Note 317 — Chapter IX · The State.

The charters will be found in the Introduction to “Robertson’s Index.” The witnesses, all of whom have Saxon or Danish names, are sometimes supposed to represent the Scottish Court; and the total absence of all Gaelic names is assumed as a proof of the total exclusion of the native race from the court and councils of their sovereign. But this total absence is in itself suspicious. Where are the Gaelic Earls who were invariably the first to attest the great charters of Alexander and David? In the Foundation Charter of Dunfermlyn, David confirms the grants of his father Malcolm, his mother Margaret, and of his brothers Duncan, Edgar, Ethelred, and Alexander; all of which must have been made according to “ancient custom,” or the charters, would have been forthcoming in the Dunfermlyn Registry; and as the sole known charters of Duncan and Edgar are connected with Durham, whilst their grants made beyond the Forth were not confirmed by any written document, it would appear as if these Durham charters had been written and witnessed at Durham, and that no argument can be drawn from the names of the attesting witnesses about the composition of the Scottish Court. The title of “Basileus Scottorum,” applied to Edgar, will never be found in any Scottish charter, but it occurs frequently in Anglo-Saxon documents. It was the policy of the Scottish kings of that period to keep up a connection with Durham; and it must be always recollected that there was less difference between the Angles separated by the Tweed, than between the Angles and Anglo-Danes separated by the Tees. The chosen standard of David—the Dragon of Wessex—speaks volumes of the pretensions which the sons of Margaret were very ready to keep alive amongst a population, which was not included in the Domesday survey.