[428] Ben. Ab. 1176. The policy of Gilbert in driving out all “foreigners”—all who had not a “right of blood” to hold land in Galloway—was simply a repetition of the course adopted under Donald Bane and Duncan II. Galloway, in short, was a century behind Scotia.
[429] “On the Sunday which happens in the middle of Lent, the pope was wont to bear in his hand a rose of gold, enamelled red, and perfumed; this he bestowed as a mark of grace.... By the rose Christ was figured, by the gold, his kingly office; by the red colour, his passion; and by the perfume, his resurrection. This is no impertinent Protestant gloss,” adds Lord Hailes, “it is the interpretation given by Alexander III., when he sent the mystical present to Lewis VII., king of France.” Hailes’ Annals, vol. 1, p. 140, note.
[430] The whole account of these transactions will be found—at far greater length than is accorded to matters of far greater importance—in Hoveden, 1180, p. 341–342; 1181, p. 350–351; 1182, p. 351–352; 1183, p. 354; 1186, p. 360–361; 1188, p. 368–369–370. I need hardly add that it will scarcely repay the perusal. The death of Hugh, of malaria, at Rome in 1188, may have been the real cause of the conclusion of the dispute. It was on the occasion of this visit of William to Normandy that Diceto has recorded his astonishment at the unwonted spectacle of a meeting between four kings passing over without a quarrel, “pacificos convenisse, pacificos recessisse!”
[431] Donald filius Willelmi filii Duncani, qui sæpius calumniatus fuerat Regnum Scotiæ, et multitotiens furtivas invasiones in regnum illud fecerat, per mandatum quorundam potentium virorum de Regno Scotiæ, cum copiosa multitudine armata applicuit in Scotia. Ben. Ab. 1181.
[432] Ben. Ab. 1181. Chron. Mel. 1179. Fordun, l. 8, c. 28. The first is supposed to have been Redcastle; the second was in the neighbourhood of Cromarty, commanding the entrance of the Firth, and securing that part of the province which was the seat of the bishopric of Rosmarkinch.
[433] Ben. Ab. 1184. Strictly speaking, Matilda was no longer duchess of Saxony, as her husband, Henry the Lion, had been forfeited five years previously by the Emperor Frederic, who gave his duchy of Saxony to Bernard of Anhalt, son of Albert the Bear, first Margrave of Brandenburg. But Bernard never made good his claims over the Saxons on the Weser, the tenants of the Allodial lands to which Henry had succeeded in right of his mother Gertrude, heiress of the Saxon Emperor Lothaire.
[434] Ben. Ab. 1185. Hoveden 1184, p. 355.
[435] Ben. Ab. 1185.
[436] Ben. Ab. 1185. Fordun, l. 8, c. 39. There is no actual mention made of the residence of Roland at the Scottish court; but his marriage with the daughter of one of William’s firmest adherents, and the favour subsequently shown to him by the king, afford very fair evidence that he was closely connected with Scotland; so that during his exile he most probably resided in the country from which he drew a great part of the army with which he re-established himself in Galloway.
[437] Ben. Ab. 1185. Fordun, l. 8, c. 39. Chron. Mel. 1185. From the latest of Mr. Innes’ interesting contributions to Scottish history it may be gathered that this Gillecolm was probably a certain Gillecolm Mariscall, who “rendered up the king’s castle of Heryn feloniously, and afterwards wickedly and traitorously went over to his mortal enemies, and stood with them against the king, to do him hurt to his power.”—Sketches of Early Scottish History, p. 208.