of the Nation yet their Verdict cannot be question'd for error otherways than by twenty five whereof most part must be Persons of Quality who must proceed upon most infallible grounds and evidences By this rule then our Historians cannot be redargu'd otherways than by the Testimonies of far more unsuspected Historians who agree in what they assert against us and who are receiv'd with greater applause in the World than ours and proceed upon far stronger Evidences Let us then examine if these Qualifications can be found in those Historians by whom the faith of ours is to be overturned And first as to the old British Historians it might be objected by us that they are too much interested both because the Subject Matter is an emulation for Antiquity between the two Nations and because they were over-run by our Country-men at that time to a degree to make them passionate enough for disabling a Witness And as it is very remarkable that Florentius Wigorniensis Malmesburiensis Huntingdonensis and Hoveden wrote about the Reign of Henry the Second and Tho. Walsingham and Matthew of Westminster in the Reigns of Edward the Third and Henry the Sixth at all which times there were Wars and Animosities betwixt the Nations So if any Man will read the sad Lamentations that are in Gilda's and the rage with which he cries out against us no Man can allow him to be an unsuspected Judg or Witness in what concerns our Honour Polidor Virgil suspects that there are some things supposititious in the History of Gildas and if any thing certainly we may suspect most what is added concerning us since the design of detracting from our History possest too much those who were Masters of that Manuscript and printed the same And yet Gildas says very little that can be wrested against us in the Points controverted being as Beda interprets him clearly for us as shall hereafter appear 2. As our Writers are not inferiour in number so most of theirs deserve no credit and they agree not so well against us in the Points controverted as our Authors do in what they assert viz. when we setled here and who were our first Kings For Nennius Britannus does positively say that the Scots came here in the time of Brutus Matthew of Westminster says that we setled here the eleventh year after Christ. And Baker acknowledgeth that Severus built his Wall against the Scots and Picts without mentioning this to be the first incursion and this at least confutes the Bishop of St. Asaph who asserts that we were not come to this Isle even by way of incursion till after the year 300. As they thus differ remarkably as to our Origination and most of them follow Ieffreys ridiculous Inventions as our Author himself acknowledges So Holinshed speaking of those ancient times says That Scotland had in those days two Kingdoms the one whereof consisted of the Picts called Pictland and the other of the Irish Race call'd Scotland which I hope says he no wise Man will readily deny And Caixton in his old Chronicle of England tells that the King of the Scots assisted Cassibelan King of the Britains against Julius Caesar which shews that our Antiquity was believed And Balaeus a most famous English Chronologist says that the Scots wrote c. ex incorrupta annalium Fide 3. That our settlement was so ancient as not only to have been contemporary with their Historians but even to be higher than their Chronology could reach to appears from this that Gildas declares he knew nothing of us but what he was forc'd to borrow from beyond Sea Beda places us amongst the old Inhabitants of this Isle without condescending upon the particular time which he had given us if he had known it himself as he did in all other occasions Nennius their next Author to Beda owns that the most skillful amongst the Scots affirm'd in his time that we were descended from Scota as our Authors now do And the eldest after him affirm that we are descended from Albanactus second Sond to Brutus And this is so far acknowledg'd by succeeding Ages that Edward the First did upon that account claim the superiority to England over us as younger Brother to Locrinus the eldest Son of Brutus And we may see in Hollinshed where he brings in many Scotish Kings doing Homage to the Kings of Britain long before this year 502 and in which several of their Authors agree with him And the Bishop fore-seeing the unanswerable strength of this Argument acknowledges this Superiority to be a most unjust Pretension as indeed it is especially seeing it is undeniable that there was any such thing known in the World then as that Feudol Homage which the English Historians contend for there being no Vestige thereof in any part of Europe till the 800 year of God and we having had no such Kings as some of those whom they name in that ancient Homage But yet even all these Forgeries prove clearly that we were consider'd by those Writers as Inhabitants here past all Memory and as ancient as themselves Giraldus Cambrensis also considers us as descended from Gathelus and Scota which proves not only that this old Tradition was believ'd but that Fordon was not the inventer of it For Girald liv'd about 200 years before Fordon But how any Historian in this also can controvert this Antiquity after Selden has asserted it Lib. 2. cap. 8. I understand not There is likewise a very full and well written Manuscript in the hands of the Lord Maitland which makes us to come from Spain about the year of the World 3242 and to have been first govern'd by Captains and thereafter govern'd by the Kings mention'd in our History 4. There are no positive Authorities produc'd against us condescending expresly when our Royal Line did begin save three Legendary Stories written with design in whom no Protestant Bishop can find any considerable Passages worthy to be cited the easiest thing in them being That a Child made a Fire of Ice and that when St. Columba was sick his Mare wept The first is a nameless Author of St. Patrick's Life cited by Vsher who affirms that when Neil Neilialagh was King of Ireland and Constantius was Emperor Muredus King of Ulster had six Sons who possest themselves of the Northern Parts of Britain and the Nation sprung from them as Giraldus repeating this passage says was by a special name called Scotland And it may be saith the Bishop Reuda mention'd by Beda was one of these six Sons Joceline another Author of St. Patrick's Life tells that the twelve Sons of the King of Dalrieda in Ireland having despised their youngest Brother Fergus he complain'd of them to St. Patrick and he prophesied to him that from him should descend Kings who should reign in many Foreign Kingdoms and accordingly Fergus became King of all Dalrieda and after his Successors had for many Generations reigned
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
Kingdoms and to show how they succeed to all who ever pretended to Monarchy in any of them As to the British part of the Isle Aurelius Ambrosius was by common consent chosen sole Prince of all the Britons And he had no other Succession save two Daughters Anna married to the King of the Picts and Ada married to the King of the Scots Mordredus King of the Picts Grand-child to the foresaid Aurelius finding himself debarr'd from the Succession of the British Crown employ'd the Scots who fought for him against the Britons But the Britons having called in the Saxons after a bloody Battel both Parties were forced to withdraw and the King of the Picts was induc'd to desist from his Pretentions at that time But thereafter Hungus King of the Picts and the direct Heir of the same Mordredus and consequently of Ambrosius King of the Britons gave his Sister Fergusiana to Achaius King of the Scots and in her Right Alpin King of Scotland succeeded both to the British and Pictish Crowns Hungus having died without any Children Kenneth the 2d Son to Alpin was forc'd to conquer the Picts who refus'd unjustly to receive him as their lawful King Our Kings are likewise Lineal Heirs of the Danish-Race who were Kings of England for 27 or as others say 29 Years they being the only Lineal Successors of Canutus King of the Danes in Britain for Margaret Wife to King Malcolm the 3d was Sister to Edgar which Edgar was Grand-child to St. Edward who was Brother to Hardiknut Son to Canutus After this the Kingdom of England return'd to the old Stock in King Edward's Time to whom succeeded Edgar whose Sister the pious Queen Margaret married King Malcolm the 3d of Scotland by whom he came to have right to the Crown of England there being none extant of the old Royal-Saxon-Line besides her self And with her came very many of the Nobility who fled from William the Conquerour after he conquer'd England and with whom King Malcolm would not make Peace till such of them as resolved to return were restored to their Estates The next Royal-Race which flourished in England was the Norman and to that Race our Kings succeeded thus The Line of William the Conqueror was branch'd out in the Houses of Lancaster and York To the House of Lancaster they succeed as Heirs by the marriage betwixt Ioan Daughter to the Duke of Somerset and undoubted Successor of the Family of Lancaster And to both Lancaster and York they succeed by being Heirs to Henry the 7th in whom these Successions were again happily reconcil'd he having married Elizabeth eldest Daughter to Edward the 4th who had transferred the Succession of the Crown from the House of Lancaster to that of York or at least had united the two in one For clearing whereof it is fit to know that Henry the 7th had only four Children Arthur Henry Margaret and Mary Arthur and Henry dying without Succession the Right of the Crown was certainly devolv'd upon the Children of Margaret the Daughter who did bear King Iames the 5th in a first Marriage with King Iames the 4th and Margaret Dowglas by a second Marriage with the Earl of Angus which Margaret being married to Matthew Earl of Lenox had two Sons the eldest whereof was Henry who thereafter married Queen Mary Daughter to King Iames the 5th and begot upon her King Iames the 6th and thus King Iames the 6th was upon all sides Heir to William the Conquerour and to Henry the 7th The Histories also of both Nations confess that our King is the undoubted Successor of the Blood-Royal of Wales for Walter Stuart from whom our Kings are descended was Grand-Child to the King of Wales by his Daughter who married Fleanchus Son to Banqhuo and Henry the 7th to whom King Iames the 6th was the true Successor was also the righteous Heir of Cadwallader the last Prince of Wales The Histories both of Scotland and Ireland do acknowledg that our Kings are undoubtedly descended from the Royal Race of the Kings of Ireland and all the debate that can be is only whether they be desended from King Ferquhard Father to King Fergus the first or from Eeric Father to King Fergus the second or from some other Irish Kings as Vsher pretends From all which I may draw two Conclusions First that God has from an extraordinary kindness to those Kingdoms lodged in the Person of our present Soveraign King Iames the 7th whom GOD Almighty long preseve all those opposite and different Rights by which our Peace might have been formerly disturb'd 2. That His Majesty who now Reigns has deriv'd from His Royal Ancestors a just and legal Right by Law to all those Crowns without needing to found upon the Right of Conquest so that the very endeavour to exclude him from all those Legal Rights by Arbitrary Insolence under a Mask of Law was the height of Injustice as well as Imprudence FINIS BOOKS Printed for and Sold by RICHARD CHISWELL FOLIO SPeed's Maps and Geography of Great Britain and Ireland and of Foreign Parts Dr. Cave's Lives of the Primitive Fathers in 2 Vol. Dr. Cary's Chronological Account of Ancient Time Bp Wilkins real Character or Philosophical Language Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity Guillim's Display of Heraldry with large Additions Dr. Burnet's History of the Reformation of the Church of England in 2 Vol. Account of the Confessions and Prayers of the Murderers of Esquire Thynn Burlace's History of the Irish Rebellion Herodoti Historia Gr. Lat. cum variis Lect. The Laws of this Realm concerning Jesuits Seminary Priests Recusants the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance explained by divers Judgments and Resolutions of the Iudges with other Observations thereupon By William Cawley Esq Sanford's Genealogical Hist. of the Kings of England Modern Reports of select Cases in the reign of King Charles the 2d Sir Tho. Murray's Collection of the Laws of Scotland Dr. Towerson's Explication on the Creed the Commandments and Lord's Prayer in 3 Vol. The History of the Island of CEYLON in the East-Indies Illustrated with Copper Figures and an exact Map of the Island By Capt. Robert Knox a Captive there near 20 Years QVARTO DR Littleton's Dictionary Latin and English Bp Nicholson on the Church-Catechism History of the late Wars of New-England Atwell's Faithful Surveyer Mr. Iohn Cave's seven occasional Sermons Dr. Crawford's Serious Expostulation with the Whigs in Scotland Dr. Parker's Demonstration of the Divine Authothority of the Law of Nature and the Christian Religion Mr. Hook's new Philosophical Collections Bibliotheca Norfolciana OCTAVO BIshop Wilkin's Natural Religion His Fifteen Sermons Mr. Tanner's Primordia Or the Rise and Growth of the first Church of God described Lord Hollis's Vindication of the Judicature of the House of Peers in the Case of Skinner Jurisdiction of the House of Peers in case of Appeals Jurisdiction of the House of Peers in case of Impositions Letters about the Bishops Votes in Capital Cases Spaniards Conspiracy against
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
the same was extracted out of the Registers and Books he mention'd and particularly out of the second Book of Verimund Sir Richard Baker cites this Verimund among the Authors out of whom he compiled his History and with him he cites Ioannes Campbellus who he says wrote the History of the Scots from the Origine of the Nation till the Year 1260 in which he liv'd And also Turgot who he says wrote our Annals from the beginning till the Year 1098 in which he liv'd and him likewise Hollinshed cites as also Aluredus Rivallensis who wrote the History of King David and died Anno 1166 and Bartholomeus Anglicus who wrote a Chronicle of the Scots and liv'd in the Year 1360. Two of which three last we have reason to think were Scots-men and have been called English-men only because they liv'd in the Counties which now belong to England but then certainly belong'd to us and if they be Englishmen they are yet the more credible Witnesses for us And as the worthy Baker says he compil'd his History out of these Books which he neither would nor could have said if he had not seen them So it is very probable that he did see them our Records and Manuscripts having been industriously carry'd to England by Edward the First as shall be hereafter observ'd Nor can it be answer'd that he cited them at second-hand from Boeth or Buchannan for else he had cited the other Authors whom they cite such as Richardus de sancto victore Fordon Major c. All this doth evidently demonstrate that we had such Historians as Verimund and the others above-cited who asserted before Fordon what he has related so that it was most unwarrantable to say that these things were dream'd by Fordon and Boethius but that Verimund was seen and consider'd by others and cited in a particular part of his Book which could not be copied from Boethius because he doth not cite Verimund for all those Transactions and upon this Balaeus a Learn'd English-man hath rested And Holinshed says that Verimund wrote a Book De Regibus Scotorum Nor can it be deny'd that Gesner in verbo Verimund and other famous Strangers cite him as one who has written our History ab exordio Scoticae gentis usque ad Malcolmi tempora And it is incredible to think so good and grave a Man as Boetius could have been so impudent to assert in his Dedication to King Iames the 5th That these Books were sent to him by the Earl of Argile and his Brother the Thesaurer from Icolmkill and that he had follow'd them in writing his History Especially since he is by Erasmus that great Critick admir'd as a most Learned Man they having studied together at Paris where he remembers that he was in great esteem And in a Letter concerning him Anno 1530 inserted in the Life of Erasmuus he remarks that Boethius was a Person who could not lie How can it then be imagined that he would have adventur'd to have printed a whole Romance and have told his King and the World that he had the Manuscripts by him Nor is this asserted only by Boethius and our own Historians but by Paulus Iovius a very famous Foreign Historian who in his Description of Scotland says That in Iona which we call Icolmkill are kept the ancient Annals and Manuscripts in hidden Presses of the Church and large Parchments asigned by the King 's own hands and seal'd either with Seals of Gold or Wax By which also it appears how nice we have been in securing the Faith of our History the Seals of our Kings being put to what was written by our devout Church-men And whereas the Bishop of St. Asaph to lessen the Credit of Boethius relates that Bishop Gavin Dowglas advised Polidor Virgil not to follow his History Polidor Virgil himself is appeal'd to where there is no mention of Boethius at all nor could it be for Polidor regrates that Gavin Dowglas died Anno 1520 whereas Boethius was not publish'd till 1526 and Boethius himself informs us That the Records from which he form'd his History were sent him from Icolmkill Anno 1525 and no sooner neither did he see those Warrants from which he wrote his History till that Year And it appears by that passage that Gavin Dowglas believ'd our account and produc'd a Manuscript for it which I now cite and use as an accessory Argument and prove it by the Bishop of St. Asaph and Polidor and whereas the Bishop of St. Asaph pretends that the Relation given by Gavin Dowglas agreed with Nennius but contradicted Boethius the contrary is probable by Polidor's own Relation of what Gavin Dowglas writ to him which agrees with Boethius in every thing relating to our Antiquity The Bishop of St. Asaph is also most unjust to Boethius in alledging that Vossius considers him as a fabulous Author For Vossius commends him from what Erasmus and Buchannan say of him and in the end taxes him only a little for having believ'd too many Miracles a fault incident to most Popish Writers in those times but to none more than to the Bishop's own obscure Authors for which among many other Testimonies I refer my Reader to them who writ the Preface to the Histories of Matthew of Westminster and to the Life of King Alfred and Walsingham's History It can also be proved by many famous Gentlemen that the Black Book of Scoon containing our Histories from the beginning was among President Spotwood's Books and was given by Lewis Cant to Major General Lambert and by him to Collonel Fairfax which Book King Charles the first had ransom'd from Rome by a considerable Sum of Money And it is certain that Spotswood had it and the Black Book of Pasley signed by the hands of three Abbots when he compil'd his History Which Book of Pasley together with the famous Book of Pluscardin Buchannan says he had and frequently cites and that there were such Books is known to the whole Nation And I my self have seen in the Learned Sir Robert Sibbald's Library to whom this Nation owes very much a very old Abridgment of the Book of Pasley which Book Bp Vsher himself also cites agreeing in every thing with our Histories and which was extracted per venerabilem virum Ioannem Gibson Canonicum Glasguensem Rectorem de Renfrew Anno 1501. And two other old Manuscripts the one called Excerpta de Chronicis Scotiae Scoti-chronico which comes to the Reign of King Iames the 2d and belong'd to Doctor Arbuthnot Physician to King Iames the 5th and this proves that there were Chronica different from Fordon's And the other Extracta de Registro prioratus Sancti-Andreae giving the Irish Names of our Kings As also I have seen a Manuscript written by a Brother of the minores Observants of Iedburgh in Anno 1533 containing an Abridgment of our History and whereof Doctor Sibbald has another Copy And there is another old Manuscript
is That no Author mentions our Country by the name of Scotia for the first 1000 years whereas most of all the former Authors both within and without the Isle prove Scotia to have been the name of our Country and the whole Tract of Beda's History proves that since the year 560 this Country was generally so called Whereas neither Gildas nor Beda who lived near that Time and wrote whole Books of us do once call it Dalrieda or Argyle and consequently as I observ'd before the Bishop of St. Asaph's whole Sect. 9. of the first Chapter wherein he asserts that about the Year 500 the Scots erected the Kingdom of Argile or Dalrieda is most unwarrantable for though Beda calls us once Dalreudini yet this is spoken of us by him in the Time of our King Reuda and so near 70 Years before the 503 after Christ. And from this also arises a clear confutation of what the Bishop of St. Asaph asserts that no Author writing within the 1000 Years and naming Scotia means Us which is so far from being so that no Author of Credit Isidore only excepted did then by Scotia mean Ireland And the best Authority that Arch-bishop Vsher gives us for Dalrieda is Iocelin which my Lord St. Asaph hath improved by a new authority out of a Manuscript of the Lord Burghlie's where the Author thinks that Dalrieda and the Kingdom of Argile are the same Authors not to be once mentioned with those whom we cite 7. The distinction of Scotia Major and Minor is lately invented for either Ireland was called Scotia Major before the Year 1000 or only since if the first then it necessarily implyeth that at that Time our Country was also call'd Scotia Minor there being no other place assignable But this is contrary to Arch-bishop Vsher and my Lord St. Asaph's Position who deny our Country was called Scotia at all for the first 1000 Years If it be asserted that this distinction was after the 1000 Years then there was little or no use for it For Vsher tells us that Nubiensis Geographus about the Year 1150 describes Ireland by the name of Hibernia and describes our Country by the name of Scotia and so it seems at that time Ireland had lost the name in our favour and it is not to be imagin'd that Nubiensis remarked the first Periods of the change of the Name and Geographers do describe Countries by their ordinary Names Nor does Vsher produce any other Testimony save a Letter of Dovenaldus Oneil Prince of Vlster to Pope Iohn 22d wherein there is this passage Beside the Kings of lesser Scotland who all came originally from our greater Scotland And a Patent of Sigismund the Emperor To the Convent of the Scots and Irish of Greater Scotland of a Monastery in Ratisbone Now Vsher acknowledgeth the eldest of these two Citations were in the 14th or 15th Century when I hope no body will assert that Ireland was called Scotia Major or that ever the Kings of England who were Lords of Ireland were ever called Lords Majoris Scotiae and it is probable they would have very much affected that Title if the Country had had that name altho they could never make themselves Masters Scotiae Minoris But it is no wonder that the Irish should be glad to tell Foreigners that they were our Chief and so their Country ought to be called Scotia Major notwithstanding that our Nation was then become great and glorious and that Vsher can find no better authority for his distinction of Scotia Major and Minor than these borrowed and magnifying Names used long after he himself acknowledgeth that Ireland had lost the name of Scotia and that We were only in possession of it 8. The mistaking of the Names of Scotia and Hibernia and of that assertion Scotia eadem Hibernia and applying these Names still to Ireland and not to our Country hath been the Ground whereupon we have been injured as to the antiquity of our Kings and Country Saints and learned Men Monasteries and greatness Abroad For admitting it to be true that we were not setled here till the Year 500 yet we have been so happy as to have such excellent Men and to have done so considerable Actions as have been sufficient to tempt our Neighbours and particularly the Irish to take great pains to have both pass for their own In order to which the Irish have lately invented the distinction of Scotia Major and Minor to the end that when any considerable Person is called a Scots-man in History they might claim him as descended from the Greater Scotland But besides that this distinction is too new to be extended to ancient Writers How can it be imagined that our Country only having passed under the Name of Scotland before the 300 and after the 1100 as has been proved Ireland should have assumed the Name of Scotland in that Interval Is it not more reasonable to think that our Country which alone was design'd by that Name before the 300 and after 1100 bore it likewise only or at least chiefly during that interval But to assert that during that space another Country had our old and present designation in a more peculiar manner than we and that in dubious Cases it must be appropriated to them is a piece of confidence which even eminent Wit and Learning cannot support And yet we find in Malcom the Second's Time as was formerly observ'd who began to Reign in the Year 1004 That the Frith of Forth in his Laws in the Book of Regiam Majestatem is call'd Mare Scotiae And it is said there that the same King did distribute omnem Terram Scotiae hominibus suis and it is not to be concluded that this was the first time that our Country was so call'd And about that time Ireland was expressed only by the name of Hibernia for King Henry the 2d of England who began to Reign in the Year 1154 is stiled Lord of Ireland And to clear further that Scotia about those times was the ordinary name for Scotland and Hebernia for Ireland I shall only add some few Passages out of Marianus Scotus who was born in the Year 1028 and died in the Year 1086 who sayes that about the Year 1016 Brianus King of Ireland was killed and a little thereafter at the Year 1034. Malcolm King of Scotland died and Duncan the Son of his Daughter succeeded him And after that he sayes at the Year 1040 Duncan King of Scotland was killed and the son of Finlay succeeded in his Kingdom whom afterward he calls Machetad King of Scotland All which passages agree exactly with our History and the summary of our Kings Lives as they are recorded in our Acts of Parliament and prove that Marianus treats of Scotland and Ireland as different Kingdoms in his Time In the last place I shall make some Remarks upon the most palpable of these Mistakes and of the chief Authors
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
Glorious Memory had been more disquieted by the Schismatical opposition made to it than by all his other concerns seems very unkind And tho this learned and worthy Author upon design to make us sit down quietly under these Injuries seems to gratifie us by the Complement That we since the Writing of our Histories needed not such helps as old and fabulous Romances telling us that we have excell'd most other Nations in Arts and Arms and especially in the Purity of Religion abating only the blemish which we have contracted by too easie a belief of these Fictions which he designs to Refute Yet since no Peer in England though a Subject would have allow'd this Author to tell him that albeit he be now a brave and generous Person his Predecessors were lately pilfering barbarous Robbers and Vagabonds and the History of his Family a fabulous Romance How should he have imagin'd that our Kings and Nation how gentle soever would have thought that the Justice done them in this Age and for which we thank the Bishop of St. Asaph should have compens'd the Injuries done to their Predecessors But it is probable that my Lord St. Asaph has not on the one hand known the Grounds which we here urge for our Antiquity and that our nice Jealousie for our Honour on the other hand magnifies too much to us such injuries of which we are naturally very sensible and therefore I hope by his Lordship's aquiescence the result of the Debate will be that he will see that our Royal-Line and Nation are more ancient than he imagined them to have been and that we will remain convinc'd that his Book was not dictated by malice and National Humour My Design is not to convince my Readers that I am Learn'd but that my Cause is just and therefore I use no more Citations even from the Books I know than may prove or illustrate my Positions And not being the first aggressor I expect the favour which is due to Self-defence For of all things I hate unnecessary Debates and I admire St. Pâul for saying And they neither found me in the Temple disputing with any Man Debates generally starve Charity feed Self-love and incline even very good Men to more partiality than I hope can be charg'd in this Debate upon Your Lordship's most faithful and humble Servant Geo. Mackenzie King CHARLES the 1st his Speech to the Scottish Parliament at Edinburgh Aug. 19. 1641. I Cannot doubt of such real Testimonies of your Affections for the maintenance of that Royal Power which I enjoy after 108 Descents and which you profess to maintain and to which your National Oath doth oblige your c. 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 In Answer to the Bishop of St. Asaph ALL the Historians of Scotland unanimously agreeing that the Royal-Line of the Kings of Scotland did begin in King Fergus the First and that the Scots now inhabiting it were settled here under one Soveraign about 330 years before Christ. And their Histories being receiv'd with great applause for many hundreds of years by Historians Antiquaries and Criticks of other Nations who had any occasion to take notice of our Affairs Luddus affecting Singularity did Anno 1572 controvert both these Points for which he having been refuted with just severity by Buchannan the Bishop of St. Asaph upon pretext of answering a very silly an inconsequential Argument against Episcopacy has undertaken the Defence of Luddus his Kinsman contending that the Scots did not settle in Britain till the year of our Lord 503 and that they had no King who govern'd in this Island till that time Albeit there be other unwarrantable assertions and positions in that Book yet being unwilling to enter upon any Argument which may by the remotest Consequence be urg'd against that Episcopacy which I so much reverence I as his Majesties Advocate design only to prove that in both these Points the Bishop has though I hope without design injur'd our Kings and Nation For proving whereof The first thing I shall clear shall be That History requires nor admits no Mathematieal nor Legal Proof but is satisfied with such Moral Certainty as is infer'd from probable Tradition old Manuscripts credible Historians the Testimony of Foreign Authors and probable Reasons Secondly That our Histories being already acquiesced in and received by the generality of Mankind and especially by Criticks Antiquaries and Historians the best Iudges in such cases need no Confirmation nor further Proof Thirdly That albeit we are not obliged to prove or confirm our History yet we are able to do it by all the former Grounds which is all that needs be done for the Credit of any History Fourthly I shall answer the Arguments brought by the Bishop against our Histories And I must intreat my Readers to lay all these together and not to judg by parcels which is not to be done especially in cases of this nature For clearing the first of these Points it is fit to consider that right Reason requires only in all cases such Proofs as the nature of the Subject can allow and therefore though Mathematicians rest only upon infallible Demonstrations and the Law requires strict and solemn Proofs Yet the Law it self remits its ordinary Exactness to comply with the necessity of Human Affairs allowing Domestick Witnesses where others cannot be had and strong presumptive Grounds as equal to Witnesses where the Subject Matter can admit of no other Proofs Morality convinces by probable Reasons and History allows Moral Certainty for a sufficient Probation in matters of Fact because the matters treated of in it can generally admit no exacter Proofs Which Proposition as to History will very easily appear if we consider that even the Historians of this present Age cannot themselves see every thing they relate nor can all be prov'd by the Testimony of Witnesses Reason likewise has oblig'd Men to presume that a Nation ought as much to be believ'd in these cases as two Witnesses are in any single one for even in the case of Witnesses our belief is founded upon the presumption that they will not lie and damn themselves and that both the one and the other do at last resolve in presumptive and probable Grounds So that Men satisfie themselves in most things with the general Belief and Tradition of those among whom they live founded upon probable Reasons Manuscripts also written by others infer no Mathematical nor Legal Certainty For the Author of the Manuscript might have been mistaken or byass'd and at best one Witness proves not Nor are Strangers oblig'd to believe the exactest History of those who write in favour of the Antiquity of their own Nation upon any other account than because History is satisfy'd with probable Grounds Domestick Testimonies infer only a probable Belief and tho an Oath were interpos'd that could creat no more than a moral
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
written by Ventonius yet extant which Buchannan also cites and follows Since the Writing of these Sheets I have seen a very old Manuscript brought from Icolmkill written by Carbre Lifachair who liv'd six Centuries before St. Patrick and so about our Saviours time wherein is given a full account of the Irish Kings By which I conclude that since the Irish had Manuscripts then certainly we must also be allowed to have had them having greater occasion of learning Sciences and writing Histories because of our Commerce with the Romans and polite Britans In this Book also there are many Additions by the Druids of those times from which I likewise may confirm that the Priests in our old Monasteries learn'd our Ancient History from the Druids who preceded them I have seen also an old Genealogy of the Kings of the Albanian Scots agreeing with that mentioned in our History at the Coronation of King Alexander the 2d and which has still been preserv'd as Sacred there I have also seen another old Manuscript wherein the Dalreudini Albanach are considered as setled here six Generations before Eric whom Vsher calls the Father of our Kings I find also in it that Angus Tuerteampher reign'd in Ireland five Generations before our Fergus the First and that in his time the Irish and Albanians divided and separated from one another Which agrees with our Histories which say that the Scots were in this Country long before King Fergus and his Race setled here And these our Irish Manuscripts agree in every thing with the above-cited History of Corbre ' and are in effect Additions to his Book by our old Sanachies Having thus cleared that there were sufficient Warrants upon which our Authors might have founded their Histories I shall in the next place say something of our Historians and make appear that they deserv'd the credit and applause they met with and that they founded their History on those good Warrants from which Verimund Boetius and Chambers are formerly prov'd to have drawn theirs viz. our ancient Annals and Registers Fordon was no Monk as the Bishop is pleas'd to call him and we had no such Monastery as Fordon but he was venerabilis vir dominus Iohannes Fordon Presbyter and is called a Monk by the Bishop who studies still his own conveniency to make the World believe he was inclin'd to lie as the Monks are said to have been in that Age and to shew him interested for the Independency of Monks and Culdees from Bishops This Author began at least to write before the Year 1341 for in his Book he speaks of that as a present Year This Book was so esteem'd that there were Copies of it in most of our Monasteries and one of them we have in very old but in fair Characters continued by Arelat another continued by a Reverend Man Walter Bowmaker Abbot of Icolmkill and found in the custody of one who had preserv'd several of the Manuscripts of that Monastery And both these Continuations have drawn out our Histories to the Reign of King Iames the 2d And it is not to be imagin'd that the Monasteries would have esteem'd it so much or that the Abbot of that Monastery where our chief Annals were kept would have continued it if they and he had not known it to agree with their Annals And Fordon cites frequently through his Book Chronica alia Chronica and Beda and follows him exactly he cites also Adamnanus who liv'd before the Year 700 and Turgot Archbishop of St. Andrews who lived anno 1098 and Alvared who dedicated his Book to King Malcom the 3d about the year 1057. He cites also other foreign Authors such as Sigisbert and Isidor and so has done all that the Bishop requires and all that the best Historians can do Neither does he follow Ieffrey but contradicts him even in the instance of Bassianus as shall be cleared to conviction in answering the Bishop's Objections He has in him also Baldredus or Ethelredus and the Process before the Pope containing the Copies of the authentick Letters Objections Apologies and Answers made and sign'd by Edward 1. and his Parliament and the Scotish Nobility produc'd before the Pope about the year 1300 whereof the Copies are not only extant from Fordon but the Bishop also insinuates that the Originals themselves are extant in England and certainly they were at Rome And Fordon cites many other considerable old Records He writes in a good Stile and with good Judgment and the reason why this Work was not printed was not because it deserv'd not the Press but because Boethius Buchannan and Lesly having printed their Histories in their own time and there being no printing in his it was thought we had Histories enow which also occasion'd the perishing of many of our excellent Manuscripts But why should the Bishop object to us Fordon his not being printed since he cites against us Manuscripts never cited by any and which have been left unprinted in a Country where every thing is printed and I dare say after exact perusal of the Bishops Book and of the Authors cited by him that Fordon is preferable to all those old Legends and most of those Authors which he cites against us venerable Beda only excepted who is still on our side Ioannes Major was Rector of the famous Divinity-School of Paris and was a Man of such Reputation in that University as that he is yet remembred with esteem and a Man of too innocent a life to have written a Romance for a History and he likewise relates to Beda and our Annals Of Iohn Major a full account and Elogium is given by the Learn'd Launoy Academiae Parisionsis illustrata Tom. 2. pag. 652 653. sequent One of the most accurate Writers in this Age says That the talent of writing History hath not been found on this side of the Alps in any save in Buchannan who hath written the History of Scotland better than Livius did that of Rome The Bishop of Condom also and the famous Rapin in their exact Essays concerning History have preferr'd none to him save Mariana the Jesuit whom all Men know to be far inferior but they prefer Mariana because Buchannan was a Protestant Ioseph Scaliger says of Buchannan and Us Imperii fuerat Romani Scotia limes Romani Eloquii Scotia finis erit And Mr. Dryden also my Friend whom I esteem a great Critick as well as Poet prefers Buchannan to all the Historians that ever wrote in Britain And tho I approve as little of Buchannan's Politicks as the Bishop of St. Asaph doth yet I will not be so unjust to him as he is in saying That Buchannan in the Life of Fergus the First refers to our old Annals but he cites them not for there is no such thing in the Life of that King And he was not so much a favourer of Monarchy to have allow'd it the advantage of so singular an Antiquity if he had not found the
there Aidanus the Son of Gabranus conquer'd Albania now call'd Scotland and the other Isles in which his Posterity by due Succession reign to this day But an elder Author cited by Cambden and whom Usher calls the writer of the Tigernack Annals brings the Scotish Kings from another Origine to which Usher himself is inclin'd Fergus says that Author the Son of Eric was the first of the offspring of Chonar who obtain'd the Kingdom of Albania from Brown-Albain to the Irish Sea and Inchgall whom he places Anno 503 and from him the Kings of Fergus ' s race reign'd in Brun-Albain or Brun-heir to Alphin the Son of Eochal and with this as the Bishop says the Irish Genealogies agree And thus our approv'd History must be overturn'd by Legends and Genealogies Upon which passages I beg leave to make these few Reflections First that besides that these Authors liv'd not within 600 years of the times of which they wrote which the Bishop of St. Asaph objects to ours they do also contradict not only our Story but the Roman who place us here much sooner All these three Authors contradict one another in the most remarkable part of our History and in so late a matter of Fact as that of Fergus the Second which shews them neither faithful nor learn'd Chronologists The first nameless Author writer of the Life of S. Patrick makes our King to have been one of the Sons of Mured whom Vsher conjectures to have been Reuther and he must have liv'd in 360 for Constantius reign'd then and Mured's Son liv'd in his Reign Iocelin makes Aidan to be the first and to have sprung from Fergus after many Generations And this agrees well with ours but not with the other Writers of St. Patrick's Life For we place the beginning of Aidan's Reign in 570 and it could be no sooner according to Iocelin The third is the Author of the Tigernack Annals or an ancienter Writer cited by Cambden who places our first King in 503 and there he is call'd Fergus and so they neither agree in the name of our first King nor in the time of their entry to this Kingdom Which dreaming Glances have risen from an imperfect notion of our History the first having borrowed his from Beda who brings us here sub duce Reuda the second has been invented to fulfil the Prophecy of St. Patrick who promis'd the Kingdom not to Fergus himself but to one of his Succession and therefore finding none of our Kings nam'd in Beda save Reuther and Aidan he fixes on Aidan as the latest And the third of these finding that Fergus was uncontrovertedly the name of our first King will rather contradict the rest and go back from Aidan to Fergus And thus they clensh here making the the first Fergus the second as they do elsewhere in making Scotia to be Ireland or Scotia major 2. Since the Bishop's Authors are so irreconcileable what Warrants can he or they have to contradict our positive History And Bishop Vsher cites another Author of St. Patrick's Life Meyerus who tells us that after St. Patrick ' s Voyage about this Isle he turn'd his Boat to an Isle which bears to this day the name of St. Patrick out of which Isle I believe the Accusers of our Historians got their best Intelligence 3. That this Reuda could not be one of Mureda's six Sons is most clear both because Beda speaks of the Scots coming to this Isle as very ancient even in his time which could not be if this had happen'd in Anno 360 for Beda liv'd in Anno 730 and how can it be imagin'd that Beda could not have known the whole Series of a Royal Descent that was so recent Nor do our Historians whose Faith is not controverted after Fergus the Second mention any Reuda after his Reign and so he behov'd to be an elder King and consequently we had King 's before Fergus the Second which the Authors denies Nor could any of these Sons of Mured have been Fergus the Second whom these late Inventors call our first King for no Author makes Fergus the Second to have reign'd within more than 40 Years after Constantius Luddus and Cambden assert us to have setl'd here under Fergus the Second in the Reign of Honorius at which time Fergus the Second did reign Vsher relates only the three Authorities of those ridiculous Legends and the Bishop of St. Asaph fixes on the year 503 and so contradicts not only our Historians but Luddus and Cambden in making Fergus the Second near 100 years later than truly he was As these few prime and late Authors who controvert our Antiquity differ thus in the names of our first Kings and the time of their settlement in Scotland so they differ in these following cardinal Points of their new invented Hypothesis The Bishop of St. Asaph thinks it necessary for maintaining that the Scots setl'd not till the year 503 to assert that the Picts fill'd all the Northern Parts of Britain and that those Picts were a ruder sort of Britains divided in South and North Picts in which he follows Cambden yet with this difference implying a contradiction that Cambden makes these Deucaledones and Vecturiones to signify by a British derivation Picts to the East and West Whereas the Bishop of St. Asaph from a British derivation of the same words calls them Southern and Northern Picts But Cambden does acknowledge plainly that in this Derivation he differs from the venerable Beda whose Authority he truly foretels will weigh down the Reasons he brings for his Conjecture And as he contrary to the universally receiv'd opinion denies the Picts to be Schythians tho they were really so he makes the Scots to be Schythians though really they were not so Vsher not having considered all the Scheme and Consequences of this new Hypothesis as the Bishop of St. Asaph has done with more cunning follows Beda in bringing the Picts from Schythia but he differs from Beda in that he brings them hither after our Saviour's Birth and produces such Authors as he uses in our occasions who assign three different Periods of time for their settlement the last whereof and to which he inclines is said to be under the Emperours Gratian and Valentinian and so makes the Scots and Picts to have come in together about the year 400 and yet he finds no inconveniency in bringing us to Scotland under Gathelus and Scota and in asserting that we setled first in Galloway whereas none of our Historians do say that Gathelus and Scota came to Scotland and the Bishop of St. Asaph and Cambden assert our descent from Scota to be a Fiction and the Bishop of St. Asaph confesses us to have first fixt in Argile Another material difference amongst them is that the Bishop of St. Asaph confines us and the Picts for 1000 years be-north Grahams Dike call'd Severus Wall beyond Clyde and Forth Whereas Cambden asserts
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
of Fact may be prov'd by Witnesses and who are better Witnesses than the many Historians of the Country where the things were transacted especially since these were Matters of great importance and Notoriety which the Monasteries whose Faith is followed by our Historians could not but know best of all others and in which they durst not cheat or forge because the Annals of other Churches would have contradicted them whereas they are confirm'd by them and these things fell out when we had the help of Letters and are agreeable to the sound Reasons above-related Tho the conversion of a Kingdom be a matter that could not be unknown and no other King but Donald was ever recorded to have been the first Christian King here That Palladius was sent to the Scots in Britain and not to the Scots in Ireland appears further from these undeniable matters of Fact viz. That Pope Caelestine did ordain and send Palladius in Anno 431 That the same Pope Caelestine sent St. Patrick to Ireland That St. Patrick's Mission must have been before the 6th of April 432 is also clear because Prosper tells that Caelestine died that Year And the Roman Pontifical tells it was on the 6th of April that Year From all which the Bishop did see that Palladius's mission must have been to the Scots in Scotland else Palladius had been first Bishop of Ireland and St. Patrick needed not have been sent into Ireland since Palladius was sent there but the Year before To reconcile which real Contradictions the Bp of St. Asaph makes up a laborious Hypothesis and say's that Palladius was indeed in Ireland but finding he could not succeed he was upon his return to Rome but died in or near the bounds of the Picts the 15th of December 431. So that St. Patrick who liv'd in Britain could not but have known his death and had time enough to go to Rome and be ordain'd Bishop for Ireland and go to that Kingdom and there finish their Conversion which Palladius had only begun and so St. Patrick was call'd the first Bishop All this Hypothesis is almost impossible though good Palladius had sooner and deeplier despair'd than a Saint should have done especially in the Conversion of a whole Nation and though both had posted faster for a Benefice than Holy-Church-men did in those Primitive Times Yet all this is founded upon Palladius's having died Decemb. 15. 431. And the only proofs produc'd for this by my Lord St. Asaph is Baleus de 14. scrip 6. near the end and yet in that same Citation it is positively said that Palladius was sent to Scotland and the particular Scotish King is nam'd and Baleus adds That Palladius claruit Anno virginei partus 434 he flourish'd in the Year 434 and so he died not in the 431. And not content with this Baleus goes on telling that post multos pios tandem sudores religiosa exercitia in Fordono vico Merniae foelicem hujus vitae sortius est exitum Which is in our Scotland and in the North part thereof very far out of the Road from Ireland to Rome and where we have St. Padies Church and Fair and with us he is nam'd our first Bishop to this day but was never nam'd an Irish Bishop until the Bishop of St. Asaph made him by a strange word first in omination of success as he says tho not he but St. Patrick had this success If then he died not so soon and if the time of his death is not prov'd why might he not have baptiz'd Tarvanus And why should our Boethius be hector'd for saying that Palladius baptiz'd Tarvan Yet I impute not this to my Lord St. Asaph's mistake or ignorance but it is an elaborate contrivance to divert all the unanswerable Authorities proving that Palladius was sent to us in Scotland in the Year 431 and so before the Year 503 in which my Lord St. Asaph says we setled first in Britain I shall conclude this concerning Palladius with the suffrage of Dr. Hammond a learn'd and Episcopal English Divine who in his vindication of the dissertations concerning Episcopacy reconciling the seeming Differences between Beda who asserts that Palladius was sent to the Scots believing in Christ And Prosper who speaking of the same Mission says That Palladius made also the Barbarous Island Christian lays down these three Conclusions 1. That Christianity was planted in Scotland before Caelestine's Time deriv'd to them most probably from their Neighbour Britons here with whom they are known to have agreed in the keeping of Easter contrary to the Custom of the Roman Church as Beda says 2. That this Plantation was very imperfect differing little from Barbarism and so reputed by Prosper till the coming of Bishop Palladius among them 3. That even after that they retain'd the use of Easter contrary to the Roman custome which still refers to some rude conversion of theirs before Palladius and so it is evident that in the learn'd Doctor 's opinion the Scotland to which Palladius was sent was ours and that we were Christians before his coming tho rude and barbarous The Bishop of St. Asaph having thus spirited from us into Ireland Palladius our first Bishop he proceeds to translate Amphibalus our first Churchman upon Record unto a Shag-Cloak designing likewise thereby to prove that Boethius our Historian is not to be credited because he follow'd their fabulous Ieffrey Who finding that St. Alban had to save his pious Guest taken the holy Man's Habit to the end he might be martyr'd for him and as Beda expresses it Caracalla ejus indutus Ieffrey concludes as my Lord St. Asaph alledges that the Vestiment was Amphibalus and Ieffrey having made the Cloak a Man Boetius made him a Bishop of the Isle of Man and so this Cloak was fitly ordain'd to be a proper Bishop for the Chapter of the Culdees But this is ludere in sacris and to expose Episcopacy it self upon the Stage In answer to which I shall only offer these few thoughts First What Interest had Ieffrey who was a Briton to oblige the Scots or the Isle of Man in making so horrid a lye 2. It is against sense to think that any Man much less a Scholar could have been so gross as to take a Shag Cloak for a Bishop 3. If the Shag Cloak had been mistaken for the name of a Man he should have been call'd Caracalla and not Amphibalus for the Legend being written in Latin Ieffrey had certainly chosen the word Caracalla because that was the Latin word and was the word used by Beda and because there was a Roman Emperor truly of that name before Beda and Ieffrey's Time 4. Beda relating to that passage tells us that in the Dioclesian Persecution St. Alban Aron Iulius and many others suffer'd And why might not Amphibalus be one of these many that suffer'd And why ought Boethius to have been tax'd for mentioning Amphibalus since this was done long before him by a
in the transition from that 2d to the 3d Chapter tells after that he had spoke of the Scots Dominion of their own Sea that he will treat of the succeeding Ages and so proceeds to the Saxons which demonstrates that we were setled here before the Saxons though my Lord St. Asaph makes their settlement here more ancient than ours And in this Beda agrees with Selden but both contradict the Bishop And lastly this passage clears that the Testimonies not only of Claudian concerning Ierna but even of Tertullian when speaking of the Inhabitants of Britain not conquer'd by the Romans and of Ierom speaking of the Britannick Nations are only applicable to us And therefore I hope my Lord St. Asaph will not take it ill if we in a Matter of Antiquity prefer an impartial Antiquary to an interested Divine as I would not be offended if the Bishop of St. Asaph were preferr'd to me in a Theological Controversy The first general Objection against our Histories is that they were not written by those who lived in the Time but more than 1400 Years after the things happened of which they wrote And it were strange that if Gildâ—s who liv'd 500 Years before the eldest of them could find no sufficient Instructions save from Foreigners that our Historians should have found sufficient Warrants for a History after so long a time To which my Answer is That our Histories giving only an account of one Nation it was easier to find the true and sincere Tradition as to us than it was in other Nations where the Conquerors were not concern'd to preserve the Traditions and Records and though I have made it very probable that this Isle had the use of Letters before or at least soon after we settl'd in it and so might have preserv'd the Story Yet albeit our History were only founded on Tradition until about 600 Years after Christ before which the Monastery of Iona or Icolm-kill was founded that Tradition might have been sufficiently preserv'd for so few Generations by the means and methods that I have formerly condescended upon Nor can I see how the Origin of a Nation could not have been preserv'd by those who were of it or how being established it could have vanished when People became more polite and curious And after the Year 600 I have prov'd that our Historians might have been and were sufficiently warranted in what they have said by old Manuscripts and Records nor is there any thing urg'd in this Objection against us but what might as unanswerably be urg'd against the Greek and Latin Historians A receiv'd History cannot be overturn'd from what I have formerly represented without Arguments which necessarily conclude that the History impugn'd must be false which cannot be alledg'd here where the Warrants of the History controverted not only might have been but probably were true and are so far from contradicting other Histories that they are confirm'd by them I desire also to know what old Manuscripts and Records Luddus the Antiquary so far preferr'd to ours had for proving that much elder Succession of History from Brutus to his own Time And whereas St. Asaph says that Buchannan should not have tax'd Luddus for deriving the Britons from Brutus since he own'd a Succession of our Kings from Fergus there being as few Documents to support the one as the other To this my Answer is That there have been very solid grounds brought for sustaining the one which cannot be alledg'd for the other and ours are adminiculated by the Roman History whereas theirs is inconsistent with it for it is palpably inconsistent with the Roman History to say that Brutus was the Son of Ascanius whom he kill'd for which being banish'd from Italy he came over to Britain and that Britain was govern'd by Consuls which should rather be laugh'd at than confuted The Bishop is most unjust to us in asserting that we have no Author of our own before Fordon and that no Author mentions our Antiquity but such as have follow'd Fordon who wrote about 300 Years ago For Fordon cites his Vouchers many of which are extant and those who are lost are prov'd to have been extant Within the Isle we could have no Authors till there were Writers and Gildas and Beda the eldest in the Isle prove our Antiquity Without the Isle none could know us being so remote but either by the Wars they had with us or the Christianity that was common to them and us As to our Wars all the Roman Authors above-related speak of us Orosius about the Year 417. Claudian 397. Ammianus before the Year 360. Beda and Eumenius speak of us as before Iulius Caesar as hath been prov'd All which we have collaterally supported by a gradation of Ecclesiastick Historians abroad and all our own Historians at home Beda brings us to Reutherus who was the 6th King from Fergus the first and he living within 150 Years of Fergus this short step may be trusted to Tradition though we had wanted the help of the Druids and Phaenician Letters for a Father might have inform'd his Son of so near a Time nor was this worthy of a fiction And I may modestly say of the foregoing Citations from forraign Authors that if they be not strong enough to overturn the Bishop's Hypothesis yet they are at least as strong as those produc'd by Iosephus in defence of the Jewish History and yet all the learn'd World has acquiesc'd in them Nor is there any thing to be concluded from the silence of Adamnanus and Marianus the eldest of our Historians though as the Bishop alleadges they had certainly mention'd our Antiquitiy if they had known it For Adamnanus wrote no History save of Columba and Marianus going to Germany when he was very young could know little of us and mentions only the three Kings of Scotland in whose time he liv'd and so if this Argument prov'd any thing it would prove too much For certainly we had Kings before those three whom he mentions and these negative Arguments are of no moment in Matters of History and are justly reprobated by the learned Scaliger in his Notes on Eusebius and by Vossius The second Objection is That our Historians contradict one another concerning the Origin of the Picts which ought to lessen their credit But to this it is answered That our Historians were not concern'd to consider the Origin of the Picts as they were to consider their own And this Objection subsumes not what is true in Matter of Fact For our Historians generally agree in the Origin of the Picts whom all of them make to be Scythians and though Fordon relates three different accounts of them yet he does not settle upon any thing that is different from our other Historians as is fully to be seen The third Objection is That our Historians are contradicted by our own Antecessors for our Historians assert that King Donald the first was our first Christian King whereas in our
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
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