Celtic Scotland : $b A history of ancient Alban. Volume 3 (of 3), Land and peopleSkene, W. F. (William Forbes)
History
Celtic Scotland : $b A history of ancient Alban. Volume 3 (of 3), Land and people
Skene, W. F. (William Forbes)
Celts -- Scotland; Civilization, Celtic; Scotland -- Antiquities, Celtic; Scotland -- History -- To 1603
Mr. Robertson, in his valuable work of _Scotland under her Early
Kings_, considers that Beth in the Scone charter is written by a
clerical error for Heth, that he is the same person with the Ed and
Head of David’s charters, and was Earl of Moray, and father of that
Angus, Earl of Moray, defeated and slain in 1130 (vol. i. pp. 104,
190). This opinion is mainly grounded on the fact that Wimund, when he
claimed to be the son of Angus, called himself Malcolm MacHeth, but
Beth appears in the same form in a subsequent charter in the Scone
chartulary (p. 4), and an identification, which requires us to suppose
that the name has been miswritten in two charters, is not admissible.
Moreover, it is not likely that an Earl of Moray should witness the
foundation-charter of a monastery erected as a thank-offering for the
defeat of the men of Moray in that year. As the great province of Fif
consisted of the two old districts of Fyfe and Fothrithi, it is not
impossible that there may at first have been an Earl connected with
each, and that Beth, occupying here the leading place in which the
subsequent Earls of Fife are invariably found, may have been earl
along with Edelrad, and that the latter is the Ed who, along with
Constantin, witnesses the earliest charter of King David, as there is
a circumflex through the d of Ed, which implies that some letters
after it have been omitted. This would account for Constantin
appearing in the charter of Edelrad as if he were his contemporary. It
may be observed that the Admore which Edelrad grants was in Fothrif,
while Constantin appears in connection with Kirkcaldy in Fife, and
that the name of the Thane of Falkland being Macbeath, shows that the
name Beath was also connected with Fife. Head may certainly have been
the Earl of Moray who preceded Angus, and gave his name to the family
of MacHeth.
Footnote 75:
See charter by Alexander the Second to Earl Malcolm of Fife, son of
Duncan, Earl of Fife, of the comitatus de Fyfe. ‘Sicut Comes Duncanus
frater suus comitatem illum tenuit ... Sicut carta regis David de
predicto comitatu facta comiti Duncano patri ejus.’—_National MSS._
vol. i. p. 28.
Footnote 76:
Fordun, _Chron._ (Annals, III.) vol. ii. p. 251; and see note, p. 430.
Footnote 77:
‘Ingibiorg, the mother of the earls,’ married Melkolf, king of
Scotland, who was called Langhals. Their son was Dungad, king of
Scotland, the father of William, who was a good man. His son was
William the Noble, whom all the Scots wished to take for their
king.—_Collect. de Reb. Alb._ 40, p. 346.
Footnote 78:
Wyntoun, _Chron._ B. vii. c. vii.
Footnote 79:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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