"Maclean of Duart expecting an invasion of his lands in Mull, by his powerful neighbour the Earl of Argyll, applied to Glengarry for assistance. Æneas of Glengarry marched at the head of five hundred men to Ardtornish, nearly opposite Duart Castle, and crossing with a few of his officers to arrange the passage of the men across the Sound of Mull, Maclean, rejoicing at the arrival of such a friend, offered some choice wine in a golden chalice, part of the plunder of Iona. Glengarry was struck with horror, and said, folding his handkerchief about the chalice, 'Maclean, I came here to defend you against mortal enemies, but since by sacrilege and profanation you have made God your enemy, no human means can serve you.' Glengarry returned to his men, and Maclean sent the chalice and some other pieces of plate belonging to the service of the altar, with a deputation of his friends, to persuade him to join him; but he marched home. His example was followed by several other chiefs, and poor Maclean was left to compete single-handed with his powerful enemy."
Such was the last historical incident connected with the golden chalice of Iona, perhaps without exception the most interesting ecclesiastical relic which Scotland possessed. Unfortunately its later history only finds a parallel in that of the celebrated Danish golden horns. It was preserved in the charter-chest of Glengarry, until it was presented by the late Chief to Bishop Ronald M'Donald, on whose demise it came into the possession of his successor, Dr. Scott, Bishop of Glasgow. Only five years since the sacristy of St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church in that city, where it was preserved, was broken into, and before the police could obtain a clue to the depredators, the golden relic of Iona was no longer a chalice. Thus perished by the hands of a common felon a memorial of the spot consecrated by the labours of some of the earliest Christian missionaries to the Pagan Caledonians, and which had probably survived the vicissitudes of upwards of ten centuries. In reply to inquiries made as to the existence of any drawing of the chalice, or even the possibility of a trustworthy sketch being executed from memory, a gentleman in Glasgow writes:—"I have no means of getting even a sketch from which to make a drawing. Were I a good hand myself I could easily furnish one, having often examined it. It was a chalice that no one could look on without being convinced of its very great antiquity. The workmanship was rude, the ornamental drawings or engravings even more hard than medieval ones in their outlines, and the cup bore mark of the original hammering which had beaten it into shape."
The oldest existing Scottish relic of this class is the "Dunvegan Cup," celebrated by Sir Walter Scott in his "Lord of the Isles," and still sacredly guarded in the Castle of Dunvegan, in Skye, along with other Celtic heirlooms of the chiefs of MacLeod. "The Horn of Rorie More," says Scott, "preserved in the family, and recorded by Dr. Johnson, is not to be compared with this piece of antiquity, which is one of the greatest curiosities in Scotland." Its dimensions are nine inches and three quarters in inside depth, ten and a half in height on the outside, the extreme measure over the lips being four inches and a half. The engraving on Plate VI. is from a private plate in the possession of C. K. Sharpe, Esq., executed from a drawing by Mrs. MacLeod. Another, but much less accurate or minute view of this curious relic is given in the Archæologia, from a sketch by Mr. Daniell.[693] These will serve better than any elaborate description to convey a correct idea of its peculiar form. The material of the cup is wood, to all appearance oak, most curiously wrought and embossed with silver work. A series of projecting bosses appear to have been jewelled, and two or three of them still retain their simple settings. The ledge, the projecting brim, and the four legs which support the cup, are of silver, which with the other silver mountings appear to have been gilt. Around the exterior is an inscription in Gothic characters, which Sir Walter Scott deciphered nearly as follows:[694]—
Ufo : Johis : Mich : Mgn : Principis : De :
Hi : Manæ : Vich : Liahia : Mgryneil :
Et : Spat : Do : Jhu : Da : Clea : Ill : Dea : Ipa :
Fecit : Ano : Di : Ix : 93º Onili : Oimi :
It may be thus extended:—Ufo Johannis Mich Magni Principis de Hi Manæ Vich Liahia Magryneil et sperat Domino Jhesu dari clementiam illi deæ ipsa. Fecit Anno Domini 993 Onili Oimi. The inscription is a curious specimen of early Celtic Latinity:—Ufo, the son of John, the son of Magnus, Prince of the Isle of Man, the grandson of Liahia Macgryneil, trusts in the Lord Jesus that mercy will be given to him in that day. Oneil Oimi made this in the year of God nine hundred and ninety-three. Within the mouth of the cup, on each of the four sides, is the sacred monogram, i.h.s., which, coupled with the tenour of the inscription, leaves little room to doubt, notwithstanding its unusual form, that it had been originally designed for a chalice, and gifted by Ufo for the service of the altar. The family legends of the Macleods associate it with some old traditional chief or hero, Neil Ghlune-dhu, or Black-knee, but it seems to have been a family heirloom from time immemorial.
The use of wooden vessels as chalices was, for obvious reasons, abandoned at an early period, so that the calices lignei became in later ages a proverbial illustration of the obsolete simplicity of primitive ages. "We may now take up that old regrait," exclaims Fountainhall, in moralizing on the immense wealth first acquired by the Church, about A.D. 600, "when ther ware calices lignei ther ware then sacerdotes aurei, but now when our chalices are of gold and silver, we have got ligneos sacerdotes."[695] Vessels of wood, even though mounted and jewelled, like the Dunvegan chalice, were very early disused in the services of the altar; and the mazer cup or maple bowl constituted one of the most prominent implements in the conviviality of the Middle Ages. The name indeed ceased at an early period to be exclusively reserved for those manufactured from the wood of the maple tree, from whence the mazer had derived its name, and was at length applied to all drinking cups of a certain class, of whatever material. Among the beautiful examples of medieval art recently exhibited at the London Royal Society of Arts, was a beautiful mazer bowl of silver-gilt, of fifteenth century workmanship, which belongs to Oriel College, Oxford. Of the same class also, probably, were some of the Scottish cups enumerated in a curious inventory of the treasure and jewels of James III., "fundin in a bandit kist like a gardeviant," among which are the "foure masaris, callit King Robert the Brocis, with a cover," and again, "the hede of silver of ane of the coveris of masar." The same "Collection of Inventorys of Royal Wardrobe and Jewell-house," from 1488 to 1606, furnishes some interesting minutiæ in regard to the royal plate and jewels, and the consecrated vessels for the service of the altar. Besides the mazers, there is "ane cowp callit king Robert the Bruce coupe, of silver owirgilt,"—another pleasing evidence of the reverence with which the name of the saviour of his country continued to be regarded. The royal plate and jewels are of an exceedingly curious and costly character, while among the "chapell geir" we find "ane chesabill of purpour velvot, with the stoyle and fannowne, orphis, twa abbis," &c. Another of "crammosie velvot, furniset with a stole and a fannoun only;" another "of black velvot, with croce upoune it, broderrit of clayth of gold." Altar cloths, broidered and jewelled; "ane challeis and ane patene gilt;" "ane caise of silver for the messbreid, with ane cover;" "ane litil cors with precious stanis;" "ane lytill box of gold with the haly croce, send be the Duk of Albany to the kingis graice;" "ane croce of silver, with our Lady and Sanct Johne, gilt." Of silver, "ouregilt," in Edinburgh Castle, "twa chandleris, ane chalice and ane patine, ane halie watter fatt," &c.; "ane bell of silver;" "ane bassing; ane laver of fyne massy gold, with thrissillis and lelleis crounit upoun the samen," &c. The list indeed, of which these are only a few illustrations, greatly exceeds what might have been anticipated at a period succeeding many years of national disaster and suffering. It is to be regretted that scarcely a solitary example of the medieval Scottish "chapell geir," or of the royal mazer, or convivial bowl, remains to illustrate the usages of our ancestors. We learn, however, from these old inventories, that there was no lack of either, and also that the value attached to the mazer cup dates in Scotland, as elsewhere, from a very early period. This probably originated in part from superstitious feelings, arising from some special virtue attached to the wood of the maple tree. But its close grain, the beauty of its variegated surface, and its susceptibility of high polish, were doubtless the chief reasons for its continued use as the material for the pledge-cup and wassail bowl; and when it was replaced by other woods, or even by the precious metals, the old name was still retained. The woodcut represents a mazer of very simple form, and probably of an early age, made not of the maple but the ash, a tree famed of old for many supernatural qualities. It was found in the deep draw-well, in the ruined castle of Merdon, near Hursly, built by Bishop Henry de Blois, A.D. 1138.[696] The ciphus de mazero frequently figures among the household effects of citizens of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and is no less commonly alluded to by the elder poets, as in Robert de Brunne's version of Wace's Brut, written in the latter part of the thirteenth century, where "mazers of rich price" are specified among the gifts bestowed by king Arthur on his foreign guests. The mazer figures also in the inventory of goods of the Sheriff of Nottingham, taken by "Lytell John," as printed by Wynken de Worde, in the popular black-letter ballad,—"A Lytell geste of Robyn Hode;" and it is thus introduced in the fine old Scottish ballad of "Gill Morice,"
"Then up an' spak the bauld baron,
An angry man was he;
He's ta'en the table wi' his foot,
Sae has he wi' his knee,
Till siller cup an' mazer dish
In flinders he garr'd flee."
