Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

46 HISTORY OP THE WESTKRN ISLANDS.
the people declared Reginald's throne vacant, and invited
OJave to take possession.
We should be very well pleased to know who " the
people" were in this case ; as we perceive something of
uo small importance in this act, as to the nature of the
Norwegian insular monarchies. It seems that the nobles,
or aristocracy, sometimes controuled the Norwegian
kings, as they did the Irish and Highland chiefs ; but
whether in the character of the Ephori of Sparta, as
elected Tribunes of the people, or as exercising the here-
ditary right of aristocracy or consanguinity, does not well
appear. But in this case, a more extensive body of the peo-
ple seems concerned; and this proceeding, coupled with
some others which appear in the course of these Chroni-
cles, seems sufficient to prove that the various Norwegian
states had imbibed and established those principles of
free government which we find among the Prisons and
many other of the descendants of the Goths, and to
which we owe our own constitution. Nor is it unlikely,
for other reasons, that " the people" was somewhat more
than a mere aristocracy ; as the present House of Keys
of the Isle of Mann, which is the popular portion of
that government, is a relic of the Norwegian constitution,
though an apparently corrupted body. Here we
have the right of the people to regulate the succession,
acknowledged as fully as it has been by our own Parlia-
ment ; as the ambassadors to Norway, Gilchrist and
Ottar Snikoll, were ambassadors from the people to Haco,
and as this is not mentioned as an act of disorder or in-
subordination. It is doubtless from this source that the
laws of Tanistry in Ireland, and the check which the
Highland Clans held over the succession of their Chiefs
in after times, originated : rights which were not only
advantageously exercised on some occasions, but formed