Note 284 — Chapter IX · The State.

Stat. Alex. II. 5. Reg. Dunf., No. 79. Amongst the privileges of the Earls of Fife was numbered the Lex Clan Macduff, by which “when ony man-slayer being within the ninth degree of kin and bluid to Macduffe, sumtime Earle of Fife, came to that croce (the cross of Macduff ‘above the Newburgh beside Lundoris’), and gave nine kye and ane colpindach, he was free of the slauchter committed be him.” It saved the life of Hugh de Arbuthnot as late as 1421 (Innes’s Sketches of early Scottish History, p. 215, note 1). It was probably a relic of the old “right” once belonging to every Mormaor or Oirrigh, of retaining all his kindred in his mund; for amongst the rights of the Welsh Brenhin were all causes appertaining to the crown, king, or royal family. Another right belonging to the Welsh king was the patronage of all the abbeys, which, though not retained by the Earls of Fife, was certainly vested in those of Strathearn.