most friendly assurance that he would render me any assistance which I might require in prosecuting the undertaking. He at the same time made me a present of an old work on the subject, and placed his valuable library at my service, in following out the inquiry necessary to the accomplishment of the work.

I assented-but my professional duty as supervisor over an extensive district occupied my time so exclusively, that ere I had it in my power to avail myself of the assistance of my illustrious friend, he was no more. On the occurrence of that mournful event, my gleanings were in a great measure laid aside, nor was it until I had at my own solicitation been placed on what is called the "Retired Revenue List," that in order to while away my leisure hours, I assumed the task of arranging the materials which I had previously collected. But I am aware how imperfectly this has been accomplished, when compared with what the work would have been, had it been subjected to the pruning hand of the great master under whose auspices it was commenced.

Amid the changes which took place in the affairs of the tiny monarchy of Man, from the tenth down to the fifteenth century, it is highly probable that the land was held only by the power of the sword, or by charter horns' or charter

From a period prior to the Norman conquest, it was customary to transfer inheritances solely by the gift of some implement which was known to have belonged to the granter. Ingulph, abbott of Croyland, states that in the conqueror's time, the implements usually given in lieu of a charter were the sword, helmet, or horn of the lord or donor. Hence originated the charter horns, so frequently mentioned by old writers. The horn now preserved in the vestry of the church of York, was given by Ulphus, "in token of his bestowing on God and St. Peter all his lands and tenements." The pusey horn was given by King Canute, as a charter for the village of the same name. "It was by the gift of a horn from Henry II of England, in 1177, that the Earl of Ormond held his lands in Ireland." Charter stones were equally

stones, and that the records of the transactions during that time, were neither numerous nor accurately kept. That some valuable records, however, have been lost, may be reasonably supposed. Kissack O'Hutcheon, sector of Kells, was drowned on his voyage to Ireland, with the Cabhier or "Book of the Battles," and other manuscripts, which, had they been preserved, would probably have done much to elucidate the history of the Hebrides at large. Other misfortunes are said to have befallen the archives of the Island at a subsequent period. Reginald, who was slain by the knight Ivar, A.D. 1249, left a daughter named Mary, who, to escape the troubles in Man which followed the death of her father, was secretly conveyed by her friends to England, "with all the public deeds and charters of the Island." By another author, it is stated that the most ancient records of the Island were removed in 1292 to Drontheim, once the capital of Norway, by Maude, a princess of the ancient race, where they were subsequently destroyed by fire, and that the few records which remained in the Island at the commencement of the civil wars, were carried away by Charlotte, countess of Derby.3

2

In confirmation of the records of the Island having been carried to Norway, Waldron adds, that a Mr. Stevenson, an eminent merchant of Dublin, offered the bishop of

common. King Robert Bruce "gave a blue stone as a charter of the Leper's Establishment of King's Case, near the town of Ayr." The battle for the charter stone of Old Daily, in Carricks, is recorded by Sir Walter Scott. The charter stone of Dabry, in Galloway, is still carefully preserved; and the charter stone of Inverness is kept at the market-place of that town, hooped with iron. "While the famous marble chair was allowed to remain at Scoon, it was considered as the charter stone of Scotland."

1 Annals of Ulster; Maclean's Historical Account of Iona, p. 74. Whether it is Kells in Galloway that is here alluded to, or Kells in East Meath, is uncertain. 2 Seacome's History of the House of Stanley, Liverpool, 1741, p. 535. 3 Johnstone's Jurisprudence of the Isle of Man, Edinburgh, 1811, p. 5.

e

Drontheim a large sum of money for those documents, with a view of presenting them to the inhabitants of the Isle of Man; but the bishop would not part with them on any terms.' If the ancient charters and records of the kingdom of the Isles, of which Man was the capital, were kept at Iona, as asserted by Dr. Jamieson, and were conveyed from thence to Aberdeen, about the year 1500, in order to be examined by Hector Boetius, the celebrated Scottish historian, they consequently could not have been carried away by the princess Maude in 1292, or by the Norwegians, who were finally expelled from the Isles upwards of two centuries before the time mentioned by Dr. Jamieson. We are left, therefore, in doubt, as to any such documents ever having been deposited at Drontheim.

The ancient records and charters of Galloway too, according to popular complaint, were either carried off or destroyed by the Douglases, when lords of that province. Perhaps it would be more to the purpose in both instances, to suppose that there was little either to carry away or destroy.3 The great proprietors of the Western Highlands of Scotland, and of the Out-Isles, enjoyed their lands allodially under their Gælic customs, until David II, in order to secure their allegiance, obliged them to take charters from him. Sir John Stanley, nearly a century afterwards, was the first to call upon the Manks for a similar purpose; and from the opposition which was raised to that measure, it may be confidently inferred that the fiefs of the ancient kingdom of the Isles were similar throughout."

1 Waldron's Description of the Isle of Man, London, 1731, p. 96.

2 Jamieson's Historical Account of the Ancient Culdees, cap. xiv.

3 Chalmer's Caledonia, vol. iii, p. 379.

Fordun, lxiv, cap. xxxiv; Hail's Annals, vol. ii, p. 266.

There are no landrights, such as precepts of seisin, procuratories of resignation, or any records of the proceedings of either the civil' or ecclesiastical councils of the Island to be found, anterior to the commencement of the reign of the Stanley family; and the oldest parochial register is that of Ballaugh, which commences in 1598. Perhaps the oldest document relating to the Island now extant, is an account of the ancient church lands, found by the Rev. James Johnstone, chaplain to the British envoy at the court of Denmark, in 1786, in the library of the king of Denmark, and published by him in his work entitled Celto Normanicæ.2

A Chronicle of the Kings of Man, from A.D. 1066, to A.D. 1266, was published by Camden in 1586, and is supposed by that author to have been written by the monks of Rushen.3 But the ignorance manifested in that work, even of events which happened in Man, and which are circumstantially and clearly narrated in the Norse Sagas, and in the Irish Annals, induces the editor of the Celto Normanica to infer that the Chronicles of the Kings of Man is of no northern origin.

Johnston has detected several palpable errors in the dates of events in the Chronicles of the Kings of Man; but

1 Even in Britain there is scarcely a landright to be found of a more ancient date than 1300. A lease taken by Chaucer the poet, is one of the oldest upon record. It is dated on Christmas day, 1399. This document is a lease of a garden adjoining St. Mary's Chapel, London, from Robert Hermodesworth, chaplain, in favour of Geoffry Chaucer, for fifty-three years, at a yearly rent of fifty-three shillings and fourpence, in case the tenant should live so long, with power to distrain for a fortnight's arrears.-Borthwick's British Antiquities, Edinburgh, 1776, p. 24. * See vol. ii, p. 62, Ancient Limitation of Church Lands.

* Mr. Gregory was author of the History of the Western Islands and Isles of Scotland from 1493 to 1625, with a brief sketch from A,D. 80 to 1493, 8vo., Edinburgh, 1836.

◄ Mr. Gough, in his edition of Camden, three vols. folio, 1789, prefers Mr. Camden's copy of the Chronicles of the Kings of Man, to that published in 1787 by

many others escaped his notice, which were first pointed out to me by the late eminent antiquary, Donald Gregory, secretary to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, and by the kindness of William Forbes Skene, Esquire, his successor in that office, who, in the course of collecting materials for his valuable work entitled The Highlanders of Scotland,' has become, perhaps, more conversant with ancient Irish, and Scandinavian literature, than any other writer of the present day. I have been enabled to give in the course of this history, from documents of unquestionable authority, a more correct chronology of the kings of Man, than has hitherto appeared, particularly from the accession of Goddard Crovan to the death of Godred, the son of Olave Kleining.

There appears, however, some reason to apprehend, that prior to the conquest of Goddard Crovan, the succession of the Danish Vikingr in the sovereignty of Man, is not yet exactly known. There is preserved in the Castle of Dunvegan, in Skye, a drinking cup of the most ancient and curious workmanship. Around the edge is a legend, perfectly legible in Saxon black letter, which runs thus:

"Ufo: Johis: Mich: || Mgn: Principis: De: Hr: Manae: Wich: Liahia: Mgryneil: et spat: Do: Jhu: Da: || Clea : Floru: Opa: || Fecit: Ano: Di: Fr: || 930: Onili: Oimi: ||.” Translated thus:

"Ufo, the son of John, the son of Magnus, Prince of the land of Mann, the grandson of Liahta Macgryneil; and he trusts in the Lord Jesus, that mercy will be shown unto him on account of their works. Oneil Oimi made this in the year of our Lord 993."

Mr. Johnstone, from a fine old MS. on vellum in the Cottonian library, marked Julius A. VII, 3, because in the former the dates are all right in the original, whereas in the latter they are made so by the editor in his margin.-Gough's Camden, vol. iii, p. 705.

1 Published by Murray, London, 1836.