The MediÆval ArchÆology of Scotland is confessedly sadly deficient in written documents. From the decline of Roman records and rule, onward through the next six or eight centuries, we have very few, or almost no written data to guide us in Scottish historical or antiquarian inquiries. Nor have we any numismatic evidence whatever to appeal to. In consequence of this literary dearth, the roughest lapidary inscriptions, belonging to these dark periods of our history, come to be invested with an interest much beyond their mere intrinsic value. The very want of other contemporaneous lettered documents and data imparts importance to the rudest legends cut on our ancient lettered stones. For even brief and meagre tombstone inscriptions rise into matters of historical significance, when all the other literary chronicles and annals of the men and of the times to which these inscriptions belong have, in the lapse of ages, been destroyed and lost.

It is needless to dwell here on the well-known fact, that in England and Scotland there have been left by the Roman soldiers and colonists who occupied our island during the first four centuries of the Christian era, great numbers of inscribed stones. British antiquarian and topographical works abound with descriptions and drawings of these Roman lapidary writings. But of late years another class or series of lapidary records has been particularly attracting the attention of British antiquaries,—viz., inscribed stones of a late Roman or post-Roman period. The inscriptions on this latter class of stones are almost always, if not always, sepulchral. The characteristically rude letters in which they are written consist—in the earliest stones—of debased Roman capitals; and—in the latest—of the uncial or minuscule forms of letters which are used in the oldest English and Irish manuscripts. Some stones show an intermixture of both alphabetical characters. These "Romano-British" inscribed stones, as they have been usually termed, have hitherto been found principally in Wales, in Cornwall, and in West Devon. In the different parts of the Welsh Principality, nearly one hundred, I believe, have already been discovered. In Scotland, which is so extremely rich in ancient sculptured stones, very few inscribed stones are as yet known; but if a due and diligent search be instituted, others, no doubt, will betimes be brought to light.

An inscribed Scottish stone of the class I allude to is situated in the county of Edinburgh, and has been long known under the name of the Cat-stane or Battle-stone. Of its analogy with the earliest class of Romano-British inscribed stones found in Wales, I was not fully aware till I had an opportunity of examining last year, at the meeting of the Cambrian ArchÆological Society, a valuable collection of rubbings and drawings of these Welsh stones, brought forward by that excellent antiquary, Mr. Longueville Jones; and afterwards, in situ, one or two of the stones themselves. I venture, in the following remarks, to direct the attention of the Society to the Cat-stane, partly in consequence of this belief in its analogy with the earliest Welsh inscribed stones; partly, also, in order to adduce an old and almost unknown description of the Cat-stane, made in the last years of the seventeenth century, by a gentleman who was perhaps the greatest antiquary of his day; and partly because I have a new conjecture to offer as to the historical personage commemorated in the inscription, and, consequently, as to the probable age of the inscription itself.

Site and Description of the Stone.

The Cat-stane stands in the parish of Kirkliston, on the farm of Briggs,[128] in a field on the north side of the road to Linlithgow, and between the sixth and seventh milestone from Edinburgh. It is placed within a hundred yards of the south bank of the Almond; nearly half-a-mile below the Boathouse Bridge; and about three miles above the entrance of the stream into the Firth of Forth, at the old Roman station of Cramond, or Caer Amond. The monument is located in nearly the middle of the base of a triangular fork of ground formed by the meeting of the Gogar Water with the river Almond. The Gogar flows into the Almond about six or seven hundred yards below the site of the Cat-stane.[129] The ground on which the Cat-stane stands is the beginning of a ridge slightly elevated above the general level of the neighbouring fields. The stone itself consists of a massive unhewn block of the secondary greenstone-trap of the district, many large boulders of which lie in the bed of the neighbouring river. In form it is somewhat prismatic, or irregularly triangular, with its angles very rounded. This large monolith is nearly twelve feet in circumference, about four feet five inches in width, and three feet three inches in thickness. Its height above ground is about four feet and a half. The Honourable Mrs. Ramsay of Barnton, upon whose son's property the monument stands, very kindly granted liberty, last year, for an examination by digging beneath and around the stone. The accompanying woodcut is a copy of a sketch, made at the time, by my friend Mr. Drummond, of the stone as exposed when pursuing this search around its exposed basis. We found the stone to be a block seven feet three inches in total length, and nearly three feet buried in the soil. It was placed upon a basis of stones, forming apparently the remains of a built stone grave, which contained no bones[130] or other relics, and that had very evidently been already searched and harried. I shall indeed have immediately occasion to cite a passage proving that a century and a half ago the present pillarstone was surrounded, like some other ancient graves, by a circular range of large flat-laid stones; and when this outer circle was removed,—if not before,—the vicinity and base of the central pillar were very probably dug into and disturbed.

fig14

Fig. 14.

Different Readings of the Inscription.

The inscription upon the stone is cut on the upper half of the eastern and narrowest face of the triangular monolith. Various descriptions of the legend have been given by different authors. The latest published account of it is that given by Professor Daniel Wilson in his work on Scottish ArchÆology. He disposes of the stone and its inscription in the two following short sentences:—"A few miles to the westward of this is the oft-noted Catt Stane in Kirkliston parish, on which the painful antiquary may yet decipher the imperfect and rudely-lettered inscription—the work, most probably, of much younger hands than those that reared the mass of dark whinstone on which it is cut—IN [H]OC TVMVLO IACET VETTA.. VICTR.. About sixty yards to the west of the Cat-stane a large tumulus formerly stood, which was opened in 1824, and found to contain several complete skeletons; but nearly all traces of it have now disappeared."[131]

In the tenth volume of the Statistical Account of Scotland, collected by Sir John Sinclair, and published in 1794, the Rev. Mr. John Muckarsie, in giving an account of the parish of Kirkliston, alludes in a note to the "Cat-stane standing on the farm of that name in this parish." In describing it he observes "The form is an irregular prism, with the following inscription on the south-east face, deeply cut in the stone, in a most uncouth manner:—

IN OC T
VMVLO IACI
VETTA D
VICTA

We are informed," continues Mr. Muckarsie, "by Buchanan and other historians, that there was a bloody battle fought near this place, on the banks of the Almond, in the year 995, between Kennethus, natural brother and commander of the forces of Malcolm II., King of Scotland, and Constantine, the usurper of that crown, wherein both the generals were killed. About two miles higher up the river, on the Bathgate road, is a circular mound of earth (of great antiquity, surrounded with large unpolished stones, at a considerable distance from each other, evidently intended in memory of some remarkable event). The whole intermediate space, from the human bones dug up, and graves of unpolished stones discovered below the surface, seems to have been the scene of many battles."[132]

In the discourse which the Earl of Buchan gave in 1780 to a meeting called together for the establishment of the present Society of Scottish Antiquaries, his Lordship took occasion to allude to the Cat-stane when wishing to point out how monuments, rude as they are, "lead us to correct the uncertain accounts which have been handed down by the monkish writers." "Accounts, for example, have (he observes) been given of various conflicts which took place towards the close of the tenth century between Constantine IV. and Malcolm, the general of the lawful heir of the Scottish Crown, on the banks of the River Almond, and decided towards its confluence to the sea, near Kirkliston. Accordingly, from Mid-Calder, anciently called Calder-comitis, to Kirkliston, the banks of the river are filled with the skeletons of human bodies, and the remains of warlike weapons; and opposite to Carlowrie there is a well-known stone near the margin of the river, called by the people Catt Stane. The following inscription was legible on the stone in the beginning of this (the eighteenth) century; and the note of the inscription I received from the Rev. Mr. Charles Wilkie, minister of the parish of Ecclesmachan, whose father, Mr. John Wilkie, minister of the parish of Uphall, whilst in his younger days an inhabitant of Kirkliston, had carefully transcribed:—

IN HOC TUM · JAC · CONSTAN · VIC · VICT·"[133]

Lord Buchan adduces this alleged copy of the Cat-stane inscription as valuable from having been taken early in the last century. The copy of the inscription, though averred to be old, is, as we shall see in the sequel, doubtlessly most inaccurate. And there exist accounts of the inscription both older and infinitely more correct and trustworthy.

The oldest and most important notice of the Cat-stane and its inscription that I know of is published in a work where few would expect to find it—viz., in the Mona Antiqua Restaurata of the Rev. Mr. Rowlands. It is contained in a letter addressed to that gentleman by the distinguished Welsh archÆologist, Edward Lhwyd. The date of Mr. Lhwyd's letter is "Sligo, March 12th, 1699-1700." A short time previously he had visited Scotland, and "collected a considerable number of inscriptions." At that time the Cat-stane was a larger and much more imposing monument than it is now, as shown in the following description of it. "One monument," says he, "I met with within four miles of Edinburgh, different from all I had seen elsewhere, and never observed by their antiquaries. I take it to be the tomb of some Pictish king; though situate by a river side, remote enough from any church. It is an area of about seven yards diameter, raised a little above the rest of the ground, and encompassed with large stones; all which stones are laid length-wise, excepting one larger than ordinary, which is pitched on end, and contains this inscription in the barbarous characters of the fourth and fifth centuries, IN OC TUMULO JACIT VETTA F. VICTI. This the common people call the Cat-Stene, whence I suspect the person's name was Getus, of which name I find three Pictish kings; for the names pronounced by the Britons with G, were written in Latin with V, as we find by Gwyrtheyrn, Gwyrthefyr, and Gwythelyn, which were written in Latin Vortigernus, Vortimerus, and Vitelinus."[134]

fig 15

Fig. 15.

Besides writing the preceding note to Dr. Rowland regarding the Cat-stane, Mr. Lhwyd, at the time of his visit, took a sketch of the inscription itself. In the Philosophical Transactions for February 1700, this sketch of the Cat-stane inscription was, with eight others, published by Dr. Musgrave, in a brief communication entitled, "An Account of some Roman, French, and Irish Inscriptions and Antiquities, lately found in Scotland and Ireland, by Mr. Edward Lhwyd, and communicated to the publisher from Mr. John Hicks of Trewithier, in Cornwall." The accompanying woodcut (Fig. 15) is an exact copy of Mr. Lhwyd's sketch, as published in the Philosophical Transactions. In the very brief communication accompanying it, the Cat-stane is shortly described as "A Pictish monument near Edinburgh, In oc tumulo jacit veta F. victi. This the common people call the Ket-stean; note that the British names beginning with the letter Gw began in Latin with V [and the three examples given by Lhwyd in his letter to Dr. Rowland follow]. So I suppose (it is added) this person's name was Gweth or Geth, of which name were divers kings of the Picts, whence the vulgar name of Ketstone."[135]

In the course of the last century, notices or readings of the Cat-stane inscription, more or less similar to the account of it in the Philosophical Transactions, were published by different writers, as by Sir Robert Sibbald, in 1708,[136]—by Maitland, in 1753,[137]—by Pennant, in his journey through Scotland in 1772,[138]—and by Gough, in 1789, in the third volume of his edition of Camden's Britannia.[139]

All the four authors whom I have quoted agree as to the reading of the inscription, and give the two names mentioned in it, as VETTA and VICTI. But in printing the first of these names, VETTA, Maitland and Pennant, following perhaps the text in the Philosophical Transactions, carelessly spell it with a single instead of a double T; and Gough makes the first vowel in VICTI an E instead of an I. Sir Robert Sibbald gives as a K the mutilated terminal letter in the third line, which Mr. Lhwyd deciphered as an F. Sibbald's account of the stone and its inscription, in 1708, is short but valuable, as affording an old independent reading of the legend. It is contained in his folio essay or work entitled, Historical Inquiries Concerning the Roman Monuments and Antiquities in Scotland (p. 50). "Close (says he) by Kirkliston water, upon the south side, there is a square pillar over against the Mannor of Carlowry with this inscription:—

IN OC TV
MVLO IACIT
VETTA K
VICTI

This (Sibbald continues) seemeth to have been done in later times than the former inscriptions [viz., those left in Scotland by the Romans]. Whether it be a Pictish monument or not is uncertain; the vulgar call it the Cat Stane."

Mr. Gough, when speaking of the stone in the latter part of the last century, states that the inscription upon it was "not now legible." It is certainly still even sufficiently legible and entire to prove unmistakably the accuracy of the reading of it given upwards of a century and a half ago by Lhwyd and Sibbald. The letters come out with special distinctness when examined with the morning sun shining on them; and indeed few ancient inscriptions in this country, not protected by being buried, are better preserved,—a circumstance owing principally to the very hard and durable nature of the stone itself, and the depth to which the letters have been originally cut. The accompanying woodcut is taken from a photograph of the stone by my friend Dr. Paterson, and very faithfully represents the inscription. The surface of the stone upon which the letters are carved has weathered and broken off in some parts; particularly towards the right-hand edge of the inscription. This process of disintegration has more or less affected the terminal letters of the four lines of the inscriptions. Yet, out of the twenty-six letters composing the legend, twenty are still comparatively entire and perfectly legible; four are more or less defective; and two nearly obliterated. The two which are almost obliterated consist of the first V in TVMVLO, constituting the terminal letter of the first line, and the last vowel I, or rather, judging from the space it occupies, E in JACIT. A mere impress of the site of the bars of the V is faintly traceable by the eye and finger, though the letter came out in the photograph. Only about an inch of the middle portion of the upright bar of I or E in JACIT can be traced by sight or touch. In this same word, also, the lower part of the C and the cross stroke of the T is defective. But even if the inscription had not been read when these letters were more entire, such defects in particular letters are not assuredly of a kind to make any palÆographer entertain a doubt as to the two words in which these defects occur being TVMVLO and JACIT.

stane

Fig. 16. The Cat-Stane, Kirkliston, from a Photograph.

The terminal letter in the third line[140] was already defective in the time of Edward Lhwyd, as shown by the figure of it in his sketch. (See woodcut, No. 15.) Sibbald prints it as a K, a letter without any attachable meaning. Lhwyd read it as an F (followed apparently by a linear point or stop), and held it to signify—what F so often does signify in the common established formula of these old inscriptions—F(ILIVS). The upright limb of this F appears still well cut and distinct; but the stone is much hollowed out and destroyed immediately to the right, where the two cross bars of the letter should be. The site of the upper cross-bar of the letter is too much decayed and excavated to allow of any distinct recognition of it. The site, however, of a small portion of the middle cross bar is traceable at the point where it is still united to and springs from the upright limb of the letter. Beyond, or to the right of this letter F, a line about half-an-inch long, forming possibly a terminal stop or point of a linear type, commences on the level of the lower line of the letters, and runs obliquely upwards and outwards, till it is now lost above in the weathered and hollowed-out portion of stone. Its site is nearer the upright limb or basis of the F than it is represented to be in the sketch of Mr. Lhwyd, where it is figured as constituting a partly continuous extension downwards of the middle bar of the letter itself. And perhaps it is not a linear point, but more truly, as Lhwyd figures it, the lower portion of a form of the middle bar of F, of an unusual though not unknown type. The immediate descent or genealogy of those whom these Romano-British inscriptions commemorate is often given on the stones, but their status or profession is seldom mentioned. We have exceptions in the case of one or two royal personages, as in the famous inscription in Anglesey to "Catamanus, Rex sapientissimus opinatissimus omnium Regum." The rank and office of priests are in several instances also commemorated with their names, as in the Kirkmadrine Stone in Galloway. In the churchyard of Llangian, in Caernarvonshire, there is a stone with an ancient inscription written not horizontally, but vertically (as is the case with regard to most of the Cornish inscribed stones), and where MELUS, the son of MARTINUS, the person commemorated, is a physician—MEDICVS. But the inscription is much more interesting in regard to our present inquiry in another point. For—as the accompanying woodcut of the Llangian inscription shows—the F in the word FILI is very much of the same type or form as the F seen by Lhwyd in the Cat-stane, and drawn by him. (See his sketch in the preceding woodcut, Fig. 15.) The context and position of this letter F in the Llangian legend leaves no doubt of its true character. The form is old; Mr. Westwood considers the age of the Llangian inscription as "not later than the fifth century."[141] An approach to the same form of F in the same word FILI, is seen in an inscribed stone which formerly stood at Pant y Polion in Wales, and is now removed to Dolan Cothy House. Again, in some instances, as in the Romano-British stones at Llandysilir, Clyddan, Llandyssul, etc., where the F in Filius is tied to the succeeding I, the conjoined letters present an appearance similar to the F on the Cat-stane as figured by Lhwyd.

stane

While all competent authorities are nearly agreed as to the lettering and reading of the first three lines, latterly the terminal letter of the fourth or last line has given rise to some difference of opinion. Lhwyd, Sibbald, and Pennant, unhesitatingly read the whole last line as VICTI. Lhwyd, in his sketch of the inscription, further shows that, following the last I, there is a stop or point of a linear form. The terminal I is three inches long, while the linear point or stop following it is fully an inch in length. Between it and the terminal I is a smooth space on the stone of five or six lines. Latterly this terminal I, with its superadded linear point, has been supposed by Mr. Muckarsie to be an A, and by Dr. Wilson to be an R. Both suppositions appear to me to be erroneous; and of this one or two considerations will, I think, satisfy any cautious observer who will examine carefully either the stone itself, or the cast of the inscription that was made in 1824—copies of which are placed in our own and in other museums. Mr. Muckarsie and Dr. Wilson hold the upright bar forming the letter I to be the primary upright bar of an A or R; and they think the remaining portions of these letters to be indicated or formed by the linear stop figured by Lhwyd. That the letter is not A, is shown by the bar being quite perpendicular, and not oblique or slanting, as in the two other A's in the inscription. Besides, the middle cross stroke of the A is wanting; and the second descending bar of the letter is quite deficient in length—a deficiency not explicable by mutilation from the weathering of the stone, as the stone happens to be still perfectly entire both at the uppermost and the lowest end of this bar or line. This last reason is also in itself a strong if not a sufficient ground for rejecting the idea that the letter is an R; inasmuch as if it had been an R, the tail of the letter would have been found prolonged downwards to the base line of the other letters in the word. For it is to be held in remembrance, that though the forms of the letters in this inscription are rude and debased, yet they are all cut with firmness and fulness.

The idea that the terminal letter of the inscription is an R seems still more objectionable in another point of view. To make it an R at all, we can only suppose the disputed "line" to be the lowest portion of the segment of the loop or semicircular head of the R. The line, which is about an inch long, is straight, however, and not a part of a round curve or a circle, such as we know the mason who carved this inscription could and did cut, as witnessed by his O's and C's. Besides, if this straight line had formed the lower segment of the semicircular loop or head of an R, then the highest point of that R would have stood so disproportionately elevated above the top line or level of the other letters in this word, as altogether to oppose and differ from what we see in the other parts of this inscription. This same reason bears equally against another view which perhaps might be taken; namely, that the straight line in question is the tail or terminal right-hand stroke of the R, placed nearly horizontally, as is occasionally the form of this letter in some early inscriptions, like those of Yarrow and Llangian. But if this view be adopted, then the loop or semicircular head of the R must be considered as still more disproportionately displaced upwards above the common level of the top line; for in this view the whole loop or head must have stood entirely above this straight horizontal line, which line itself reaches above the middle height of the upright bar forming the I. Immediately above the horizontal line, for a space about an inch or more in depth, and some ten or twelve inches in length, there has been a weathering and chipping off of a splinter of the surface of the stone, as indicated by its commencement in an abrupt, curved, rugged edge above. This lesion or fracture of the stone has, I believe, originally given rise to the idea of the semblance of this terminal letter of the inscription to an R. Probably, also, this disintegration is comparatively recent; for in the last century Lhwyd, Sibbald, Maitland, and Pennant, all unhesitatingly lay down the terminal letter as an I. But even if it were an A or an R, and not an I and hyphen point, this would not affect or alter the view which I will take in the sequel, that the last word in the inscription is a Latinised form of the surname VICTA or WECTA; as, amid the numberless modifications to which the orthography of ancient names is subjected by our early chroniclers, the historic name in question is spelled by Ethelwerd with a terminal R,—in one place as UUITHAR, and in another as WITHER.[142] Altogether, however, I feel assured that the more accurately we examine the inscription as still left, and the more we take into consideration the well-known caution and accuracy of Edward Lhwyd as an archÆologist, the more do we feel assured that his reading of the Cat-stane legend, when he visited and copied it upwards of a hundred and sixty years ago is strictly correct, viz.—

IN OC TV
MVLO JACIT
VETTA F.
VICTI.

PalÆographic Peculiarities.

The palÆographic characters of the inscription scarcely require any comment. As in most other Roman and Romano-British inscriptions, the words run into each other without any intervening space to mark their separation. The letters all consist of debased Roman capitals. They generally vary from two and a half to three inches in length; but the O in the first line is only one and a half inch deep. The O in TVMVLO in these ancient inscriptions is often, as in the Cat-stane, smaller than the other letters. M. Edmond Le Blant gives numerous marked instances of this peculiarity of the small O in the same words, "IN HoC TVMVLo," in his work on the early Romano-Gaulish inscriptions of France.[143] Most of the letters in the Cat-stane inscription are pretty well formed, and firmly though rudely cut. The oblique direction of the bottom stroke of L in TVMVLO is a form of that letter often observable in other old Romano-British inscriptions, as on the stone at Llanfaglan in Wales. The M in the same word has its first and last strokes splaying outwardly; a peculiarity seen in many old Roman and Romano-British monuments—as is also the tying together of this letter with the following V. In the Romano-British inscription upon the stone found at Yarrow, and which was brought under the notice of the Society by Dr. John Alexander Smith, there are three interments, as it were, recorded, the last of them in these words;[144]

... HIC IACENT
IN TVMVLO DVO FILI
LIBERALI.

The letters on this Yarrow stone are—with one doubtful exception[145]—Roman capitals, of a ruder, and hence perhaps later, type than those cut on the Cat-stane; but the letters MV in TVMVLO are tied together in exactly the same way on the two stones. The omission of the aspirate in (H)OC, as seen on the Cat-stane, is by no means rare. The so-called bilingual, or Latin and Ogham, inscribed stone at Llanfechan, Wales, has upon it the Latin legend TRENACATVS IC JACET FILIVS MAGLAGNI—the aspirate being wanting in the word HIC. It is wanting also in the same way, and in the same word, in the inscription on the Maen Madoc stone, near Ystradfellte—viz., DERVACI FILIVS IVLII IC IACIT; and on the Turpillian stone near Crickhowel. In a stone, described by Mr. Westwood, and placed on the road from Brecon to Merthyr, the initial aspirate in "hoc" is not entirely dropped, but is cut in an uncial form, while all the other letters are Roman capitals; thus IN hOC TVMULO.

Linear hyphen-like stops, such as Lhwyd represents at the end of the fourth, and probably also of the third line on the Cat-stane inscription, seem not to be very rare. In the remarkable inscription on the Caerwys stone, now placed at Downing Whitford, "Here lies a good and noble woman"—[146]

HIC JACIT / MVLI
ER BONA NOBILI(S)

an oblique linear point appears in the middle of the legend, after the word JACIT. The linear stop on the Cat-stane inscription, at the end of the fourth line, is, as already stated, fully an inch in length, but it is scarcely so deep as the cuts forming the letters; and the original surface of the stone at both ends of this terminal linear stop is very perfect and sound, showing that the line was not extended either upwards or downwards into any form of letter. Straight or hyphen lines, at the end both of words—especially of the proper names—and of the whole inscriptions, have been found on various Romano-British stones, as on those of Margan (the Naen Llythyrog), Stackpole, and Clydau, and have been supposed to be the letter I, placed horizontally, while all the other letters in these inscriptions are placed perpendicularly. Is it not more probable that they are merely points? Or do they not sometimes, like tied letters, represent both an I and a stop?

Who is Commemorated in the Cat-stane Inscription?

In the account which Mr. George Chalmers gives of the Antiquities of Linlithgowshire in his Caledonia, there is no notice of the inscription on the Cat-stane taken; but, with a degree of vagueness of which this author is seldom guilty, he remarks, that this monolith "is certainly a memorial of some conflict and of some person."[147]

Is it not possible, however, to obtain a more definite idea of the person who is named on the stone, and in commemoration of whom it was raised?

In the extracts that have been already given, it has been suggested, by different writers whom I have cited, that the Cat-stane commemorates a Scottish king, Constantine IV., or a Pictish king, Geth. Let us first examine into the probability of these two suggestions.

1. Constantine?—In the olden lists of our Scottish kings, four King Constantines occur. The Cat-stane has been imagined by Lord Buchan and Mr. Muckarsie to have been raised in memory of the last of these—viz., of Constantine IV., who fell in a battle believed by these writers to have been fought on this ground in the last years of the tenth century, or about A.D. 995. In the New Statistical Account of Scotland, the Reverend Mr. Tait, the present minister of Kirkliston, farther speaks of the "Catstean (as) supposed to be a corruption of Constantine, and to have been erected to the honour of Constantine, one of the commanders in the same engagement, who was there slain and interred."[148]

In the year 970 the Scottish king Culen died, having been "killed (according to the Ulster Annals), by the Britons in open battle;" and in A.D. 994, his successor, Kenneth MacMalcolm, the founder of Brechin, was slain.[149] Constantine, the son of Culen, reigned for the next year and a half, and fell in a battle for the crown fought between him and Kenneth, the son of Malcolm I. The site of this battle was, according to most of our ancient authorities, on the Almond. There are two rivers of this name in Scotland, one in Perthshire and the other in the Lothians. George Chalmers places the site of the battle in which Constantine fell on the Almond in Perthshire; Fordun, Boece, and Buchanan place it on the Almond in the Lothians, upon the banks of which the Cat-stane stands. The battle was fought, to borrow the words of the Scotichronicon, "in Laudonia juxta ripam amnis Almond."[150] The Chronicle of Melrose gives (p. 226) the "Avon"—the name of another large stream in the Lothians—as the river that was the site of the battle in question. Wynton (vol. i. p. 182) speaks of it as the "Awyne." Bishop Leslie transfers this same fight to the banks of the Annan in Dumfriesshire, describing it as having occurred during an invasion of Cumbria, "ad AnnandiÆ amnis ostia."[151]

Among the authorities who speak of this battle or of the fall of Constantine, some describe these events as having occurred at the source, others at the mouth of the Almond or Avon. Thus the ancient rhyming chronicle, cited in the Scotichronicon, gives the locality of Constantine's fall as "ad caput amnis Amond."[152] The Chronicle of Melrose, when entering the fall of "Constantinus Calwus," quotes the same lines, with such modifications as follows:[153]—

"Rex Constantinus, Culeno filius ortus,
Ad caput amnis Avon ense peremtus erat,
In Tegalere; regens uno rex et semis annis,
Ipsum Kinedus Malcolomida ferit."

Wyntown cites the two first of these Latin lines, changing, as I have said, the name of the river to Awyne, almost, apparently, for the purpose of getting a vernacular rhyme, and then himself tells us, that

"At the Wattyr hed of Awyne,
The King Gryme slwe this Constantyne."[154]

If the word "Tegalere" in the Melrose Chronicle be a true reading,[155] and the locality could be identified under the same or a similar derivative name, the site of the battle might be fixed, and the point ascertained whether it took place, as the preceding authorities aver, at the source, "water-head" or "caput" of the river; or, as Hector, Boece and George Buchanan[156] describe it, at its mouth or entrance into the Forth at Cramond; "ad AmundÆ amnis ostia tribus passuum millibus ab Edinburgo."[157] A far older and far more valuable authority than either Boece or Buchanan, namely, the collector of the list of the Scottish and Pictish kings, extracted by Sir Robert Sibbald from the now lost register of the Priory of St. Andrews,[158] seems also to place the death of King Constantine at the mouth of the Almond, if we interpret aright the entry in it of "interfectus in Rathveramoen" as meaning "Rath Inver Amoen,"—the rath or earth-fortress at the mouth of the Amoen.[159]

Even, however, were it allowed that the battle in which Constantine perished was fought upon the Almond, and not upon the Avon, on the stream of the former name in the Lothians and not in Perthshire, at the mouth and not at the source of the river, there still, after all, remains no evidence whatever that the Cat-stane was raised in commemoration of the fall of the Scottish king; whilst there is abundant evidence to the contrary. The very word "Inver," in the last of the designations which I have adduced, is strongly against this idea. For the term "Inver," when applied to a locality on a stream, almost invariably means the mouth of it,[160] and not a site on its course—such as the Cat-stane occupies—three miles above its confluence. Nor is there any probability that an inscribed monument would be raised in honour of a king who, like Constantine, fell in a civil war,—who was the last of his own branch of the royal house that reigned,—and was distinguished, as the ancient chroniclers tell us, by the contemptuous appellation of Calvus. There is great reason, indeed, to believe that the idea of the Cat-stane being connected with the fall of Constantine is comparatively modern in its origin. Oral tradition sometimes creates written history; but, on the other hand, written history sometimes creates oral tradition. And in the present instance a knowledge of the statements of our ancient historians in all probability gave rise to such attempts as that of Mr. Wilkie—to find, namely, a direct record of Constantine in the Cat-stane inscription. But when we compare the inscription itself, as read a century and a half ago by Lhwyd and Sibbald, and as capable of being still read at the present day, with the edition of it as given by Lord Buchan, it is impossible not to conclude that the idea of connecting the legend with the name of Constantine is totally without foundation. For, besides minor errors in punctuation and letterings, such as the total omission in Lord Buchan's copy of the inscription of the three last letters VLO of "TVMVLO," the changing of VETTA to VIC, etc., we have the two terminal letters of JACIT—viz. the IT, changed into the seven-lettered word CONSTAN, apparently with no object but the support of a theory as to the person commemorated in the legend and the monolith. Most assuredly there is not the very slightest trace of any letters on the surface of the stone where the chief part of the word CONSTAN is represented as existing—viz., after JACIT. It would be difficult, perhaps, to adduce a case of more flagrant incorrectness in copying an inscription than Mr. Wilkie's and Lord Buchan's reading of the Cat-stane legend affords. Mr. Gough, in his edition of Camden's Britannia (1784), only aggravates this misrepresentation. For whilst he incorrectly states that the inscription is "not now legible," he carelessly changes Mr. Wilkie's alleged copy of the leading word from CONSTAN to CONSTANTIE, and suppresses altogether the word VIC.

Getus, Gweth, or Geth?—I have already cited Mr. Lhwyd's conjecture that the Cat-stane is "the tomb of some Pictish King," and the opinion expressed by him and Mr. Hicks, that taking the V in the Latin VETTA of the inscription as equal to the Pictish letters G or Gw, the name of the Pictish king commemorated by the stone was Getus, "of which name," observes Mr. Lhwyd, "I find three Pictish kings." In the analogous account sent by Mr. Hicks to the Philosophical Transactions along with Mr. Lhwyd's sketch of the Cat-stane, it is stated that the person's name on "this Pictish monument" was Gweth or Geth, "of which name," it is added, "were divers kings of the Picts, whence the vulgar name of Ketstone."

It is unnecessary to stop and comment on the unsoundness of this reasoning, and the improbability—both as to the initial and terminal letters—of the surname VETTA in this Latin inscription being similar to the Pictish surname Geth or GETUS, as Lhwyd himself gives and writes it in its Latin form. Among the lists of the Pictish kings, whilst we have several names beginning with G, we have some also commencing in the Latinised forms of the Chronicles with V, as Vist, Vere, Vipoignamet, etc.

But a much more important objection exists against the conjecture of Mr. Lhwyd, in the fact that his memory had altogether misled him as to there having been "three" Pictish kings of the name of "Getus," or "divers kings of the Picts of the names of Geth or Gweth," to use the words employed in the Philosophical Transactions.

Lists, more or less complete, of the Pictish kings have been found in the Histories of Fordun and Winton, in the pages of the Scalacronica and Chronicles of Tighernach, in the Irish copy of Nennius, in the extracts published by Sir Robert Sibbald and Father Innes from the lost Register of St. Andrews, and in the old Chronicum Regum Pictorum, supposed to be written about A.D. 1020, and preserved in the Colbertine Library.

None of these lists include a Pictish king of the name of Getus, Geat, or Gweth. Some of the authorities—as the Register of St. Andrews, Fordun, and Winton—enter as the second king of the Picts Ghede or Gede, the Gilgidi of the Chronicum Regum Pictorum; and this latter chronicle contains in its more mythical and earlier part the appellations Got, Gedeol, Guidid, and Brude-Guith; but none of these surnames sufficiently correspond either to Mr. Lhwyd's statement or to the requirements of the inscription.

But whilst thus setting aside the conjectures as to the Cat-stane commemorating the name of a Scottish King Constantine, or of a Pictish King Geth, I would further remark that the surname in the inscription, namely—VETTA FILIUS VICTI—is one which appears to me to be capable of another and a more probable solution. With this view let us proceed then to inquire who was

Vetta, the son of Victus?

And first, I would beg to remark, that the word Vetta is still too distinct upon the Cat-stane to allow of any doubt as to the mere name of the person commemorated in the inscription upon it.

Secondly, The name of Vetta, or, to spell the word in its more common Saxon forms, Wetta or Witta, is a Teutonic surname. To speak more definitely, it pertains to the class of surnames which characterised these so-called Saxon or Anglo-Saxon invaders of our island, and allied Germanic tribes, who overran Britain upon the decline of the Roman dominion amongst us.

Bede speaks, as is well known, of our original Teutonic conquerors in the fifth century as coming from three powerful tribes of Germany; namely, the Saxons, Angles, and Jutes. "Advenerant autem de tribus GermaniÆ populis fortioribus, id est, Saxonibus, Anglis, Jutis" (lib. i. c. 20).[161] Ubo Emmius, in his History of the Frisians, maintains that "more colonies from Friesland than Saxony, settled in Briton, whether under the names of Jutes, or of Angles, or later of the Saxons."[162] Procopius, who lived nearly two centuries before Bede, and had access to good means of information from being the secretary of the Emperor Belisarius, states that at the time of his writing (about A.D. 548) three numerous nations possessed Britain, the Angles and Frisians (???e??? te ?a? f??ss??e?), and those surnamed, from the Island, Brittones.[163] Modern Friesland seems to have yielded a considerable number of our Teutonic invaders and colonists; and it is in that isolated country that we find, at all events, the characteristics and language of our Teutonic forefathers best preserved. In his History of England during the Anglo-Saxon Period, the late Sir Francis Palgrave remarks, "The tribes by whom Britain was invaded, appear principally to have proceeded from the country now called Friesland. Of all the continental dialects (he adds), the ancient Frisick is the one which approaches most nearly to the Anglo-Saxon of our ancestors."[164] "The nearest approach," according to Dr. Latham, "to our genuine and typical German or Anglo-Saxon forefathers, is not to be found within the four seas of Britain, but in the present Frisian or Friesland."[165] At present, about one hundred thousand inhabitants of Friesland speak the ancient or Country-Friesic, a language unintelligible to the surrounding Dutch, but which remains still nearly allied to the old Anglo-Saxon of England. Some even of their modern surnames are repetitions of the most ancient Anglo-Saxon surnames in our island, and, among others, still include that of Vetta or Witta; thus showing its Teutonic origin. In discussing the great analogies between ancient Anglo-Saxon and modern Friesic, Dr. Bosworth, the learned Professor of Anglo-Saxon Literature at Oxford, incidentally remarks, "I cannot omit to mention that the leaders of the Anglo-Saxons bear names which are now in use by the Friesians, though by time a little altered or abbreviated. They have Horste, Hengst, Witte, Wiggele, etc., for the Anglo-Saxon Horsa, Hengist, Witta, Wightgil, etc."[166]

But Witta or Vetta was not a common name among our more leading Anglo-Saxon forefathers. Among the many historical surnames occurring in ancient Saxon annals and English chronicles, the name of Vetta, as far as I know, only occurs twice or thrice.

I. It is to be found in the ancient Saxon poem of The Scop, or Traveller's Tale, where, among a list of numerous kings and warriors, Vetta or Witta is mentioned as having ruled the Swaefs—

"Witta weold SwÆfum."[167]

The Swaefs or Suevi were originally, as we know from classical writers, a German tribe, or confederacy of tribes, located eastward of the old Angles; and Ptolemy indeed includes these Angles as a branch of the Suevi. But possibly the Swaefs ruled by Wittan, and mentioned in The Scop in the preceding line, and in others (see lines 89 and 123), were a colony from this tribe settled in England.

II. In the list of the ancient Anglo-Saxon Bishops of Lichfield, given by Florence of Worcester, the name "Huita" occurs as tenth on the roll.[168] Under the year 737, Simeon of Durham enters the consecration of this bishop, spelling his name as Hweicca and Hweitta.[169] In a note appended to Florence's Chronicle, under the year 775, his death is recorded, and his name given as Witta.[170]

III. The name Vetta occupies a constant and conspicuous place in the lineage of Hengist and Horsa, as given by Bede, Nennius, the Saxon Chronicle, etc. In the list of their pedigree, Vetta or Witta is always represented as the grandfather of the Teutonic brothers.

The inscription on the Cat-stane further affords, however, a most important additional element or criterion for ascertaining the particular Vetta in memory of whom it was raised; for it records the name of his father, Victus or Victa. And in relation to the present inquiry, it is alike interesting and important to find that in the genealogy given by our ancient chronicles of the predecessors of Hengist and Horsa, whilst Vetta is recorded as their grandfather, Victi or Wecta is, with equal constancy, represented as their great-grandfather. The old lapidary writing on the Cat-stane describes the Vetta for whom that monument was raised as the son of Vecta; and the old parchment and paper writings of our earliest chroniclers invariably describe the same relationship between the Vetta and Victa of the forefathers of Hengist and Horsa. Thus Bede, when describing the invasion of England by the German tribes in the time of Vortigern, states that their "leaders were two brothers, Hengist and Horsa, who were the sons of Victgils, whose father was Vitta, whose father was Vecta, whose father was Woden, from whose stock the royal race of many provinces deduces its origin," "Erant autem filii Victgilsi, cujus pater Vitta, cujus pater Vecta, cujus pater Voden, de cujus stirpe multarum provinciarum regum genus originem duxit."[171] In accordance with a common peculiarity in his orthography of proper names, and owing also, perhaps, to the character of the Northumbrian dialect of the Anglo-Saxon tongue, Bede spells the preceding and other similar surnames with an initial V, while by most other Anglo-Saxon chroniclers, and in most other Anglo-Saxon dialects, the surnames are made to commence with a W. Thus, the Vilfrid, Valchstod, Venta, etc., of Bede,[172] form the Wilfrid, Walchstod, Wenta (Winchester), etc., of other Saxon writers. In this respect Bede adheres so far to the classic Roman standard in the spelling of proper names. Thus, for example, the Isle of Wight, which was written as Wecta by the Saxons, is the Vecta and Vectis of Ptolemy and Eutropius, and the Vecta also of Bede; and the name Venta, just now referred to as spelled so by Bede, is also the old Roman form of spelling that word, as seen in the Itinerary of Antonine.

The Saxon Chronicle gives the details of the first advent of the Saxons under Hengist and Horsa in so nearly the same words as the Historia Ecclesiastica, as to leave no doubt that this, like many other passages in the earlier parts of the Saxon Chronicle, were mere translations of the statements of Bede. But most copies of the Saxon Chronicle were written in the dialect of the West Saxons, and, consequently, under A.D. 449, they commence the surnames in the pedigree of our Saxon invaders with a W,—as Wightgils, Witta, Wecta, etc.; telling us that Hengist and Horsa, "waeron Wihtgilses suna, Wihtgils waes Witting, Witta Wecting, Wecta Wodning," etc.

Ethelwerd, an Anglo-Saxon nobleman, who himself claimed to be a descendant of the royal stock of Woden, has left us a Latin history or Chronicle, "nearly the whole of which is an abridged translation of the Saxon Chronicle, with a few trivial alterations and additions."[173] In retranslating back into Latin, the Anglo-Saxon names in the genealogy of Hengist and Horsa, he makes the Wecta of the Saxon Chronicle end with an R,—a matter principally of interest because, as we have already seen, some have supposed the corresponding name in the Cat-stane to terminate with an R. Speaking of Hengist as leader of the Angles[174] Ethelwerd describes his pedigree thus:—"Cujus pater fuit Wihtgels avus Wicta; proavus Wither, atavus Wothen," etc. In a previous page,[175] the same author tells us that "Hengest et Horsa filii Uuyrhtelsi, avus eorum Uuicta, et proavus eorum Uuithar, atavus eorum Uuothen, qui est rex multitudinis barbarorum."

In the preceding paragraphs we find the same authors, or at least the scribes who copied their writings, spelling the same names in very diverse ways. All know how very various, and sometimes almost endless, is the orthography of proper nouns and names among our ancient chroniclers, and among our mediÆval writers and clerks also. Thus Lord Lindsay, in his admirable Lives of the Lindsays, gives examples of above a hundred different ways in which he has found his own family name spelled. In the Historia Britonum, usually attributed to Nennius, the pedigree of the Saxon invaders of Kent is given at greater length than by Bede; for it is traced back four or five generations beyond Woden[176] up to Geat, and the spelling of the four races from Woden to Hengist and Horsa is varied according to the Celtic standard of orthography, as cited already from Edward Lhwyd—namely, the Latin and Saxon initials V and W are changed to the Cymric or British G, or GU. In the same way, the Isle of Wight, "Vecta" or "Wecta," is spelled in Nennius "Guith" and "Guied;" Venta (Winchester) is written Guincestra; Vortigernus, Guorthigernus; Wuffa, king of the east Angles, Guffa; etc. etc. In only one, as far as I am aware, of the old manuscript copies of the Historia Britonum, is the pedigree of Hengist and Horsa spelled as it is by Bede and all the Saxon writers, with an initial V or W, as Wictgils, Witta, Wecta, and Woden. This copy belongs to the Royal Library in Paris, and the orthography alone sufficiently determines it to have been made by an Anglo-Saxon scribe or editor. Of some twenty-five or thirty other known manuscripts of the same work, most, if not all, spell the ancestors of Hengist with the initial Keltic GU,—as "Guictgils, Guitta, Guechta"—one, among other arguments, for the belief that the original and most ancient part of this composite Historia was penned, if not, as asserted in many of the copies, by Gildas, a Strathclyde Briton, at least by a British or Cymric hand. The account given in the work of the arrival of the Saxons is as follows:—"Interea venerunt tres ciulÆ a Germania expulsÆ in exilio, in quibus erant Hors et Hengist, qui et ipsi fratres erant, filii Guictgils, filii Guitta, filii Guechta, filii Vuoden, filii Frealaf, filii Fredulf, filii Finn, filii Folcwald, filii Geta, qui fuit, aiunt filius Dei. Non ipse est Deus Deorum Amen, Deus exercitum, sed unus est ab idolis eorum quÆ ipsi colebant."[177] In this pedigree of the ancestors of Hengist and Horsa, it is deserving of remark that Woden, from whom the various Anglo-Saxon kings of England, and other kings of the north-west of Europe generally claimed their royal descent, is entered as a historical personage, living (according to the usual reckoning applied to genealogies) about the beginning of the third century, and who could count his descent back to Geat; while the Irish and other authorities affect to trace his pedigree for some generations even beyond this last-named ancestor.[178] According to Mallet, the true name of this great conqueror and ruler of the north-western tribes of Europe was "Sigge, son of Fridulph; but he assumed the name of Odin, who was the supreme god among the Teutonic nations, either to pass, among his followers, for a man inspired by the gods, or because he was chief priest, and presided over the worship paid to that deity."[179] In his conquering progress towards the north-west of Europe, he subdued, continues Mallet, "all the people he found in his passage, giving them to one or other of his sons for subjects. Many sovereign families (he adds) of the north are said to be descended from those princes." And Hengist and Horsa were thus, as was many centuries ago observed by William of Malmesbury, "the great-great-grandsons of that Woden from whom the royal families of almost all the barbarous nations derive their lineage, and to whom the Angles have consecrated the fourth day of the week (Wodens-day), and the sixth unto his wife Frea (Frey-day), by a sacrilege which lasts even to this time."[180]

Henry of Huntingdon, in his HistoriÆ Anglorum, gives the pedigree of Hengist and Horsa according to the list which he found in Nennius; but he changes back the spelling to the Saxon form. They were, he says, "Filii Widgils, filii Wecta, filii Vecta, filii Woden, filii Frealof, filii Fredulf, filii Fin, filii Flocwald, filii Ieta (Geta)." Florence of Worcester follows the shorter genealogy of Bede, giving in his text the names of the ancestors of Hengist and Horsa as Wictgils, Witta, and Wecta; and in his table of the pedigrees of the kings of Kent spelling these same names Wihtgils, Witta, and Wehta.[181]

In giving the ancient genealogy of Hengist and Horsa, we thus find our old chroniclers speaking of their grandfather under the various orthographic forms of Guitta, Uuicta, Witta, Vitta; and their great-grandfather as Guechta, Uuethar, Wither, Wechta, Wecta, and Vecta. In the Cat-stane inscription the last—Vecta or Victa—is placed in the genitive, and construed as a noun of the second declension, whilst Vetta retains, as a nominative, its original Saxon form. The older chroniclers frequently alter the Saxon surnames in this way. Thus, Horsa is sometimes made, like Victa, a noun of the second declension, in conjunction with the use of Hengist, Vortimer, etc., as unaltered nominatives. Thus, Nennius tells us,[182] "Guortemor cum Hengist et Horso ... pugnabat." (cap. xlvi.) According to Henry of Huntingdon, "Gortimer ... ex obliquo aciem Horsi desrupit," etc. (Lib. ii.)

The double and distinctive name of "Vetta filius Victa," occurring, as it thus does, in the lineage of Hengist and Horsa, as given both (1) in our oldest written chronicles and (2) in the old inscription carved upon the Cat-stane, is in itself a strong argument for the belief that the same personage is indicated in these two distinct varieties of ancient lettered documents. This inference, however, becomes still stronger when we consider the rarity of the appellation Vetta, and the great improbability of there having ever existed two historic individuals of this name both of them the sons of two Victas. But still, it must be confessed, various arguments naturally spring up in the mind against the idea that in the Cat-stane we have a memorial of the grandfather of Hengist and Horsa. Let us look at some of these reasons, and consider their force and bearing.

Some Objections considered.

Perhaps, as one of the first objections, I should notice the doubts which some writers have expressed as to such leaders as Hengist and Horsa having ever existed, and as to the correctness, therefore, of that genealogy of the Saxon kings of Kent in which Hengist and Horsa are included.[183]

The two most ancient lists of that lineage exist, as is well known, in the "Historia Britonum" of Gildas or Nennius, and in the "Historia Ecclesiastica" of Bede.

The former of these genealogical lists differs from the latter in being much longer, and in carrying the pedigree several generations beyond the great Teutonic leader Woden, backwards to his eastern forefather, Geat, whom Mr. Kemble and others hold to have been probably the hero Woden, whose semi-divine memory the northern tribes worshipped. Both genealogical lists agree in all their main particulars back to Woden—and so far corroborate the accuracy of each other. Whence the original author of the Historia Britonum derived his list, is as unknown as the original authorship of the work itself. Some of Bede's sources of information are alluded to by himself. Albinus, Abbot of St. Augustine's, Canterbury, and Nothhelm, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, "appear," observes Mr. Stevenson, "to have furnished Bede with chronicles in which he found accurate and full information upon the pedigrees, accessions, marriages, exploits, descendants, deaths and burials of the kings of Kent."[184] That the genealogical list itself is comparatively accurate, there are not wanting strong reasons for believing. The kings of the different seven or eight small Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England all claimed—as the very condition and charter of their regality—a direct descent from Woden, through one or other of his several sons. To be a king among our Anglo-Saxon forefathers, it was necessary, and indeed indispensable, both to be a descendant of Woden, and to be able to prove this descent. The chronicles of most ancient people, as the Jews, Irish, Scots, etc., show us how carefully the pedigree of their royal and noble families was anciently kept and retained. And surely there is no great wonder in the Saxon kings of Kent keeping up faithfully a knowledge of their pedigree—say from Bede's time, backwards, through the nine or ten generations up to Hengist, or the additional four generations up to Woden. The wonder would perhaps have been much greater if they had omitted to keep up a knowledge, by tradition, poems, or chronicles, of a pedigree upon which they, and the other kings of the Saxon heptarchy, rested and founded—as descendants of Woden—their whole title to royalty, and their claim and charter to their respective thrones.[185]

But a stronger objection against the idea of the Cat-stane being a monument to the grandfather of Hengist and Horsa rises up in the question,—Is there any proof or probability that an ancestor of Hengist and Horsa fought and fell in this northern part of the island, two generations before the arrival of these brothers in Kent?

It is now generally allowed, by our best historians, that before the arrival of Hengist and Horsa in Kent, Britain was well known at least to the Saxons and Frisians, and other allied Teutonic tribes.

Perhaps from a very early period the shores and comparative riches of our island were known to the Teutons or Germans inhabiting the opposite continental coast. "It seems hardly conceivable," observes Mr. Kemble, "that Frisians who occupied the coast (of modern Holland) as early as the time of CÆsar, should not have found their way to Britain."[186] We know from an incident referred to by Tacitus, in his Life of Agricola, that at all events the passage in the opposite direction from Britain to the north-west shores of the Continent was accidentally revealed—if not, indeed, known long before—during the first years of the Roman conquest of Scotland. For Tacitus tells us that in A.D. 83 a cohort of Usipians, raised in Germany, and belonging to Agricola's army, having seized some Roman vessels, sailed across the German Ocean, and were seized as pirates, first by the Suevi and afterwards by the Frisians (Vita AgricolÆ, xlv. 2, and xlvi. 2). In Agricola's Scottish army there were other Teutonic or German conscripts. According to Tacitus, at the battle of the Mons Grampius three cohorts of Batavians and two cohorts of Tungrians specially distinguished themselves in the defeat of the Caledonian army. Various inscriptions by these Tungrian cohorts have been dug up at Cramond, and at stations along the two Roman walls, as at Castlecary and Housesteads. At Manchester, a cohort of Frisians seems to have been located during nearly the whole era of the Roman dominion.[187] Another cohort of Frisian auxiliaries seems, according to Horsley, to have been stationed at Bowess in Richmondshire.[188] Teutonic officers were occasionally attached to other Roman corps than those of their own countrymen. A Frisian citizen, for example, was in the list of officers of the Thracian cavalry at Cirencester.[189] The celebrated Carausius, himself a Menapian, and hence probably of Teutonic origin, was, before he assumed the emperorship of Britain, appointed by the Roman authorities admiral of the fleet which they had collected for the purpose of repressing the incursions of the Franks, Saxons, and other piratical tribes, who at that date (A.D. 287) ravaged the shores of Britain and Gaul.[190]

In the famous Roman document termed "Notitia utriusque Imperii," the fact that there were Saxon settlers in England before the arrival of Hengist and Horsa seems settled, by the appointment of a "Comes Littoris Saxonici in Britannica."[191] The date of this official and imperial Roman document is fixed by Gibbon between A.D. 395 and 407. About forty years earlier we have—what is more to our present purpose—a notice by Ammianus Marcellinus of Saxons being leagued with the Picts and Scots, and invading the territories south of the Forth, which were held by the Romans and their conquered allies and dependants—the Britons.

To understand properly the remarks of Ammianus, it is necessary to remember that the two great divisional military walls which the Romans erected in Britain, stretched, as is well known, entirely across the island—the most northerly from the Forth to the Clyde, and the second and stronger from the Tyne to the Solway. The large tract of country lying between these two military walls formed from time to time a region, the possession of which seems to have been debated between the Romans and the more northerly tribes; the Romans generally holding the country up to the northern wall or beyond it, and occasionally being apparently content with the southern wall as the boundary of their empire.

About the year A.D. 369, the Roman general Theodosius, the father of the future emperor of the same name, having collected a disciplined army in the south, marched northward from London, and after a time conquered, or rather reconquered, the debateable region between the two walls; erected it into a fifth British province, which he named "Valentia," in honour of Valens, the reigning emperor; and garrisoned and fortified the borders (limites que vigiliis tuebatur et praetenturis).[192] The notices which the excellent contemporary historian, Ammianus Marcellinus, has left us of the state of this part of Britain during the ten years of active rebellion and war preceding this erection of the province of Valentia are certainly very brief, but yet very interesting. Under the year 360, he states that "In Britain, the stipulated peace being broken, the incursions of the Scots and Picts, fierce nations, laid waste the grounds lying next to the boundaries (loca limitibus vicina vastarent)." "These grounds were," says Pinkerton, "surely those of the future province of Valentia."[193] Four years subsequently, or in 364, Ammianus again alludes to the Britons being vexed by continued attacks from the same tribes, namely the Picts and Scots, but he describes these last as now assisted by, or leagued with, the Attacots and with the Saxons—"Picti, Saxonesque, et Scotti, et Attacotti, Britannos aerumnis vexavere continuis." Again, under the year 368, he alludes to the Scots and Attacots still ravaging many parts; but now, instead of speaking of them as leagued with the Picts and Saxons, he describes them as combined with the Picts, divided into two nations, the DicaledonÆ and Vecturiones:—"Eo tempore Picti in duas gentes divisi, DiacaledonÆ et Vecturiones, itidemque Attacotti, bellicosa hominum natio, et Scotti per diversa vagantes, multa populabuntur."

In both of these two last notices for the years 364 and 368, the invaders are described as consisting of four different tribes. The Scots and Attacots are mentioned under these appellations in both. But whilst, in the notice for 364, the two remaining assailants are spoken of as Picts and Saxons (Picti, Saxonesque), in the notice for 368 the remaining assailants are described as the "Picts, divided into the DicaledonÆ and Vecturiones." Is it possible that the Saxon allies were now amalgamated with the Picts, and that they assumed the name of Vecturiones after their leader Vetta or Vecta? The idea, at all events, of naming nations patronymically from their leaders or founders was common in ancient times, though the correctness of some of the instances adduced is more than doubtful. Early Greek and Roman history is full of such alleged examples; as the Trojans from Tros; the AchÆans from AchÆus; the Æolians from Æolus; the Peloponnesians from Pelops; the Dorians from Dorus; the Romans from Romulus, etc. etc.; and so is our own. The Scots from Ireland are, observes Bede, named to this day Dalreudins (Dalriads), from their commander Reuda.[194] The Irish called (according to some ancient authorities) the Picts "Cruithne," after their alleged first king, Crudne or Cruthne. In a still more apocryphal spirit the word Britons was averred by some of the older chroniclers to be derived from a leader, Brito—"Britones Bruto dicti," to use the expression of Nennius(§ 18); Scots from Scota "Scoti ex Scota," in the words of the (Chronicon Rythmicum), etc.

The practice of eponymes was known also, and followed to some extent among the Teutonic tribes, both in regard to royal races and whole nations. The kings of Kent were known as Aescingas, from Aesc, the son of Hengist;[195] those of East Anglia were designated Wuffingas, after Wuffa ("Uffa, a quo reges Orientalium Anglorum Vuffingus appellant"[196]). In some one or other of his forms, Woden (observes Mr. Kemble) "is the eponymus of tribes and races. Thus, as Geat, or through Geat, he was the founder of the Geatas; through Gewis, of the Gewissas; through Scyld, of the Scyldingas, the Norse Skjoldungar; through Brand, of the Brodingas; perhaps, through Baetwa, of the Batavians."[197] It could therefore scarcely be regarded as very exceptional at least, if Vetta, one of the grandsons of Woden, should have given, in the same way, his name to a combined tribe of Saxons and Picts, over whom he had been elected as leader.[198]

That a Saxon force, like that mentioned by Ammianus as being joined to the Picts and Scots in A.D. 364, was led by an ancestor of Hengist and Horsa is quite in accordance with all that is known of Saxon laws and customs. As in some other nations, the leaders and kings were generally, if not always, selected from their royal stock. "Descent" (observes Mr. Kemble) "from Heracles was to the Spartans what descent from Woden was to the Saxons—the condition of royalty."[199] All the various Anglo-Saxon royal families that, during the time of the so-called Heptarchy, reigned in different parts of England certainly claimed this descent from Woden. Hengist and Horsa probably led the band of their countrymen who invaded Kent, as members of this royal lineage; and a royal pre-relative or ancestor would have a similar claim and chance of acting as chief of that Saxon force which joined the Picts and Scots in the preceding century.

If we thus allow, for the sake of argument, that Vetta, the son of Victus, the grandfather of Hengist and Horsa, is identical with Vetta the son of Victus commemorated in the Cat-stane inscription, and that he was the leader of those Saxons mentioned by Ammianus that were allied with the Picts in A.D. 364, we shall find nothing incompatible in that conjecture with the era of the descent upon Kent of Hengist and Horsa. Bede, confusing apparently the arrival of Hengist and Horsa with the date of the second instead of the first visit of St. Germanus to Britain, has placed at too late a date the era of their first appearance in Kent, when he fixes it in the year 449. The facts mentioned in the earlier editions or copies of Nennius have led our very learned and accurate colleague Mr. Skene, and others, to transfer forwards twenty or more years the date at which Hengist and Horsa landed on our shores.[200] But whether Hengist and Horsa arrived in A.D. 449, or, as seems more probable, about A.D. 428, if we suppose them in either case to have been born about A.D. 400, we shall find no incongruity, but the reverse, in the idea that their grandfather Vetta was the leader of a Saxon force thirty-six years previously. Hengist was in all probability past the middle period of life when he came to the Court of Vortigern, as he is generally represented as having then a daughter, Rowena, already of a marriageable age.

On the cause or date of Vetta's death we have of course no historical information; but the position of his monument renders it next to a certainty that he fell in battle; for, as we have already seen, the Cat-stane stands, in the words of Lhwyd, "situate on a river side, remote enough from any church." The barrows and pillar stones placed for miles along that river prove how frequently it had served as a strategic point and boundary in ancient warfare.[201] The field in which the Cat-stane itself stands was, as we have already found Dr. Wilson stating, the site formerly of a large tumulus. In a field, on the opposite bank of the Almond, my friend, Mr. Hutchison of Caerlowrie, came lately, when prosecuting some draining operations on his estate, upon numerous stone-kists, which had mutual gables of stone, and were therefore, in all probability, the graves of those who had perished in battle. Whether the death of Vetta occurred during the war with Theodosius in A.D. 364, or, as possibly the appellation Vecturiones tends to indicate, at a later date, we have no ground to determine.

The vulgar name of the monument, the Cat-stane, seems, as I have already hinted, to be a name synonymous with Battle-stane, and hence, also, so far implies the fall of Vetta in open fight. Maitland is the first author, as far as I am aware, who suggests this view of the origin of the word Cat-stane. According to him, "Catstean is a Gaelic and English compound, the former part thereof (Cat) signifying a battle, and stean or stan a stone; so it is the battlestane, in commemoration probably of a battle being fought at or near this place, wherein Veta or Victi, interred here, was slain."[202] I have already quoted Mr. Pennant, as taking the same view of the origin and character of the name; and Mr. George Chalmers, in his Caledonia, propounds the same explanation of the word:—"In the parish of Liberton, Edinburghshire, there were (he observes) several large cairns, wherein were found various stone chests, including urns, which contained ashes and weapons; some of these cairns which still remain are called the Cat-stanes or Battle-stanes.[203] Single stones in various parts of North Britain are still known under the appropriate name of Cat-stanes. The name (he adds) is plainly derived from the British Cad, or the Scoto-Irish Cath, which signify a battle."[204] But the word under the form Cat is Welsh or British, as well as Gaelic. Thus, in the Annales CambriÆ, under the year 722, the battle of Pencon is entered as "Cat-Pencon."[205] In his edition of the old Welsh poem of the Gododin, Williams (verse 38) prints the battle of Vannau (Manau) as "Cat-Vannau."

The combination of the Celtic word "Cat" with the Saxon word "stane" may appear at first as an objection against the preceding idea of the origin and signification of the term Cat-stane. But many of our local names show a similar compound origin in Celtic and Saxon. In the immediate neighbourhood, for example, of the Cat-stane,[206] we have instances of a similar Celtic and Saxon amalgamation in the words Gogar-burn, Lenny-bridge, Craigie-hill, etc. One of the oldest known specimens of this kind of verbal alloy, is alluded to above a thousand years ago by Bede,[207] in reference to a locality not above fourteen or fifteen miles west from the Cat-stane. For, in his famous sentence regarding the termination of the walls of Antoninus on the Forth, he states that the Picts called this eastern "head of the wall" Pean-fahel, but the Angles called it Pennel-tun. To a contracted variety of this Pictish word signifying head of the wall, or to its Welsh form Pengual, they added the Saxon word "town," probably to designate the "villa," which, according to an early addition to Nennius, was placed there. "Pengaaul, quÆ villa Scottice Cenail [Kinneil], Anglice verÒ Peneltun dicitur."[208]

The palÆographic peculiarities of the inscription sufficiently bear out the idea of the monument being of the date or era which I have ventured to assign to it—a point the weight and importance of which it is unnecessary to insist upon. "The inscription," says Lhwyd, "is in the barbarous characters of the fourth and fifth centuries." Professor Westwood, who is perhaps our highest authority on such a question, states to me that he is of the same opinion as Lhwyd as to the age of the lettering in the Cat-stane legend.

To some minds it may occur as a seeming difficulty that the legend or inscription is in the Latin language, though the leader commemorated is Saxon. But this forms no kind of valid objection. The fact is, that all the early Romano-British inscriptions as yet found in Great Britain, are, as far as they have been discovered and deciphered, in Latin. And it is not more strange that a Saxon in the Lothians should be recorded in Latin, and not in Saxon or Keltic, than that the numerous Welshmen and others recorded on the early Welsh inscribed stones should be recorded in Latin and not in the Cymric tongue.

Doubtless, the Romanised Britons and the foreign colonists settled among them were, with their descendants, more or less acquainted with Latin in both its spoken and written forms. As early as the second year of his march northward for the conquest of this more distant part of Britain, or A.D. 79, Agricola, as Tacitus takes special care to inform us, took all possible means to introduce, for the purposes of conquest and civilisation, a knowledge of the Roman language and of the liberal arts among the barbarian tribes whom he went to subdue.[209] The same policy was no doubt continued to a greater or less extent during the whole era of the Roman dominion here as elsewhere; so that there is no wonder that such arts as lapidary writing, and the composition of brief Latin inscriptions, should have been known to and transmitted to the native Britons. There was, however, another class of inhabitants, besides these native Britons, who were, as we know from the altars and stone monuments which they have left, sufficiently learned in the formation and cutting of inscriptions in Latin,—a language which was then, and for some centuries subsequently, the only language used in this country, either in lapidary or other forms of writing. The military legions and cohorts which the Roman emperors employed to keep Britain under due subjection, obtained, under the usual conditions, grants of lands in the country, married, and became betimes fixed inhabitants. When speaking of the veteran soldiers of Rome settling down at last as permanent proprietors of land in Britain—as in other Roman colonies,—Sir Francis Palgrave remarks, "Upwards of forty of these barbarian legions, some of Teutonic origin, and others Moors, Dalmatians, and Thracians, whose forefathers had been transplanted from the remotest parts of the empire, obtained their domicile in various parts of our island, though principally upon the northern and eastern coasts, and in the neighbourhood of the Roman walls."[210] Such colonists undoubtedly possessed among their ranks, and were capable of transmitting to their descendants, a sufficient knowledge of the Latin tongue, and a sufficient amount of art, to form and cut such stone inscriptions as we have been considering; and perhaps I may add, that in such a mixed population, the Teutonic elements[211] in particular, would, towards the decline of the Roman dominion and power, not perhaps be averse to find and follow a leader, like Vetta, belonging to the royal stock of Woden; nor would they likely fail to pay all due respect, by the raising of a monument or otherwise, to the memory of a chief of such an illustrious race, if he fell amongst them in battle.

Besides, a brief incidental remark in Bede's History proves that the erection of a monument like the Cat-stane, to record the resting-place of the early Saxon chiefs, was not unknown. For, after telling us that Horsa was slain in battle by the Britons, Bede adds that "this Saxon leader was buried in the eastern parts of Kent, where a monument bearing his name is still in existence"[212] (hactenus in orientalibus CantiÆ partibus monumentum habet suo nomine insigne).[213] The great durability of the stone forming Vetta's monument has preserved it to the present day; while the more perishable material of which Horsa's was constructed has made it a less faithful record of that chief, though it was still in Bede's time, or in the eighth century, "suo nomine insigne."[214]

The chief points of evidence which I have attempted to adduce in favour of the idea that the Cat-stane commemorates the grandfather of Hengist and Horsa may be summed up as follows:—

1. The surname of Vetta upon the Cat-stane is the name of the grandfather of Hengist and Horsa, as given by our oldest genealogists.

2. The same historical authorities all describe Vetta as the son of Victa; and the person recorded on the Cat-stane is spoken of in the same distinctive terms—"Vetta f(ilius) Victi."

3. Vetta is not a common ancient Saxon name, and it is highly improbable that there existed in ancient times two historical Vettas, the sons of two Victas.

4. Two generations before Hengist and Horsa arrived in England, a Saxon host—as told by Ammianus—was leagued with the other races of modern Scotland (the Picts, Scots, and Attacots), in fighting with a Roman army under Theodosius.

5. These Saxon allies were very probably under a leader who claimed royal descent from Woden, and consequently under an ancestor or pre-relative of Hengist and Horsa.

6. The battle-ground between the two armies was, in part at least, the district placed between the two Roman walls, and consequently included the tract in which the Cat-stane is placed; this district being erected by Theodosius, after its subjection, into a fifth Roman province.

7. The palÆographic characters of the inscription accord with the idea that it was cut about the end of the fourth century.

8. The Latin is the only language[215] known to have been used in British inscriptions and other writings in these early times by the Romanised Britons and the foreign colonists and conquerors of the island.

9. The occasional erection of monuments to Saxon leaders is proved by the fact mentioned by Bede, that in his time, or in the eighth century, there stood in Kent a monument commemorating the death of Horsa.[216]

If, then, as these reasons tend at least to render probable, the Cat-stane be the tombstone of Vetta, the grandfather of Hengist and Horsa, this venerable monolith is not only interesting as one of our most ancient national historic monuments, but it corroborates the floating accounts of the early presence of the Saxons upon our coast; it presents to us the two earliest individual Saxon names known in British history; it confirms, so far as it goes, the accuracy of the genealogy of the ancestors of Hengist and Horsa, as recorded by Bede and our early chroniclers; while at the same time it forms in itself a connecting link, as it were, between the two great invasions of our island by the Roman and Saxon—marking as it does the era of the final declinature of the Roman dominion among us, and the first dawn and commencement of that Saxon interference and sway in the affairs of Britain, which was destined to give to England a race of new kings and new inhabitants, new laws, and a new language.