Note 74 — Chapter II · THE SEVEN PROVINCES OF SCOTLAND.

Mr. Robertson, in his valuable work of Scotland under her Early Kings, considers that Beth in the Scone charter is written by a clerical error for Heth, that he is the same person with the Ed and Head of David’s charters, and was Earl of Moray, and father of that Angus, Earl of Moray, defeated and slain in 1130 (vol. i. pp. 104, 190). This opinion is mainly grounded on the fact that Wimund, when he claimed to be the son of Angus, called himself Malcolm MacHeth, but Beth appears in the same form in a subsequent charter in the Scone chartulary (p. 4), and an identification, which requires us to suppose that the name has been miswritten in two charters, is not admissible. Moreover, it is not likely that an Earl of Moray should witness the foundation-charter of a monastery erected as a thank-offering for the defeat of the men of Moray in that year. As the great province of Fif consisted of the two old districts of Fyfe and Fothrithi, it is not impossible that there may at first have been an Earl connected with each, and that Beth, occupying here the leading place in which the subsequent Earls of Fife are invariably found, may have been earl along with Edelrad, and that the latter is the Ed who, along with Constantin, witnesses the earliest charter of King David, as there is a circumflex through the d of Ed, which implies that some letters after it have been omitted. This would account for Constantin appearing in the charter of Edelrad as if he were his contemporary. It may be observed that the Admore which Edelrad grants was in Fothrif, while Constantin appears in connection with Kirkcaldy in Fife, and that the name of the Thane of Falkland being Macbeath, shows that the name Beath was also connected with Fife. Head may certainly have been the Earl of Moray who preceded Angus, and gave his name to the family of MacHeth.