Note 465 — Chapter XIII · WILLIAM THE LION—1165–1214.

So, in 1308, during the minority of the Earls of Fife, Menteith, Mar, Buchan, and Caithness, the “Communitates Comitatum” represented the earldoms. Act. Parl. Scot., vol. 1, p. 99. In fact, in a certain state of society, when the power of the crown, though acknowledged, was comparatively feeble, the community had still practically a voice in the appointment of their Senior, and the heir could not hold his ground without, on the one hand, their consent, and on the other, the confirmation, of the crown. Such was the case at this period in the north and west of Scotland; and a similar state of affairs is more or less traceable in Saxon Northumbria, and apparently in the Danelage, before the Conquest.