Scotland Author:Walter Scott, Mayo Williamson Hazeltine Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV Malcolm IV.—William the Lion: his Captivity—Treaty of Falaise: Abrogated by Richard I.—Death and Character of William— Alexander II.: his Death ... more »MALCOLM IV., at the age of twelve years, succeeded to his excellent grandfather, David I., 1153. Being a Celtic prince, succeeding to a people of whom the great proportion were Celts, he was inaugurated at Scone with the peculiar ceremonies belonging to the Scoto-Irish race. In compliance with their ancient customs, he was placed upon a fated stone, dedicated to this solemn use, and brought for that purpose from Ireland by Fergus, the son of Eric. An Iro-Scottish or Highland bard also stepped forward, and chanted to the people a Gaelic poem, containing the catalogue of the young king's ancestors, from the reign of the same Fergus, founder of the dynasty.1 The poem has been fortunately preserved, and must not be considered in the light of one of Gibber's birthday odes. On the contrary, it was an exposition from the king to the people of the royal descent, in virtue of which he claimed their obedience, and bears a sufficiently accurate conformity with other meagre documents on the same subject, to enable modern antiquaries, by comparing the lists, to form a regular catalogue of these barbarous kings or kinglets of the Dalriadic race. 1 The Celtic bard was usually a genealogist or scannachie, and the display of his talents was often exhibited in the recital of versified pedigrees. In a burlesque poem, called the Howlat, such a character is introduced in ridicule. It was written in the reign of James II., when all reverence for the bardic profession was lost, at least in the lowlands.— See the Bannatyne edition of this ancient poem. In Malcolm's reign the lords of the Hebridean islands, who were in a state of independenc...« less