The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

26o THE HIGHLANDERS [part ii
b}' analogy, the Thanes and Abthanes of Scotland must have
been also land proprietors. In order to ascertain the period in
which they were introduced into Scotland, it \vill be necessary
to advert shortly to the events in Scottish history which caused
the introduction of Saxon polity. It is well known that Duncan,
the son of Crinan, was killed by Macbeth, and that his son
Malcolm fled to England for protection ; and it is now equally
clear that Macbeth was not the usurper he is generally con-
sidered, but that he claimed the throne under the Celtic law of
succession, and that he was supported throughout by the Celtic
inhabitants of the country, who inhabited all to the north of the
Firths of Forth and Clyde, Lothian being possessed by the
Angli. Malcolm Canmore was placed upon the throne by an
English army. On his death, however, his brother Donald
succeeded in obtaining possession of the crown, to the prejudice
f'f Malcolm's sons ; and as he claimed the throne on the Celtic
law that brothers succeeded before sons, he was supported by
the Celtic inhabitants, and his party succeeded in expelling the
English whom Malcolm had introduced. Donald was expelled
by an English arm\' composed principally of Normans, who
placed Duncan, Malcolm's eldest son, generally considered a
bastard, on the throne, but finding he could not retain possession
of it without the concurrence of the Celtic part)', Duncan was
forced to dismiss the English once more— a measure which did
not avail him, for he was slain by his uncle, Donald Bane, and
the expulsion of the English completed. Edgar, his brother,
now made the third attempt to introduce the English, and
succeeded, but he was in a very different situation from his
father and his brother : they had been placed on the throne by
an English army composed principally of Normans, vv^ho left
them when they had succeeded in iheir immediate object, but
Edgar was, through his mother, the heir of the Saxon monarch}and
the legitimate sovereign of all the Saxons, a part of whom
{possessed the south of Scotland. This is a fact which has
not been attended to in Scottish history, but it is a most
it is certain that Edgar entered Scotland
important one ; and
at the head of a purely Saxon army, and that during his reign
and that of his successor, Alexander I., the constitution of Scotland
was purely Saxon. The Norman barons and Norman