east-lothian-1924/05-021

Transcription

INVENTORY OF MONUMENTS IN EAST LOTHIAN.

united kingdoms, later known as Alba, is declared to have invaded " Saxonia "
six times, to have burned Dunbar and occupied Melrose. In the reign of
Guthred at York (883-894), according to Symeon of Durham, the Scots
crossed the Tweed and wasted the land of St. Cuthbert, plundering the
monastery of Lindisfarne. A late Scottish chronicle affirms that King Cirig,
about this time, subjugated Bernicia. In the course of the reign of Indulph
over Alba (954-962) Edinburgh was abandoned (oppidum Eden vacuatum est)
and left to the Scots. ¹ This Scottish pressure on " Saxonia " was kept up
during the reign of Kenneth II. (971-995). About 1006 Malcolm II. of Alba
ravaged the province of the Northumbrians and besieged Durham, when the
Scots suffered a severe defeat at the hands of Uhtred, son of the aged Waltheof,
Earl of Northumbria under the supremacy of Wessex. Uhtred's force was
composed of Northumbrians and Yorkshiremen, and the heads of the slain
Scots, elegant with their plaited locks of hair (elegantiora crinibus perplexis)
were fixed round the walls of Durham. ² But when the power of Wessex had
been broken by the new Danish invasion, and Canute had made himself king
of all England in 1016, the kingdom of Alba renewed its attacks. In 1018,
an " infinite multitude of Scots," including also Britons from the kingdom of
Strathclyde, invaded Northumbria, and at Carham on Tweed "almost the
whole people between Tweed and Tees, with their leaders perished" in battle.
This success sealed the Scottish conquest of ancient Lothian after a century
and a half of effort to this end, and thenceforward Lothian was an integral
part of Scotland or rather one of the greater political divisions subject to the
King of Scots. Fordun can thus speak of William the Lion in the thirteenth
century going from Scotia, that is properly the district beyond the Forth or
" Scots water," into Lothian.
THE CONSTABULARY. - From at least the early fourteenth to the close of
the seventeenth century, Haddington was known as a constabulary, as also was
Linlithgow, both jurisdictions being subordinate to the sheriffdom of Edinburgh.
The " Hadintunschira " references of twelfth century charters are to the parish,
as is clear from the contexts. In the Ragman Roll the references are to the
" counte de Hadington," the " counte de Linliscu " and the " counte de
Edneburk." In 1311-12 we have the sheriffdom (vicecomitatus) of Haddington
and of Edinburgh with the comitatus of Linlithgow ; and in the English
administrative accounts of 1335-6 the " constabularies " of Haddington and
Linlithgow are accounted for by the sheriff (vicecomes) of Edinburgh, which is
styled a comitatus. In the following year Edinburgh is styled both a vice-
comitatus and a constabularia. Thereafter the official designations are to the
constabularies of Haddington and Linlithgow, each allotted to a depute of the
Sheriff-principal of Edinburgh ; though in 1468 an Act of Parliament specifies
the three as sheriffdoms. In 1647 we have reference by the Estates to the
election of the Sheriff-principal of the Sheriffdom of East Lothian ; but this
is an exceptional case. In 1682 Lord Fountainhall, in his Historical Notices,
writes of the " shire of East Lothian " and its sheriff-depute, and " West
Lothian alias Lithgow-shire " is referred to in similar terms. Constabulary
appears then to signify the same relationship or standing as that of sheriffdom-

1 Chr. Picts and Scots.
2 De Obess. Dunelmi in Symeon of Durham vol. I., p. 215 (R.S.) ; Annals of Ulster.

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