Next to the chief stood the _tanist_ or person who, by the laws of tanistry, was entitled to succeed to the chiefship; he possessed this title during the lifetime of the chief, and, in virtue of his apparent honours, was considered as a man of mark and consequence. “In the settlement of succession, the law of tanistry prevailed in Ireland from the earliest accounts of time. According to that law,” says Sir James Ware, “the hereditary right of succession was not maintained among the princes or the rulers of countries; but the strongest, or he who had the most followers, very often the eldest and most worthy of the deceased king’s blood and name, succeeded him. This person, by the common suffrage of the people, and in the lifetime of his predecessor, was appointed to succeed, and was called _Tanist_, that is to say, the second in dignity. Whoever received this dignity maintained himself and followers, partly out of certain lands set apart for that purpose, but chiefly out of tributary impositions, which he exacted in an arbitrary manner; impositions from which the lands of the church only, and those of persons vested with particular immunities, were exempted. The same custom was a fundamental law in Scotland for many ages. Upon the death of a king, the throne was not generally filled by his son, or daughter, failing of male issue, but by his brother, uncle, cousin-german, or near relation of the same blood. The personal merit of the successor, the regard paid to the memory of his immediate ancestors, or his address in gaining a majority of the leading men, frequently advanced him to the crown, notwithstanding the precautions taken by his predecessor.”[128] According to Mr E. W. Robertson,[129] the _Tanist_, or heir-apparent, appears to have been nominated at the same time as the monarch or chief, and in pursuance of what he considers a true Celtic principle, that of a “divided authority;” the office being immediately filled up in case of the premature death of the Tanist, the same rule being as applicable to the chieftain of the smallest territory as to the chosen leader of the nation. According to Dr Macpherson, it appears that at first the Tanist or successor to the monarchy, or chiefship, was elected, but at a very early period the office seems to have become hereditary, although not in the feudal sense of that term. Mr Skene has shown that the succession was strictly limited to heirs male, and that the great peculiarity of the Highland system was that brothers invariably were preferred to sons. This perhaps arose partly from an anxiety to avoid minorities “in a nation dependent upon a competent leader in war.” This principle was frequently exemplified in the succession to the mormaordoms, and even to the kingly power itself; it formed one of the pleas put forward by Bruce in his competition for the crown with Baliol.