The author has elsewhere endeavoured to complete the work commenced by Thomas Innes. He has collected together in one volume the whole of the existing chronicles and other memorials of the history of Scotland prior to the appearance of Fordun’s Chronicle, and has subjected them, as well as the work of Fordun, to a critical examination and analysis.[[11]]
He now proposes to take a farther step in advance, and to attempt in the present work to place the early history of the country upon a sounder basis, and to exhibit Celtic Scotland, so far as these materials enable him to do so, in a clearer and more authentic light. By following their guidance, and giving effect to fair and just inferences from their statements unbiassed by theory or partiality, and subjected to the corrective tests of comparison with those physical records which the country itself presents, it is hoped that it may not be found impossible to make some approximation to the truth, even with regard to the annals of this early period of Scottish history.
It may be said that this task has been rendered unnecessary by the appearance of Mr. Burton’s History of Scotland, which commences the narrative with the invasion of Agricola, and claims ‘the two fundamental qualities of a serviceable history—completeness and accuracy;’[[12]] but, with much appreciation of the merits of Mr. Burton’s work as a whole, the author is afraid that he cannot recognise it as possessing either character, so far as the early part of the history is concerned, and he considers that the ground which the present work is intended to occupy remains still unappropriated.
Spurious authorities.
It remains for him to indicate here at the outset the materials founded upon by the previous writers which he considers of questionable authority, or must reject as entirely spurious.
Among the first to be rejected as entirely spurious is the work attributed to Richard of Cirencester, De situ Britanniæ et Stationum quas Romani ipsi in ea insula ædificaverunt. It was published in 1757 from a MS. said to be discovered at Copenhagen by Charles Julius Bertram, and was at once adopted as genuine. The author at a very early period came to the conclusion that the whole work, including the itineraries, was an impudent forgery, and this has since been so amply demonstrated, and is now so generally admitted, that it is unnecessary to occupy space by proving it.[[13]] The whole of the Roman part of Pinkerton’s Enquiry and of the elaborate work of Chalmers is tainted by it; and, what is perhaps more to be regretted, the valuable work of General Roy[[14]] on The Military Antiquities of the Romans in Britain, published in 1793. He says in his introduction, ‘From small beginnings it is, however, no unusual thing to be led imperceptibly to engage in more extensive and laborious undertakings, as will easily appear from what follows, for since the discovery of Agricola’s camps, the work of Richard of Cirencester having likewise been found out in Denmark and published to the world, the curious have thereby been furnished with many new lights concerning the Roman history and geography of Britain in general, but more particularly the north part of it,’ and by this unfortunate adoption of the forged work by General Roy, there has been lost to the world, to a great extent, the advantage of the commentary of one so well able to judge of military affairs. Horsley’s valuable work, the Britannia Romana, was fortunately published in 1732 before this imposition was practised on the literary world; but Stuart has not been equally fortunate in his Caledonia Romana, published in 1845, the usefulness of which is greatly impaired by it.
Among the Welsh documents which are usually founded upon as affording materials for the early history of the country, there is one class of documents contained in the Myvyrian Archæology which cannot be accepted as genuine. The principal of these are the so-called Historical Triads, which have been usually quoted as possessing undoubted claims to antiquity under the name of the Welsh Triads; the tale called Hanes Taliessin, or the history of Taliessin; and a collection of papers printed by the Welsh ms. Society, under the title of the Iolo MSS. These all proceeded from Edward Williams, one of the editors of the Myvyrian Archæology published in 1801, and who is better known under the bardic title of Iolo Morganwg. The circumstances under which he produced these documents, or the motives which led him to introduce so much questionable matter into the literature of Wales, it is difficult now to determine; but certain it is that no trace of them is to be found in any authentic source, and that they have given a character to Welsh literature which is much to be deplored. In a former work, the author in reviewing these documents merely said, ‘It is not unreasonable therefore to say that they must be viewed with some suspicion, and that very careful discrimination is required in the use of them.’ He does not hesitate now to reject them as entirely spurious.[[15]]
It will of course be impossible to write upon the Celtic period of Scottish history without making a large use of Irish materials; and it is difficult to over-estimate the importance of the Irish Annals for this purpose; but these too must be used with some discrimination. The ancient history of Ireland presents the unusual aspect of the minute and detailed annals of reigns and events from a period reaching back to many centuries before the Christian era, the whole of which has been adopted by her historians as genuine. The work of Keating, written in Irish in 1640, a translation of which by Dermod O’Connor was published in 1726, may be taken as a fair representation of it. The earlier part of this history is obviously artificial, and is viewed by recent Irish historians more in the light of legend; but there is nothing whatever in the mode in which the annals of the different reigns are narrated to show where legend terminates and history begins, and there is a tendency among even the soundest writers on Irish history to push the claims of these annals to a historical character beyond the period to which it can reasonably be attached. For the events in Irish history the Annals of the Four Masters are usually quoted. There is a certain convenience in this, as it is the most complete chronicle which Ireland possesses; but it was compiled as late as the seventeenth century, having been commenced in 1632 and finished in 1636. The compilers were four eminent Irish antiquaries, the principal of whom was Michael O’Clery, whence it was termed by Colgan the Annals of the Four Masters. These annals begin with the year of the Deluge, said to be the year of the world 2242, or 2952 years before Christ, and continue in an unbroken series to the year of our Lord 1616. The latter part of the annals are founded upon other documents which are referred to in the preface, and from which they are said to be taken, but the authority for each event is not stated, and some of those recorded are not to be found elsewhere, and are open to suspicion.[[16]] The earlier part of the annals consists simply of a reduction of the fabulous history of Ireland into the shape of a chronicle, and, except that it is thrown into that form instead of that of a narrative, it does not appear to the author to possess greater claims to be ranked as an authority than the work of Keating. He cannot therefore accept it as an independent authority, nor can he regard the record of events to the fifth century as bearing the character of chronological history in the true sense of the term, though no doubt many of these events may have some foundation in fact.[[17]]
The older annals stand in a different position. Those of Tighernac, Inisfallen, and the Annals of Ulster, are extremely valuable for the history of Scotland; and, while the latter commence with what may be termed the historic period in the fifth century, the earlier events recorded by Tighernac, who died in the year 1088, may contain some fragments of genuine history.
Plan of the work.