Scotland in the Middle ages. Sketches of early Scotch history and social progress

Front matter

SCOTLAND IN THE MIDDLE AGES PRINTED BY R- & R. CLARK FOR EDMONSTON AND DOUGLAS, EDINBURGH. LONDON . . HAMILTON, ADAMS, S: CO. CAMBRIDGE . MACMILLAN 8s CO. DUBLIN . . M'GLASHAN & GILL. GLASGOW .^rrTOtES-^JACLEHOSE. /fi7 . wW _v\ ww-W >. 7-ffffy PLATE I. EDMONSTON & DOUGLAS, EDINBURGH SCOTLAND IN THE MIDDLE AGES SKETCHES OF EARLY SCOTCH HISTORY AND SOCIAL PROGRESS B1 COSMO INNES PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH EDINBURGH EDMONSTON AND DOUGLAS PKEFACE. These Sketches were read in the shape of Lectures to a class in this University ; but it cannot be said they thereby received much publicity. In now publishing them, I have something to disclaim. I trust the origin of the little work may be a sufficient excuse, if it be found wanting in that originality of facts or views without which no one would deliberately com pose a book of History.

The same cause may obtain pardon for some unacknowledged plagiarism, which it might savour of osten tation more specifically to point out. If the Sketches have any merit, it is in teaching that true History is best to be

Preface

. VI learnt from the study of its genuine materials, and not from the twice-told tale of the his torians of the book-shelves. Here, as in other studies, Juvat integros accedere fontes Atque haurire. I would warn the young student of history against translations ; against abridgments. Let him not think that he learns history by committing a big table of contents to memory. If he takes my advice, his will be the pleasure as well as the gain. He will find endless amusement in the contemporary chronicler, and his rough and vivid pictures of events, which fall very flat and dull, even in the ele gant summary of Hume, and the glittering narrative of Gibbon. But books are not all. The history of a nation has to do with things which books never quite supply ; the man ners of the people, their modes of fife, action, and thought. We know more of old Rome from a day among its ruins — from a visit

PREFACE.

. VII to Herculaneum or Pompeii— than from all the compilations of modern historians, or even the mythical narrative of Livy, charming as it is. Above all, look to the real evidence, as the lawyers call it. Judge a people by their institutions and laws ; by the cultivation of their soil ; by their literature ; by their achievements in science and art ; by what they have done for civilization, and the happiness of the world. After these Sketches were printed, my friendly publishers, taking, I fear, an exag gerated view of thenimportance, urged me to prefix some Maps that might serve to illustrate my notions of old Scotland, and its progress. I saw the danger, and it was not without reluctance that I complied. As was to be expected, the Maps led to explanatory Notes and Lists of Places, and other topo-

PREFACE.

. VIII graphical apparatus, which now form such a bulk of preliminary matter. I am not willing to think that the labour bestowed has been useless. Indeed, I believe the information here brought together has not been collected in print before, and may be serviceable to many readers ; and, if so, perhaps I should not be much concerned though critics may discover that my little craft was not built or rigged for such a ponderous freight. No one can hold the book at a lower rate than I do, but that must not prevent me from mentioning the names of some of those who have assisted me, and on whom lies none of the blame of any shortcoming. Mr. Joseph Robertson, my old friend and fellow labourer, has now, as always, been as ready to give, as I to ask assistance. He would be a rash man who should write on Scotch charters or records, or on Scotch church architecture, without taking counsel with Mr. Robertson. Dr. Reeves of Lusk, the historian

PREFACE.

. IX of St. Columba, who has shamed our Scotch scholars by the light he has thrown upon the christianizing of our western shores, has also assisted me cordially and cheered me on. Mr. W. F. Skene, a Celtic scholar and antiquary of the first order, whose fault is that he will not give his collections to the world, has not withheld them from me. To the last two gentlemen I am indebted for learned and ingenious suggestions upon early Scotch geography, and I feel that I ought to explain why I have not availed myself of them. I am, unfortunately, quite ignorant of the Celtic languages, and the only expositors in whom I have confidence not being entirely at one, I have thought it best not to set down on my map what I could not personally verify. Edinburgh, January 1860. NOTES ON THE MAPS. I. SCOTLAND IN THE TENTH CESTURY.

The settlement and early geography of Scotland have given rise to much war and calling of hard names ; and the collision of the Goths and the Celts, blinded with their fury, has not had the effect which sometimes results from such conflicts, of throwing light for the by standers. I cannot extract any satisfactory conclusions on this subject from the erudition of Pinkerton, or the industry of Chalmers. The profusion of unusual learning of the late Mr. Algernon Herbert,1 can scarcely be said to have cleared the matter ; and we shall probably get as near the truth by turning to the slender materials which those writers successively used, drawing from them opposite conclusions. I do not seek at present to go farther back than the century preceding the great movement of southern settlers to the north — the period preceding the age of Malcolm Canmore — preceding the Norman conquest of England — just before the commencement of Lord Hailes's Annals.

Let it be remembered then, that the Roman power and all memory of Roman provinces had long passed away. To the native tribes, barbarous and fluctuating, without letters or monuments to preserve their history or their changing limits, the descriptions and inferences of Cæsar and Tacitus were now inapplicable. Nor are the ancient geographers of more use. We may possibly recognize the sounds of a few rivers and firths in Ptolemy, but placed all confusedly ; while his names of the tribes and their cities give us 1 Notes on the Irish Nennius, 1848, etc. NOTES ON THE MATS. no information at all.1 His nomenclature joins on to nothing before or after. Ptolemy no doubt built on a foundation of truth, and may have known as much of our island, as a London map-maker does of the interior of Japan or Patagonia.

Richard of Cirencester, if not a pure modern invention, cannot be quoted as an authority. I do not find, then, that we have anything very reliable, till we rest on the solid foundation of the venerable Bede. Even the venerable Bede must be taken with a grain of reservation. Believe him as a true witness to what he saw and heard, but no more. For his ancient history, remember when and where he lived. A Benedictine monk of Jarrow, on the coast of Northumberland, writing in the middle of the eighth century, might well be proud of his scholarship, and was content to describe his Britain after Pliny, Eutropius, Solinus, and Orosius. For his more modern events, remember what he tells us himself. " I beseech my reader, if he find in my writings things other than true, he impute not that to me, since I have done that which is the true rule of history, simply noted down for the instruction of posterity those things which I have gathered from common report (fama vulgantej."

Nothing can be more honest, but let us take warning from the author's own testimony, which is not over-stated. The district of Lindessei (part of Lincoln), though almost adjoining his own country of Northumbria, was not connected with it politically or ecclesiastically, and consequently Bede was quite ignorant of the contemporary transactions of that district. Again, the account which he gives of the arrival of the Saxons and Angles, and their settlement in England, is purely fabulous, being " not in fact," says his last editor, " the history, but the tradition of the Jutish kingdom of Kent." 2 When moderate distance of time and of place thus interfered with the accuracy of the venerable historian, it requires discrimination 1 For instance, on the north coast the Nouantai dwelling heside a pro montory of their own name, had the following cities (iroAeis) Loucopibia Retigonion.

The Selgouai had four : the Damnioi six cities; not one of which is identified. Stevenson's preface, p. xxiii-vii. SCOTLAND IN THE TENTH CENTURY. XIII to turn his information to account for matters more remote. Let us not be surprised if we have to correct his narrative in his first fact of our history. He tells us Columba obtained his little refuge of Hii from Bridius son of Meilochon, a most powerful king of the Picts. Now we have this Brude son of Malcolm, in our poor roll of Pictish kings, and his reign corresponds with the ascertained era of Saint Columba. Indeed, we know from the best authority, that the saint visited his court, somewhere beyond Loch Ness ; but it would overthrow our most settled notions of geography and history, to allow that Iona was of the Pictish territory. It was in the very heart of that district which Bede himself and all our authorities require us to believe was the original seat of the Scots on their arrival from Ireland.

And we cannot read Adomnan's history, otherwise than as establishing that Iona was subject to the princes of the Scots. There it was that St. Columba inaugurated Aidan, king of the Scots ; there St. Columba with his monks pray for victory to king Aidan as their sovereign.1 But little recked the monk of Jarrow whether the green islet, " placed far amid the solitary main," belonged to one kingdom of heathens or another. Little dreamt he of the trouble his careless words would cause to his countrymen, a thousand years later, trying to build a national history on the foundation of his " common report." Thus driven from Bede's account, and Adomnan giving no certain sound in the matter, we fall back on the Irish annalists, and have no scruple to believe that Iona was given to Saint Columba, by Conal son of Comghall, king of the Scots.

But when Bede narrates things of his own time and country, things of such a character too as must have impressed any intelli gent man, we take him as our guide with all confidence. He tells us then of Ecgfrid, king of the Northumbrians, in the year 685, cut off with all his army, in an expedition into the country of the Picts, and that the Picts from that time, and down to Bede's own time — only 46 years later — had recovered and kept their old 1 Innes, p. 89. NOTES ON THE MAPS. possessions which the Angli had held, and the (British) Scots and Britons also recovered their freedom. He describes, as a consequence of that defeat, the retreat to Whitby of " the man of God, Trumuin," who had been bishop over the Picts, though making his residence at Abercurnig (Abercorn) situate indeed in the country of the Angli, but close to the firth (in viciniafreti) which separates the lands of the Angli and the Picts.

The country of the Angli then, Bede's own countrymen of Northumbria, met the country of the Picts at our firth, in the eighth century. Here there can be no mistake. The firth was the proper established boundary, though the success of the Picts had made Abercorn an unsafe dwelling for the bishop and his clerics. In another passage, Bede, relating the migration of the Scots from their native country, Ireland, to the western shore of our highlands, says that colony was anciently (antiquitus) divided from the Britons by the Firth of Clyde, and the strong fortress of Alcluith : and afterwards, explaining what he meant by styling the Scots and Picts transmarine nations, says, it was not that they were settled out of Britain, but were separated from the Britons by two arms of the sea, one entering from the east, the other from the west, but not meeting — the former having in its midst the town Giudi (in medio sui urbem Giudi), while the western firth has on its right bank the city called Alcluith, which in their tongue (the tongue of those two peoples ?) signifies Clyde rock (Petra Cluith) because it is on the river of that name.

As if to make the southern boundary more precise, Bede tells us of the Roman wall between those two firths, of which plain remains were to be seen in his day, beginning at two miles west from Abercurnig, at a place which, in the language of the Picts, is called Peanfahel, and in that of the Angli Penneltun, and stretching westward till it terminates beside the city Alcluith. One passage more, and we have all that Bede affords for our present purpose. The venerable historian informs us that the southern Picts had already, long ago (about 150 years earlier, we know), received the true faith by the preaching of St. Ninian, -when, THE PICTS — AND SCOTS. XV a.d. 842 in the year 565, Columba crossed from Ireland on his mission for converting the northern Picts, separated from the southern Picts by ridges of high and rugged mountains.

Such is the northern geography of Bede. In his time, the Picts, now wholly christianized, were a powerful and growing people, possessing all the lowlands of Scotland beyond the Forth, and giving an uneasy border even to their great Northumbrian neighbours. The bishopric of St. Ninian was Pictish too ; and the Galwegians, if not the whole inhabitants of Cumbria, are, down to comparatively modern times, spoken of as Picts.1 There is less difficulty with regard to the Scots. Without seeking to fix the period of their immigration from the old " land of Scots," Ireland — which was undoubtedly gradual, beginning, perhaps, in the third or fourth century — as soon as they had assumed the coherence of a kingdom, we find them inhabiting Argyll, the Western isles, and the western highlands, marching with the Picts on the mountains which form the water-shed to east and west.

Bounded to the south as Bede has limited them, their other boundaries were not doubtful. " Fergus son of Erch, first reigned in Scotland beyond Drumalbane to Slough Hunt and to Inchgall." It is a chronicler of St. Andrews who thus writes,2 and, looking at our map from his point of view, he would give the Scots the boundaries of the sea and isles to the south and west — the Bread albane or rather Drumalbane range to the east — and the ridge of the Monad-lia, which skirts the upper valley of Spey, to the north. From the time of Bede to the middle of the tenth century, two hundred years had elapsed, a long dark period indeed, but not altogether without light. In the middle space, the Scots and Picts were united under Kenneth Macalpin, and from thenceforward, by a strange process, the name of the Picts as a nation disappears from history.

The change, however, was only one of dynasty and 1 In twelfth century, Richard of Hexham, etc. 2 Excerpta ex registro S. Andreœ preface to the printed register of St (i.e., from the great register of the Andrews, p. 1 1 . priory, now lost). Innes, p. 797, and NOTES ON THE MAPS. national name. The king of the (British) Scots, acquiring, in addition, and apparently by succession, the kingdom of the Picts, chose to be still called king of Scots ; and his kingdom, made up of the two nations, in a short time began to be called after his people, by its present name of Scotland. The inhabitants do not yet appear to have suffered a change. Our eastern seabord was still called Pictland (Pictavia) by the Latin chroniclers. Its inhabitants still, as heretofore, pressing for enlargement against the English border, encroached at different times quite to the Tweed ; and in the middle of the tenth century, Indulf, the king of the whole country now called Scotland, obtained a formal cession from the Saxon monarch, of the town of Edinburgh (oppidum Eden).

That is the state of occupation which the first map tries to represent. While the names of "Northern and Southern Picts" are given, after Bede, and according to my reading of his geography, I need hardly explain that this does not here, as with Bede, express the existence of two Pictish kingdoms. The whole country — all Pict-land and Scot-land — was now under one government ; though, as I have said, I think the population remained nearly unchanged from Bede's time. In like manner, the names of Cumbria, Strathcluyd, Bemicia, Deira, are rather the shadows of former petty kingdoms than actual existing separate governments. The first two left their names to known districts, and to a "peculiar people — peculiar in laws, manners, and language ; the others had long ago disappeared, leav ing the limits of their territories a matter for conjecture, and their people so mixed and scattered, that even in the tenth century they had no kuown representatives.

It may be thought that I have restricted too much the portion of the " Norsemen," as in the tenth century ; but I cannot find evidence of their colonizing or steady government, for any space to be noticed in a map, beyond their known and recognized earl doms of Orkney and Caithness (including Sutherland). Down the EDM0NST0N i DOUGLAS. ED1NBURCH. east coast, their occupation was temporary, and almost predatory. Even on the west coast, and among the western isles, where their power was little resisted or disputed, except among themselves, their dominion was that of a continuous stream of pirates successively plundering the country and each other, and scarcely yet approaching to settled and civilized government. I have ventured to put down our own city of Edinburgh in this map of Scotland of the tenth century.

I wish I could also give the local habitation for the city of Giudi, which Bede tells us was in medio of our firth ; or find names for the capitals of the two nations of the Picts, one of which apparently was low down in the valley of Stratherne, and the other somewhere on the short run of the Ness. Maces indicated in the Map of Scotland in the Tenth Century. Abercurnatg (Abercorn). Aberdeen Kink ei l. Kylreymont (St. Andrews). LlNDISFARN. Abernethy. Alcluid (Dumbarton). Bkrnicia. Lodene (Lothian). Mailros (Melrose). Mann, Isle of. Meigle. Brebanburg (Bamborough). Brechin. Cltiyd Water. North Isles. Northern Picts. Northumbria. Orkneyar. Coludesburh (Coldingham). Cullenros (Culross). Cumbria. Deira. Quhitiikrn (Whitdiorn). Scots. Drumalbyn. Dunkeld. Southern Picts. Stennes. EmVYNESBURG Forteviot.

Strathcluyd. Sudureyar. Tyree. Galloway (Terra Pictorum). Glasghu. IIy. II. SCOTLAND IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. A great change had taken place in the last two centuries. The English tendencies of the sovereigns from Malcolm Canmore downwards, and the stream of southern settlers that overspread the land, had introduced new institutions for distributing justice, pro tecting trade, property, and person, and along with these, though b NOTES ON THE MAPS. XVIII in some respect opposed to them, the fortified dwellings of the new feudal chivalry. Though by no means the oldest, the division into sheriffdoms had now become the most important of the civil divisions. Their introduction in Scotland is at least as old as the very beginning of the reign of David I. In 1305 — when we find them enumerated in a public ordinance — they already amounted to twenty-five (without counting some shires omitted in the list).

The present map is intended to mark those sheriffdoms, and their subordinate districts ; and also those ancient districts, the memory of which has been preserved historically and in the popular use, though unconnected with sheriffdoms, or any existing legal jurisdictions. And first, with regard to the sheriffdoms, which stand now as they stood in the thirteenth century, with few exceptions — The northern counties of Caithness, Sutherland, and Koss, were of old under the jurisdiction of the sheriff of Inverness. The act for disuniting them was passed in 1503, but did not take effect till 1641. Elgin and Forres were anciently separate sheriffdoms. The sheriffdom of Forfar had four bailiaries, called 1. The Quarter of Dundee, 2. The Quarter of Kirriemuir, 3. The Quarter of Brechin, 4. The Quarter of Arbroath, each having a Mair to whom the sheriff directed his precepts for execution.

The great sheriffdom of Perth had in like manner a division into Quarters, viz. — 1. The Quarter of Stormont, 2. The Quarter of Athol, 3. The Quarter above Isla (supra Ties), 4. The Quarter below Isla (sub Ties), 5. The Quarter of Stratherne, besides the Quarter of the seven shires of Perth (quarterium septem schirarum de Perth) the signification of which, who can tell ? — Menteith and Stratherne were separate as to jurisdiction and taxation till last century. The sheriffdom of Fife was sometimes divided into quarters .- — 1 . The Quarter of Eden. 2. The Constabulary of Grail! . 3. The Quarter of Leven. 4. The Quarter of Inverkeithing. 5. The Quarter of Dunfermline. Linlithgow and Haddington were constabularies comprehended under the sheriffdom of Edinburgh principal. Lanark, or Clydesdale, had, and still has, three Wards, — 1.

The Over Waird. 2. The Middle Waird. 3. The Nether Waird. Ayrshire has for a very long period been divided into the Bailiaries of — 1. Kyle. 2. Carrick, 3. Cuninghame. The upper district of Selkirk is known as The Forest, or Ettrick forest. It had doubtless of old a separate judicial establishment, and we know it was again divided into three Wards, called — 1. The Ward of Ettrick. 2. The Ward of Yarrow. 3. The Ward of Tweed. Berwick is divided into three districts (I know not, if legal divisions), — 1. Merse. 2. Lammermoor. 3. Lauderdale. NOTES ON THE MAPS. XX The first gave their title to the great Earls of March, who some times took their style, and latterly their name, from their castle of Dunbar. Lauderdale was a bailiary, and retained its independent jurisdiction, probably from the ancient regality of the De Morvilles, its old lords.

Argyll has four such districts, — 1. Lorn, 2. Argyll proper, 3. Cowall,1 4. Cantyre, of which the first two were the lordships of the great ancient families of De Ergadia and Lorn. With regard to other old districts preserved in popular memory, or historically — Caithness was an ancient earldom of the Norsemen, from which Sutherland was separated by King Alexander II. , and then was made an earldom for the family of De Moravia, who still hold it. Ross was an ancient mormaership and earldom. Its western shore is called in charters borealis Ergadia, North Argyll. Moray, an ancient mormaership and earldom in the family through which Macbeth claimed the crown of Scotland, was re vived as an earldom for Thomas Eanulph, Bruce's nephew. As limited in Ranulph's charter, the earldom extended from the mouth of Spey to the Beaulie, and westward to the west sea, including Glenelg.

Buchan and Marr were ancient mormaerships and earldoms. The district of Mearns, which also perhaps gave the title of mormaer, seems equivalent to the sheriffdom of Kincardine ; perhaps at one time " The Mearns " was limited to the district south of " The Mount," still known as the " Howe of the Mearns." ' Standing, one day, on the north head of Arran, looking across the firth to Cowall, I asked some Loch Ranza fishermen what was the name of that coast. They pointed to the mouth of Loch Fyne, and said, all from thence to about Dunoon they called " Kerry." Suspecting I misheard, I asked one of them to spell the name, which he did quite scholarly, as here given. I can not account for the local name. Angus, an ancient earldom, appears to have been equivalent to the sheriffdom of Forfar. The old earls, perhaps originally mormaers, whose dwelling seems to have been at Kerymore, ended in an heiress, Countess Maud, who, in the thirteenth century, carried the earldom into the house of De Umframvil, great lords of the English border ; the same family which held Redesdale per potestatem gladii.

Fife, a very ancient earldom. Lothian, besides the three shires still popularly known as East, West, and Mid-Lothians, included at various times an undefined territory, extending from the Firth of Forth to the English border, and even some way into England. Lennox (Levenax, or the basin of the Leven) is an ancient earldom, perhaps nearly equivalent to the sheriffdom of Dumbarton. Stratherne, a very ancient earldom, and in later times a county palatine. Garviauch, Atholl, Menteith, were ancient earldoms. The great district of Galloway, within the period of record, continued to be governed with almost independent sway by its native lords ; and even after their overthrow, under its ancient customary laws. It was popularly, and perhaps legally, divided into Galloway above Cree, and Galloway below Cree.

In the thirteenth century, the earldom of Carrie had grown out of that old lordship, and was now in the family of Bruce, the lords of Annandale. A word of the castles most noted in the thirteenth century : — Dunskaith, beside Cromarty, and Edirdouer (now Red-castle), in Ardmanoch, were built by king William the Lion in 1179 for repressing the insurrection in Ross. Urquhart castle on Loch Ness, at the mouth of its beautiful valley, was at an early period a royal castle, of which successively Durwards, Chisholms, and Lauders are known as keepers. Duffus and Bocharm were castles of the great lords of Moray. Ruthven was the head castle of the lordship of Badenoch, for a NOTES ON THE MAPS. XXII great part of the thirteenth century, in the hands of John the Red Cumyn. Lochindorb was a castle of the same great lordship.

The peel of Strathbolgie, the chief castle of the great family of that name, and head of the lordship and district known as the Eight and Forty Davach of Strathbolgie, now Huntly — a name imported by the Gordons from their original country on the Borders. Fyvie, at an early period a royal castle and burgh. The castle passed through the hands of the Prestons and Meldrums, before it acquired its present grandeur from the Chancellor Seton. Ellon was the caput comitatus of Buchan. Inverury was the head of the Garioch, an earldom in the person of Robert Bruce, by succession to earl David. Migveth, conjectured by some to have been the caput comitatus of the earldom of Mar. Kildrummy, a magnificent castle on Don side. Sir R. Gordon says it was built by Bishop Gilbert de Moravia, for the Crown. It is best known as a residence of Bruce, who held it apparently in right of his nephew, the Earl of Mar.

Lumphanan, a peel curiously seated near the upper end of the " loch of Lumphanan." Macbeth was slain about a mile to the north of it. Coul, the chief castle of the great family of Durward. Durris, a royal residence and royal park, as early as the reign of Alexander III. Cowie,'a royal castle and burgh. Charters of the fourteenth century are extant, granting lands for maintaining the causey through the "mount," between Cowie and Aberdeen. The castle, afterwards known as the craig of Dunnotter, does not appear in charters so early as the period of this map. Kincardin castle, in the Mearns, a royal castle and burgh. Its park was enlarged by Bruce. Some of the village tofts and tene ments, both here and at Cowie, preserve the names which they acquired from being appropriated to the officers and domestics of the royal court.

Brechin was a castle in the hands of the family of De Brechin, illegitimate descendants of earl David. The Red-castle on the shore of Lunan bay, was a seat of the De Berkeleys, and in the thirteenth century had come to the Balliols. Forfar, Glammis, Kinclevin, all royal castles. Balligernoch, or the Red-castle, a seat of the Cambruns, stood on the verge of what are now the grounds of Rossie priory. The "Mote of Errol" was a seat of the Hays before they established themselves in Buchan. Leuchars, a castle of the De Quincys. Their estates fell, in the middle of the thirteenth century, to co-heiresses, two of whom were married to De Ferrers and La Zouche. Crail a royal castle. St. Andrews, a bishop's castle, founded in 1206, by bishop Roger (De Leicester). Kennoquhy and Cupar were castles of the earls of Fife.

Dumbarton castle, a seat of royalty in early times, was the head castle of the earls of Lennox, at the first period of record. It was surrendered to king Alexander II. , by eavl Maldouen, and has remained a royal castle. Inch-mahome was an ancient castle, and head of the earldom of Menteith. Stirling always a royal castle. Linlithgow castle or " peel," a royal manor and strength. Carpentoloch, vulgarly Kirkentulloch, an old castle of the Cumyns. Bothwell, a castle of a family of De Bloravia. Castel-tarres (Carstairs), a fortified house of the bishop of Glasgow. Edward I. granted pardon to the bishop for fortifying it without licence. Douglas, the head castle of the original lordship of that illus trious name. NOTES ON THE MAPS. Morton, a castle of the thirteenth century, by evidence of its architecture.

It was the head castle of Nithsdale, and was granted to Ranulph by king Robert I. Dalswinton, a castle of the Cumyns. Here, Red John Cumyn resided when Bruce sent Niel and Thomas, his brothers, to bring him to Dumfries. Lochmaben, the head castle of the great lordship of Annandale. Cmgelton, a castle of the Cumyns. The lead for its roof was brought from the mines of Man, by grant of Edward I. Turnberry, Brace's castle, probably the head castle of the earldom of Carrie. Rothesay, a royal castle and fortress from the beginning of the thirteenth century. Edinburgh, always a royal castle. Lochorwart (now Borthwick), a castle, first of the Lynes, after wards of the Hays of Errol. The present building is comparatively modern, being of the fifteenth century. Lamberton, a castle of the Lindesays, who styled it their " court" (curia nostra), and had a private chapel there, before 1212, jealously watched by the parish church.