Mens Flesh and for our Antiquity he cites Beda who says that Sub duce Rendâ we made a third Nation in Britain So that we see that neither the Welsh in Giraldus's time nor the Irish in Stanihurst's time had the Opinion of our late Settlement and that our Country was not call'd Scotia for 1000 Years after Christ which their Successors Luddus Cambden Vsher and St. Asaph have had And the Irish in those days took a far better way for advancing their own interest in doing us justice since from all the considerable Actions we did there did arise a measure of that Honour to them from whose Country we came as a Colony Whereas since they were influenc'd by Strangers they have suffer'd themselves to be impos'd upon so as to lessen our true Merit in appropriating immediatly to themselves those devout persons who were really our Country-men not considering that the material unjustice was much greater than the imaginary honour And this Plagiarism and Man-stealing became easie to them since our Reformation from Popery because after that time we became too careless of those eminent Persons both at home and abroad who had liv'd in the Roman Communion or before that time But I will not insist on this for I hope their native kindness will incline them to return to their first just methods If I had leisure I would make larger Reflections to prove how unconsequential Arch Bp Vsher is in making Sedulus and Marianus Irish since by all Writers they are both call'd Scots and Balaeus an Englishman tells us that Sedulius flourish'd under Fergus 2d and Marianus under Macbeth both our Kings and Baronius asserts also this positively And Sedulius having liv'd before St. Patrick's Time who was the first Apostle of Ireland and being Disciple to Hildebert an acknowledg'd Scot and who liv'd in the 390 must be prior to the Irish Christianity which Giraldus and Stanihurst acknowledge to have been first planted by St. Patrick in the Year 432. Nor can Vsher in all his vast reading find any Christians in Ireland betwixt the Year 400 and 432 which was St. Patrick's Time but Kiaranus Ailbeus Declanus Ibarus Tho if Sedulius had been an Irish he had been certainly mention'd and employ'd before those obscure Persons and certainly he would have employed himself before St. Patrick's Time in the Conversion of his own native Country if he had been truly Irish. And as to Marianus Scotus it is a wonder how it can be controverted that he was a Scots-man since our Country was then called Scotland by the Bp of St. Asaph's own confession and Ireland was just then losing that name and Marianus in his whole Book distinguishes betwixt Scoti and Hiberni and mentions the forementioned three Kings of Scotland about whose Time he liv'd and also makes mention of one King of Ireland about that time as has been observed already and particularly speaking of the Conversions by Palladius and St. Patrick he expresly distinguishes betwixt Scoti and Hibernenses But passing these I confess it is pretty ridiculous to see a whole Book written by the above-mentioned Vardaeus and glossed by Sirin and published at Louvain 1662 to prove that Rumoldus Arch-Bishop of Mechlin was an Irish-man since the Arms of Scotland which are Or a Lion Rampant Gules within a doubles Tressure flowred and counterflowred with Flower de lis of the same are plac'd upon every Window of the Catherdral Church built by him and are to this day a part of the Arms of that Archi-Episcopal See Rumoldus himself being a younger Brother of the Royal-Family of Scotland And in which witty Book the Author to confute this is forced to maintain that the Scotish Lion is born by several Irish Familes And the double Tressure tho anciently born by Scotland and which is Blazon'd in that Archi-Episcopal Coat of Arms might have been born by the Irish because that famous League betwixt the Scots and Charlemaigne was made with the Kings of Ireland and not with the Kings of Scotland and that our Kings had never any Leagues with the French till the reign of Charles 7th who was contemporary with our King Iames 1st Whereas the whole French Histories as well as ours and all Foreign Historians as well as either the Leagues yet extant the Priviledges granted thereupon to us recorded in the French Registers and ours many Decisions in Parliaments and other Courts and the universal consent of all the French who ever liv'd since that Time do in all Humility seem to be sufficient Warrants for laughing at this monstruous Assertion as I do at him and others who pretend that the Scotish Monasteries in Germany are Irish since they were founded in Charle-Maigne's Time by William Brother to our King Achaius and others that went there with him and they are to this day govern'd by Abbots and Priors of our Country Nor can it
be understood how the French and Germans could mistake their own Records and Foundations for so many hundreds of Years togeder and by this I leave my Reader to measure the other unjust pretensions of such Authors I hope it now at last appears that I have detected those ingenious Artifices which this learn'd Bishop was forc'd to use to supply his want of solid and just grounds in this his undertaking As 1. That to conciliate respect to this Undertaking as well as to excuse it he pretends that it was necessary for the defence of Episcopacy 2. He makes a great muster of old Authors in the beginning of his Book as if all these were Men of great credit and did concur with him to refute our History and adorns his Margins with formidable numbers of Citations 3. Knowing that it could be prov'd both by British and Foreign Historians that we were here very anciently he confesses this but by a new and strange Invention he asserts that we were not here as settled Inhabitants but only by way of Incursion 4. He defers our Setling here till the Year 503 and so longer than the first Inventors of this new Story did upon design to make our Settlement here later then that of the Anglo-Saxons who settl'd here in Anno 449. 5. He lessens the reputation of all our Historians and endeavours also to make them pass but for one as if the succeeding Historian had seen no other Warrants but the preceeding Histories 6. He treats in ridicule Ieffrey and some other Historians of his own Country whom he knew could not be sustain'd however and this he does upon design to shew his impartiality and that he spares not his own more than ours 7. For the same reason he decrys the British descent from Brutus in which he loses nothing because no sober Man could have defended it and he denies the Conversion of their own King Lucius to strike thereby with the greater authority at the Antiquity of our Royal-Line and Nation treating King Donald's Conversion also as a Fable and thus according to our Proverb He is content to let a Friend go with a Foe 8. He complements our Nation in latter Times to excuse the Injury he does our Kings and Antiquity 9. He uses the Foreign Authors that should be urg'd for us to prevent our using of them as proving Arguments against him 10. Finding that Ireland has been call'd Scotia he transplants our old Saints thither and applies to it all that is said of our Country nor did ever any Author improve better a pitiful Clinch 11. He concurs in another design like to this for because it could not be deny'd that Fergus was our first King all the Citations for proving this are therefore apply'd to Fergus the Second and not to Fergus the First Lastly Whereas Cambden and Arch-bishop Vsher speak doubtingly of their own Arguments the Bishop of St. Asaph fearing that his Reader could not be convinc'd of what himself was not he therefore proposesall these Arguments with a confidence which would seem to argue that full conviction in himself which he wishes in others If any Person then would know how that Scotland which was but a small Colony grew up to a Kingdom that deserv'd so well my thoughts of this are that 1. The constant defence that we were oblig'd to make against the Romans and Britons at first and English thereafter Nations wise brave and polish'd living in the same Isle with us and the Picts within us did force us to think and fight and the observing the Actions Conduct of such Enemies could not leave the observers rude or ignorant and it 's like that the Glory of such Noble Adversaries rais'd our Wit and Courage above the pitch of a Northen and confin'd Nation 2. Our Country having had the happiness to stop the Roman Conquest this gave Strangers a value for us and therefore when any of the gallant Britons scorn'd to submit to the slavery and drudgery of a Conquest they fled unto us from the Romans Saxons Danes and Normans and being passionate lovers of Liberty they animated us by their Assistance and Example This likewise brought in brave Strangers amongst us as all gallant Spirits did lately run to Holland in its first rise and as our Historians probably relate very many of those return'd with Fergus the Second from the Wars in Italy whither that generous young Prince went to assist Alarick against the Romans in a just resentment of the injury done by them to his Predecessors and with whom he was present at the sacking of Rome 3. We have been very happy in so Heroick and Wife a Race of Kings whose Blood being refin'd by a long Royal Descent hath been thereby purifiy'd from all meanness and elevated to that Love for glory which is ordinary in those who never knew what it was to obey 4. Our Country having entered early into a remarkable League with France in the Reign of Charle-Maigne our Country-men got excellent Breeding under so Wise and Valiant a Prince and have ever since by being constantly employed in the French and other Wars attain'd to a degree of Merit beyond what was to be expected in this Climate 5. Our Country having neither Bogs nor Fogs our Ground being Rocky and Gravelly and our Air fann'd by Winds this preserves us from the dulness and phlegm of the Northern Climats and the want of that superfluous Plenty and bewitching Pleasure which softned even Hannibal when he came to Capua preserves us against the Delicacy and Effeminateness of Southern Nations And whereas Heroick Virtue being still attended by Envy some in railery pretend that we were unconquer'd because we deserv'd not the pains and trouble of a War I need not seriously answer what no Historian can urge For it is ridiculous to think that the Romans would not have rather conquer'd us than built two strong and expensive Walls against us which bounded their Fame as well as their Conquest And England hath taken too much pains to gain us either by Conquest or Alliance to have undervalued us And though when we were divided by the differences betwixt the Bruce and Barliol of old and betwixt the Royalists and Covenanters of late the half of our Country having only defended its Liberties whilst the other half joyn'd with its Enemies we were rather betray'd than overcome And yet we soon recovered our former Liberty Albeit to be overcome by England had been no great affront to us England being a greater and richer Nation than we are And therefore I hope all honest Men will with Judicious Samuel Daniel in his History at the Year 1296 confess that it had been a pity we had not had a better Country to be the Theatre of so many worthy and heroick Actions Having thus clear'd how our Nation arriv'd at its present consistence I am to finish this Discourse with a representation of the many Rights which our Kings have to the Imperial Throne of these