Another of these ancient earldoms, however, soon after terminated in the male line, and this raised a question which throws some light upon their character and relation to the law of feudal tenures. When Fergus, the last of the old Celtic earls of Buchan, died in the end of King William’s reign, there seems to have been no doubt that the earldom devolved upon his daughter Marjory, which she carried to her husband, William Cumyn; but when Henry, the last of the old Earls of Atholl, died, soon after the accession of Alexander the Second, his heirs were two sisters, Isabella and Forflissa, and the question at once arose whether the earldom was partible between them, as was the case with any feudal barony, or whether it devolved in its entirety upon the elder sister, Isabella, who had married Thomas of Galloway, brother of Alan, Lord of Galloway. This question, and the decision of the _Curia regis_ or royal court, consisting of the tenants in chief of the Crown, are incidentally mentioned when the same discussion took place before Edward the First between three of the competitors for the crown on the death of the Maid of Norway. These were John Baliol, who claimed as grandson of Margaret, the eldest daughter of David, earl of Huntingdon; Robert de Bruce, who claimed as son of his second daughter Isabella; and John de Hastings, as grandson of Ada, the youngest daughter. The competition for the crown came eventually to be between Baliol, who claimed as representing Earl David through his eldest daughter, and Bruce, who asserted that being his grandson he was one step nearer, and should be preferred to his great-grandson, notwithstanding that he was thus connected through the second daughter. John de Hastings, who, like Baliol, stood only in the relation of great-grandson, admitted the right of the latter to the throne, if the kingdom was maintained in its entirety, but asserted that being held under the English Crown, it was partible like any other feudal holding, and that he ought to be preferred to one-third of the territory of the kingdom; and Robert Bruce put in a further claim, that in the event of his right to the whole being rejected, he was likewise entitled to one-third. His argument was this—‘The land of Scotland, albeit it is called a kingdom, ought to be partible, by reason that the event which has now happened to Scotland, seeing that it is held in fee of our lord the king of England by homage, is no other than similar to what it would have been as to an earldom or a barony of the realm of England which had descended in such case. And if an earldom or barony had descended to three daughters, with the issue of them, each would have her purpart, seeing that the three daughters represent but one heir of all the heritage of their father; so that no advantage ought to accrue unto the eldest, or unto the issue of her, except solely the name of the dignity, and especially of the chief