The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

28 THE HIGHLANDERS [part i
same rule of election applied to the chiefs of the different tribes
as well as to the monarch of the whole nation. The fact of the
regal succession of the Picts being so peculiar does not in itself
by any means lead to the inference that the same principles must
have regulated the succession of the chiefs, for it is plain that
this peculiarity assumed its form, not from the general principles
of succession having always been so, but from the fact of the
Picts having been rather an association of small and indepen-
dent tribes united onl\' b}' similarity of origin and language,
and for purposes of mutual safety, than one compact nation.
Consequentl)' no argument drawn from the nature of the
succession to an office of no distant origin, and one produced
b\' adventitious circumstances, can affect the question as to the
nature of succession in general, which must have existed from
the beginning, and which it is scarcely possible that circum-
stances can alter. Whatever was the nature of the succession
among the chiefs, we may infer with great probability that when
one of these chiefs succeeded in perpetuating the succession to
the throne in his own tribe, the mode of succession introduced
b\- him must have been that previously existing in his own tribe.
This was effected for the first time by Constantin, who commenced
his reign anno 791. He was succeeded by his brother
Angus. Angus was succeeded by Drust the son of Constantin,
and Drust b)' Uen the son of Angus. We see here, that though
this was strictly a male succession, yet that in several points it
differs from our ordinarv rules of male succession. Thus it
seems to have been a fixed rule among the Picts that brothers
in all cases succeeded before sons ; this is observable in the
catalogues of the Pictish kings, and also in the only instance
we possess of succession to the government of a tribe when
Nectan is succeeded in Atholl by his brother, Talorg. Secondly,
after all the brothers had succeeded, the children of the elcler
brother were called to the succession ; and, thirdly, as in the
case before us, in their failure the sons of the second brother
succeeded, and so forth.
Among the Dalriads the rules of succession to the government
of the different tribes appear to have been very much the
same ;
this is evident upon referring to the genealogies
of the
Dalriadic kings, and it A\ould be needless to multiply examples.