The charters of Eadgar relate mainly to land south of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, and we find that the immediate dependants of the Court, who formed the witnesses to these charters, were certainly Saxons; and when Alexander the First founded the monastery of Scone after the attempt made upon his life by the Gaelic population of the northern provinces, we find that the foundation charter is framed upon the model of the Saxon charters. Like the latter, which were granted with the assent of the members of the Witenagemot, who subscribe the charter as consenting parties with the designation of Episcopus and Abbas if churchmen, and of Comes or Dux if earls, without the addition of the diocese, monastery, or earldom with which they were connected; so we find this charter granted with the consent of nine persons, two of whom have the simple designation of Episcopus, who are followed by seven others, six of whom have the word Comes or Earl after their names; and the only one who is not so designated is Gospatrick, whom we know to have been at the time Earl of Dunbar, and who probably represented that part of Lothian attached to Alexander’s kingdom. The other six must of course have represented the districts of transmarine Scotland, which properly formed Alexander’s dominions. We thus find in his reign a body constituted somewhat similarly to that portion of the Witenagemot of the Saxon monarchs, and exercising similar functions.[67] The six persons, however, who bear the title of Comes are Beth, Mallus, Madach, Rothri, Gartnach, and Dufagan, and of these we can identify four. Mallus is undoubtedly the Mallus Comes Stradarniæ or Earl of Stratherne, who took such a prominent part in the Battle of the Standard.[68] Madach is that Maddach, _Jarl of Atjoklum_, or Earl of Atholl, said in the Orkneyinga Saga to be the son of Melkolfr or Melmare, brother of Malcolm the Third.[69] Rothri appears in a charter in the Book of Deer, granted in the eighth year of King David, as Ruadri, Mormaer of Mar; and Gartnach is the Gartnait, son of Cainnech, Mormaer of Buchan, who grants the charter. The remaining two, Beth and Dufagan, cannot be identified with certainty, but the resemblance of the name of the latter to Dubican, who appears at an earlier date as Mormaer of Angus, leads to the supposition that he may have filled that position. At all events there is enough to show that the six persons who appear with the title of Comes as representing the districts north of the Firths, were the same persons whom we have hitherto found in connection with these districts bearing the title of Mormaer; and thus the great Celtic chiefs of the country, to whom the Norwegians applied the Norwegian title of Jarl, which was a personal dignity though given in connection with a territory, now appear bearing the Saxon title of Comes or Earl, and the Celtic title of Mormaer, probably official in its origin, was now merged in a personal dignity.[70]