Caithness Events: a discussion of Captain Kennedy's historical narrative [printed from the original manuscript], and an account of the Brognach Eads, etc

Appendix

. SINCLAIR ARMS. WICK : AAT. RAE. 1894. PRINTED AT THE NORTHERN ENSIGN OFFICE, WICK.

Preface

. In "Caithness Family History," by John Henderson, AV.S., published at Edinburgh in 1884, there is reference on page 109 to "a MS. on Caithness affairs by the late Captain Kennedy of AVick ; " and a letter to the Northern Ensign dated 11th JNovember, 1882, mentions a statement by "a AATick gentleman, the late Captain Kennedy, who died many years ago," the same MS. the source of it. AAHiether he was of the Kennedy wadsetter family of Stroma described by Henderson pp. 328-9, is an interesting question which may yet be solved. Murdoch Kennedy was the last of these semi-lairds of the famous island which divides the raging Pentland Firth ; and his tenure closed, probably with his apparently eccentric life, about 1721. Dr. John Kennedy of Kermucks, Aberdeenshire, not Fifeshire, came to Caithness in 1659; or, at all events, in that year he had a wadset of part of Stroma, on which he built a house still existing, from George Sinclair, the sixth and neediest Earl of Caithness, Glenorchy's victim.

Fleet-Paymaster John JBremner, R.N., a distinguished native of Canisbay, and a relative of the late James JBremner, C.E., AATick, remembers that local people used to say the first Kennedy was a buccaneer or pirate, and that he brought to Stroma a chest of Spanish doubloons, gold coins which have varied in value from 32s. to 64s., according to authorities. The reason of his wealth will appear, if the tradition had fact to go on ; for it must have been the proceeds of the estate of Carnmux. Very little gold would count much then on the island. In a royal charter to Sir John Forbes, of date 4th August, 1669, John Kennedy, senior, and John Kennedy, junior, of Carnmux, Udny parish, Aberdeenshire,

PREFACE.

. VI are mentioned among those who resigned portions to a newly-erected barony in favour of Sir John ; and the fact is given that John Moor was then the laird of Carnmux, otherwise spelt Kermucks. The elder John Kennedy came to Caithness after the family estate had been lost or sold, at all events, alienated. In 1643, 1644, and 1646 John Kennedy of Karmucks was on the committees of war for (he sheriffdom of Aberdeen and a commissioner of supply, evidently the elder of the Johns. See "Acts of Parliament of Scotland." Bishop Robert Forbes's MS. diary of his visit to Caithness in 1/62, says the latter was Dr. John Kennedy, and that he " fled to Stroma for homicide, having killed a Forbes of the family of Foveran." This throws some light upon Henderson's puzzle of three John Kennedys, for John "sometime elder of Kermucks " was "John elder of Stroma," two Johns being only in question.

Murdoch of 1700 was brother of the younger John. The Canisbay parisii register shows that the surname Kennedy has been prevalent since their time in the island. A minute-book of sasines of Caithness has various references to the Kennedy family. John Kennedy, younger, of Upren, in 1678 was put iu possession of four penny and an octo of land in Stroma, his legal agent William Smith. On 1st April, 1681, at AATick, John Kennedy, elder, of Stroma, had sasine on Milton there, Donald Harper his lawyer. At AATick, 1st May, 1685, Patrick Sinclair, public-notary, presented to the court the sasine of John Kennedy of Carmucks, and of his spouse, on the nether township of Stroma. John Forbes, notary, of date AA'ick, 28th June, 1687, presented a sasine by John Kennedy, senior, of Stroma, in favour of John Sinclair of Ratter, his spouse, and children, of the over township of Stroma, and on 30th August another to Elizabeth Sinclair, the lady of Ratter, daughter of Sir William Sinclair of Mey, and her children, on the same land ; a renunciation by Beatrice Stuart, spouse to John Kennedy, younger, of Stroma, in favour of Elizabeth Sinclair, as to the over township, presented the same day.

On 9th December, 1714, Hugh Campbell, public-notary, presented at Wick a sasine in favour of Murdo Kennedy, to the nether township of Stroma. Suther land of AATeater's tale about the Kennedy mummies in Stroma is too well

PREFACE.

. VII known to need repetition ; the medical title of the first of the family in the county, perhaps explaining and excusing his son Murdoch's extraordinary filial or unfilial performances, charnel-house and dissecting-room apt to destroy reverence for the human form divine. Pope of Reay, Pennant, and Calder (pp. 19, 20) write ofthe Kennedys, Low noting the duel. Of Captain Robert Kennedy, the author of the curious and valuable MS., a good deal can be gathered. He is written down " Major Rt. Kennedy " on the back of his little work, but the caligraphy is not his, and the " Major " must be a mistake of some one who possessed the document after his death. There is an endorsation in still another hand upon it thus, " To be returned to AVm. AVaters, Savings Bank, AATick." In AVick churchyard an epitaph gives reliable facts : — " Sacred to the memory of Captain Robert Kennedy, 94th regiment, Scotch brigade, who died at Harland, 28th February, 1818, aged 65 ; likewise of his partner in life, Emilia Taylor, who died 27th November, 1834, aged 73."

He was thus born in 1753 ; and as the MS. states within itself that it was composed at AArester in 1814, Captain Kennedy was 61 when he wrote it. That his wife was one of the Taylors of Thura, for whom see Henderson's work, is established. The parish register of Wick has several notices of him from 1799 to 1812 as witnessing and cautioning, where he appears as " Captain Robert Kennedy, AVester." On 22nd October, 1808, Donald Miller, tacksman of Noss, contracted to Jean Sutherland, Olrig, the cautioners Captain Robert Kennedy and Benjamin AATaters, tacksman, Harland, the marriage celebrated 10th November. In Olrig register "Air." Donald Miller in East Noss, AVick, and " Miss " Jean Sutherland's contract is entered as at Olrig on 20th October, as if there had been a double. They were the parents of the late Kenneth Miller, London, a rich Australian merchant, married to Caroline Dunnet, Thurso.

AVhen " Lieutenant Robert Kennedy in Wick," he had a son born by his wife Emilia Taylor November 21st, 1800 ; but this son was not baptized till 15th November, 1818, as Benjamin Miller Taylor, the witnesses Bailie AVilliam Mackay and "Air." Donald Miller, Staxigoe, the latter the father of Alexander of the Field (1740-1833), one

PREFACE.

. VIII of the founders of AATick herring fishery. At the time of that baptism Allan Alaciarlane was the fishery officer, the ancestor of the Macfarlanes of Caithness. It would seem, from the above interval of birth and baptism, that Lieutenant Kennedy was of the Baptist persuasion, then prevalent in and about AATick, Sir AViliam Sinclair of Keiss one of its notabilities. Indeed, Sir AATilliam had a son with the first name of Kennedy, as had also a John Sinclair, Gansclett, one of the Broynachs. But these facts may be out of connection with the captain. Earlier still, December 31st, 1790, Lieutenant Robert Kennedy and Emilia Taylor had a son baptised Patrick, the witnesses "Mr." Alexander Miller, Staxigoe, and "Mr." James Thomson. At that time they do not seem to have been Baptists. On April 10th, 1791, Lieutenant William Macbeath in Reiss and Jean Taylor baptized a son AVilliam, the witnesses Sir Benjamin Dunbar, Baronet of Hempriggs, aud Lieutenant Robert Kennedy.

As Jean must have been Kennedy's wife's sister, and as she is noted by Henderson as daughter of George Taylor, laird of Thura, married to Lieutenant Alacbeath, it may certainly be taken that Mrs. Robert Kennedy was of the family. Jean was born 12th Alay, 1765, and died 19th June, 1846, her husband of the 91st regiment. Alore of these Alacbeaths were officers in the army. In Canisbay parisii register it is recorded that Lieutenant AATilliam Alacbeath aud " Airs." Jean Taylor, daughter of George Taylor, Esquire of Thura, were lawfully married at AVarse on 15th February, 1789. Her brother AATilliam was baptized 24th January, 1771, the witnesses Alexander Sinclair of Brabsterdorran and George Alackenzie, Thurso. There are several entries in Bower register about the Taylors. It is evident that Captain Kennedy was of good standing ; and the period in which he wrote this AIS., entitled, " Anecdotes partly authenti cated and partly traditional relative to the history of the county of Caithness," had special advantages to make his narrative peculiarly useful.

There is no time with less knowledge of local affairs than that which his adult life covered, say from 1770 to 1818 ; and the lost events of the latter half of the eighteenth and beginniug of the nineteenth century, must have

PREFACE.

. IX been to him of everyday familiarity. It is a little to be regretted, therefore, that he seems to have had more interest in ancient facts than those near to him, unless his narrative stopped of necessity ; but his piece is nevertheless well worthy of preservation, as it also deserves careful correction and kindly discussion as a county work. The text is scrupulously kept apart from the historical editorial commentaries upon it, in full justice to its author, by different type and other indication. The story of the preservation of the MS. is that Bailie Waters, AVick, who was married to a daughter of Captain Robert Kennedy, left it, with other curiosities, to the late George Macadie, at the recent sale of whose effects it was purchased. It came into the hands afterwards of Rev. John Horne, 228, MJeadowpark Street, Glasgow, the writer of the booklet, " AVick : In and Around it," a native of the town he describes.

To him the editor of the MS. owes the opportunity of offering it, with full notes, to readers, as a considerable addition to the local literature. That during postal transmission the original went for some weeks astray, or into hiding, makes its safe keeping henceforth by book a subject of satisfaction, more especially to the sender and receiver. By far the most important section of the following pages, however, is what to the Kennedy survival takes the form of a " continuation," chrono logical and substantial, embodying the latest results of exhaustive inquiries about the false succession of the earldom since 1772. The appendix bears a large burden both of home and of transatlantic affairs. The Press Club, London, 1894. CONTENTS.

James the Chamberlain and his Descendants 107

APPENDIX.

. I. Letters by George the Fifth Earl 115 II. Twickenham and Reay 128 III. Prince Henry Sinclair, the Pre-Columbian Discoverer of America 138 Explanation CAITHNESS EVENTS.

Chapter I

, THE KENNEDY MANUSCRIPT'S OPENING. " From the earliest accounts handed down to us, it would appear that Caithness and the neighbouring county Sutherland were possessed by a tribe of the people called Catti, who had emigrated from Germany, and that part of it which forms the present landgraviate or electorate of Hesse. The county of Caithness being a promontory advancing into the North Sea, and the word ness the general term for any projecting headland, as the Buchan ness, Orford ness, Fife ness, and others, it hence acquired the name of Caith ness, or the ness of the Catti. Whether these German adventurers were the original settlers, how long they possessed the district, or under what form of government, are points on which we have little information. JNor perhaps is it very material. But there can be no doubt that on the final subjugation or expulsion of the Picts by Kenneth Macalpin, the whole kingdom of Scotland to its utmost northern extremity became subject to that monarch."

The arrival of the Catti iu Scotland is dated a.d. 91, during the reign of the Emperor Domitian. Agricola the Roman general was then conquering even to the Orkneys ; and the Scottish king, Galgacus, whom a CAITHNESS 2 the historian Tacitus has immortalized, received these Catti or Saxons, when they came to the river Tay, as valiant supporters against the " lords of the world." Their principal men became the rulers of North Scotland, taking first the surname of Murray and afterwards of Sutherland from their particular lands, the original name of the tribe surviving in the word Caithness. Tacitus described them in their fatherland as by far the bravest, most disciplined, and wisest ofthe Germans. As matter of fact, they were the section of the Teutons which history has called the Danes, and at an earlier period the Saxons, founders of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England.

Crantzius traces the Saxons to the Catti as ancestors, while Mercator and Carion make the landgraviate of Hesse, a word which is the synonym for Catti, the homeland of the tribe. Sharon Turner in his " History of the Anglo-Saxons " places the Catti on the shores of the German Ocean between the rivers Ems and AVeser, but there is little doubt that they extended widely on all sides of what is now the great city of Hamburg on the river Elbe. That lowland shore is the cradle of all that has been greatest in English, Scotch, Irish, and American history. The Emperor Augustus fought there with the Catti, and his son-in-law Drusus rivalled the second Cæsar in his conquests, reaching the AVeser and the Elbe. Tiberius also sought laurels in the same distant scenes, though with less success. But Germanicus the son of Drusus repeated his father's triumphs, extirpation his watchword.

In particular, he sent Coecina to destroy the Catti. " His arrival," says Tacitus, " was so little expected by the Catti, that their women and children were immediately taken prisoners or put to the sword, Mattium the capital was destroyed by fire, and the open plains were laid waste." Scandinavian incidents, as told by Snorro aud Torfaeus, illustrate the ease of setting fire to houses chiefly of wood then as now. Armine was the native hero contending against those conquerors who gave no quarter. Germanicus was recalled by Tiberius in a.d. 17, and the Roman arms never reached the Elbe again, though fighting continued in the southern parts of Germany. Thc Catti or Saxons learnt from the Romans the building of ships, and they were known to the Scottish shores even before their arrival in the Tay.

That they increased greatly in power, as a confederation of Teutons, is locally illustrated by the fact that EVENTS. 3 Theodosius, who gained the surname of Saxonicus from his success, fought many battles by land and sea with them in thc Orkneys, especially from A.D. 368 to 370. Claudian the poet's famous words refer to this, Maduerunt Saxone fuso Orcades. That thc Orkneys could be bespattered with Saxon or Cattian blood, implies that the Germans were then the rulers of North Scotland. But the conclusion must not be run to that they composed most, or even a large part, of the population there. Gibbon in his " Decline and Fall ofthe Roman Empire," chapter xxv., after discrediting some fabulous colonies, continues, " The present age is satisfied with the simple and rational opinion that the islands of Great Britain and Ireland were gradually peopled from the adjacent continent of Gaul.

From the coast of Kent to the extremity of Caithness and Ulster, the memory of a Celtic origin was distinctly preserved in the perpetual resemblance of language, of religion, and of manners." He thinks the Scots were the men of the hills, and the Picts those of the plains. The latter had the name from the carnivorous highlanders of cruitnich or wheat-eaters, being agricultural, Aberdeenshire retaining most marks of them. These sections of Celts were thetrue aborigines or natives, and their subterranean houses, called tumuli or tullochs, attest to this day their low civilization and meagre economies. The Kimmerians, whom the Roman consul Marius overthrew B.C. 102, the earliest Celts known to European history, dwelt, Strabo and Ephorus said, in subterraneous dwellings called argillas, communicating by trenches ; and in the British, AA'elsh, or Cymry language argel is a " covert."

Burrowing in imitation of rabbits was, next to cave dwelling, the most primitive condition of human existence. Over savages authentically cannibal by the evidence of Jerom. vol. ii., p. 75, which Gibbon accepts as veracious, it was good policy for a king of Scotland to place comparatively civilized leaders and governors like the Catti, who have long since amalgamated with the original Picts, as they were, in Caithness and the Orkneys. Claudiau says that Theodosius "warmed Thule [or Shetland] with the blood ofthe Picts;" and Pacatus states that the Saxons were " consumed in naval wars " at the same time ; so that the combination of the Catti with the Picts, or Saxon with Celt, CAITHNESS 4 is clear, as against the Romans, iu that fourth century. At the beginning of the fifth century the Picts and Scots together attacked South Britain, on the Romans withdrawing to defend themselves against Alaric, King of the Goths.

The Latinized and civilized Britons defended themselves as well as they could from 410 till 449, when they employed Hengist and Horsa, who had arrived with three Saxon cyules or vessels in Kent. These leaders effectually stopped the Irish (as the Scots are called by Turner) and the Picts, not improbably the heads of the northerns being also Saxon Danes, Greek thus meeting Greek. The chiefs of clans have long been considered of Norse origin, from their tall stature, light colour of eyes and hair, with other physical and mental peculiarities not Celtic. Mixture of race was and is, however, an omnipresent fact in all parts of this kingdom. Till Kenneth the Second's reign, the son of Alpin, North Scotland was under the Catti rulers, who had become Picts to all intents and purposes by blood and language, much as Englishmen have been transformed into Irishmen.

His reign covers from a.d. 834 to 854. In 839 the great struggle for supremacy between the two Celtic communities of Scotland was bloodily settled in favour of the Scots ; the Picts, as far as Orkney and Shetland, thoroughly subdued. Kenneth Macalpin ruled from Hadrian's wall to the Orkneys, according to George Buchanan the historian. But new expeditions of the Danes or Catti made the conquest of no value, the Scandinavians gradually re-occupying the whole of the islands and much of the mainland of Scotland, till 1263, when the defeat and death of King Hacon of Norway and the accession of his son King Magnus gave back some power again to the Scottish kings, though under tribute and homage. AA'hat the Catti were, how they governed Caithness, and for what time, can be gathered from such considerations to some true historical extent.

One of the most striking rounds of the wheel of life is to be seen in the fact that the ancestors of the Sinclair Earls of Caithness, when they were Earls or Princes of Orkney and Barons of Roslin Castle, Edinburgh, were also Dukes of Oldenburg in AA'estphalia, the exact homeland of the adventurous Catti. The duchy is now a part of the German empire, bnt in these Sinclairs' time belonged to Denmark, the principality acquired by them through a marriage with the Princess Florentia, daughter of the kino* EVENTS. 5 of that country. On the Continent a duke is not, as here, a noble merely, but a crowned sovereign. One of these Dukes of Oldenburg was Prince Henry Sinclair, who was installed in the principality of the Orkneys and Shetlands in 1379, by Haquin, King of Norway and Sweden, in succession to his father and grandfather, and was the accepted second person of those kingdoms.

Henry is now known to have been the first civilized discoverer of America, about 1390, a century in anticipation of Columbus, some of the true Catti in his sea company. Of his standing as Prince of Orkney there is a curious but absolute proof in Gibbon's " Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." Martin V. was elected pope in 1417, three years before Henry died in grand old age, by the five nations of Christendom. France maintained that England, Ireland, Scotland, etc., ought not to be counted one of the five, but the learned priests of Britain argued with success at Rome the right to equality. Their chief argument, to quote Gibbon, was that " including England, Scotland, AA'ales, the four kingdoms of Ireland, and the Orkneys, the British islands are decorated with eight royal crowns." The then ruler of the Saxon Catti in Oldenburg thus wore a second crown for the Orkneys.

As these German Danes were the founders of the Anglo-Saxon polities, their intimate relationships with Caithness have not only local but universal importance. Iu AATilliam Guthrie's "State of the AA'orld," 14th edition, 1794, it is said, under the heading, "His Danish Majesty's German Dominions," that "in Westphalia the King of Denmark has the counties of Oldenburg [population then 80,000] aud Delmenhorst [near Bremen], about 2000 square miles. They lie on the south side of the AA7eser. Their capitals have the same name. The first has the remains of a fortification and the last is an open place. Oldenburg gave a title to the first royal ancestor of his present Danish majesty. The country abounds with marshes and heaths, but its horses arc the best in Germany." Christian VII., born in 1749, was the reigning king of Denmark and Norway, married to Carolina Matilda, the unfortunate sister of his Britannic majesty George III.

There is a famous silver antique drinking vessel in the Royal Museum at Copen hagen, weighing about four pounds, called Comu Oldenburgicum, "the Oldenburg horn," wliich tradition says " was presented to Otho I., Duke of CAITHNESS EVENTS. Oldenburg, by a ghost. Some, however, are of opinion that this vessel was made by order of Christian I., King of Denmark, the first of the Oldenburg race, who reigned in 1448." Torfæus the historian dedicated his "Orcades" to his patron Christian V. in 1697, whom he described as King of Denmark, Norway, of the Vandals and the Goths, Duke of Sleswick, Holsatia, Stormaria, and Ditmersch (districts near Hamburg), and "Earl in Oldenburg and Delmenhorst," so that the last two had reverted from the Sinclairs to the the Danish royal family. Captain Kennedy, it will be seen later, refers to the Oldenburg and Delmenhorst ducliy being held by the ancestors of the present Earl of the Catti.

AA'illiam Sinclair, the famous Earl of Orkney, Chancellor of Scotland, and the first Earl of Caithness ofthe surname, created so in 1455, was the last Duke of Oldenburg. King James III. of Scotland, who reigned from 1460 to 1488, married Margaret, Princess of Denmark; and by purchase, exchange, pensioning, and other means transferred from AVilliam all his Norwegian rights ; a process which had been also going on, especially with reference to Orkney and Shetland, during the reign of the king's father, James II. AA'illiam's daughter, Lady Catherine, was married to James the Third's brother, Alexander, Duke of Albany ; and this family connection must have aided thc royal purposes of Denmark and Scotland. Enough, however, of digression from the MS., though few productions, in spite of essential value, need more of amplification and of bringing up to the modern mark of accuracy, founded on available histories, records, and other staple evidence. Of this the next chapter affords a notable example, the captain's limited means of knowledge more than an excuse for his artless honest errors.

Chapter II

, A BISHOP'S DEATH. " The Harolds and their successors of Danish or Norwegian descent were possessed of the lowlands of the county long after a regular and permanent church establishment had taken place in Scotland, of which the following tale is illustrative. The Bishop of Caithness having by many and repeated acts of great oppression incurred the general odium of the inhabitants of his diocese, they applied for redress to the Earl. He, either not inclined to give himself much trouble in the matter, or perhaps unwilling to come to any rupture with the church, told the complainers that he would take no concern in anything that related to their Bishop, and they might boil him if they pleased. Glad at having thus obtained what they were willing to con struct into a sanction for signal vengeance, which they meditated against the Bishop, the ferocious and infuriated populace pro ceeded immediately, in a body, towards the episcopal palace at Scrabster, near Thurso, the Bishop's ordinary residence.

Having learned, however, on their way that he had gone to Wick some days before, on a visit to the Vicar, who lived there, they turned back and proceeded thither. The Bishop, who was on the road homewards riding through Sibster attended CAITHNESS only by his servant, observed this disorderly troop coming forward to meet him. He instantly rode off full speed to the right, towards a place since called Kilmster, or * kill minister,' thinking by changing his course to have avoided meeting this band of desperadoes. They, however, having observed and pursued him, he alighted from his horse at a farm house, and to save his life, which he knew was aimed at, took shelter in a kind of hiding hole with which most houses in those days were provided. It is still, or was very lately, to be seen communi catinofrom the house to the corn-vard, under which it extended for a considerable distance.

Here his savage pursuers detected him and killed him, cutting his body in pieces, and boiling it, thus carrying the hint dropped by the Earl into execution to the letter. " The barbarous murder thus committed on a person of such high dignity in the church, stirred up, as may very naturally be supposed, the whole clergy of the kingdom to bring their complaints to the foot of the throne, and to insist on the most exemplary and condign punishment being inflicted on all the perpetrators and abettors of so horrid and sacrilegious an out rage. Many disorders also having about that time taken place in different parts of the kingdom, but more especial!}** in the north as being farthest removed from the scale of justice, Kino- William the Lion [who reigned from 1165 to 1214] found it had become necessary to make a personal progress into those distant parts, for the punishment of the guilty and restoration of order among his subjects.

Accordingly, having collected a sufficient force, he commenced his journey, redressing grievances EVENTS. 9 and punishing offenders and rebels on his way north, till he at last arrived at the extremity of the kingdom. Having reached Caithness a.d. 1198, he took up his residence in Wick, and directed all the Harold connection to be convened before him on a certain day at Kilmster. On a strict inquiry into all the circumstances of the bishop's death, they were condemned to the worst form of jiersonal mutilation, the sentence executed at once on the spot. As further penance and atonement, they were ordained to build a steeple to the church of Wick. The field in Kilmster where the trial was held and these bloody transactions took place is to this day called the King's Field or King's Stead. It adjoins the farm house.

The steeple of AVick was built by the punished Harold party, and continued standing till the middle of the eighteenth century. Having fallen into decay, the rain penetrating many parts of the building, it gave way at the foundation on a Sunday morning, tumbling with a tremendous crash to the west. The bell, which was of very fine tone and long used thereafter by the church, came to the ground on the outside of the churchyard, without sustaining any material damage. A small bit was broken out of the lip of it, which injured the sound little or nothing. On building a new church lately, this bell was exchanged for another, not nearly so good, though of much larger dimensions. Effectual and radical measures, as above, were taken for extinguishing the Harold race." The want of record references, and also of the ordinary historical books, is manifest in Captain Kennedy's narrative ; but, none the less, he CAITHNESS has added strange details of some transactions of the past.

It seems that another bishop still of Caithness must be added to the two already known to have been killed by violence, and that the scene of the death was a few miles from AATick as described, the connection with steeple-building sugges tively corroborative. Tradition may possibly have mangled established history to its own impressions, and the " kill-minister " theory is not reassuring, Kilmster meaning " church glebe." After stating what is known of murdered bishops, some judgment may be arrived at as to Avhether the Kilmster tale had footing. George Buchanan in his " History of Scotland," book vii., cap. 49, says that a rumour of the death of King AATilliam the Lion had raised commotions, and " Harold, Earl of Orkney and Caithness, enraged with the Bishop of Caithness because he believed that the prelate had been decrying some of his demands from the king, seized him and deprived him of his eyes and tongue.

The king destroyed most of the forces of Earl Harold in several battles. He hanged by his executioner their leader, after putting out his eyes, having been taken in flight, and all his male offspring he gave over to be emasculated. He fined in great sums of money the relatives and committers of the crimes. These things are narrated by JBoethius, ami confirmed by common report. A hill preserves the memory of thc transactions, by taking its name from the emasculation." Thc date he gives is 1199, which practically is the same as Kennedy's. Another quotation from Buchanan proves mixing of events by the manuscript : — "In the year 1222, the Caithnessians having entered the sleeping-chamber of Adam their bishop, slew by night his chamber-servant, a monk, whom he had as companion, according to his manner, for he had formerly been Abbot of Melrose.