of the late king's. It was supposed that he appeared at the head of an English army to vindi cate the rights of his father's legitimate children, Many English adventurers joined his expedition: the Scots flocked to his standard, and Donald was obliged to take refuge in the Hebridæ. The people imagined that Duncan was to raise Edgar to the throne of his father, but instead of that, he repaired to Seone, where he was crowned. The Scots had not expelled one usurper in or der to receive another; they conspire against Duncan, and by his death make way for the restoration of Donald; but he was not long to enjoy the prize of his crimes. Edgar Atheling, with the consent of Rufus, raised an army in England, to restore his nephew. With two thousand men, young Edgar and his uncle marched into Scotland. The usurper could not make his escape as formerly. He was taken prisoner, his eyes were put out, and he was cast to languish out the remainder of his days in a dungeon. The peace with England was soon after Edgar. cemented by a matrimonial alliance. Matilda, sister of king Edgar, was given in marriage to Henry, the brother and successor of William. After a reign of eight years, which was dis turbed by no domestic conspiracy, no foreign wars, Edgar died in the year 1107. Alexander. He was succeeded by his brother Alexander, who left his principality of Cumberland to his brother David, He proved himself not inferior to his father in the qualities necessary to the ruler of a barbarous people. The The northern parts of the kingdom were filled with tumult and disorder. Alexander raised an army, attacked the insurgents separately; whom having entirely subdued, he ordered numbers of the most powerful to be executed immediately. Upon his return he was accosted by a widow, who complained that her husband and son had been killed by an earl, their superior. He alighted from his horse, and swore he would not remount him until enquiry should be made into the justice of the complaint, and finding it to be true, the offender was hanged in his presence. The remainder of Alexander's reign was spent in civil and ecclesiastical regulations. About this period, the church of Scotland begins to take its place among national churches, and to maintain its dignity and independence. We shall see that the popery they professed did not prevent them from rejecting the decrees of the Roman see whenever they found their privileges in danger. The beginnings of this church, like those of the kingdom, are involved in darkness and uncertainty. Tertullian, a father of the second century, asserts, that the light of the gospel had penetrated farther into Britain than the arms of Rome. It must have reached the provincial Britons at a very early period. From them it may have been communicated to the Mate or Midland district. When Edward I. demanded a bull from the pope, authorizing him to collect the tenths in Scotland, the pope replied, he could make no such grant without consent of the Scottish government. The The Picts and Cambrians had been converted by Ninian, first bishop of Whithorn, in Galloway, about 400. S. Columba, another apostle of the Picts, had founded the famous abbey of Iona or Icolmkil, which became the seat of learning as well as the seminary of the clergy for many ages; and lastly, Palladius, was sent for by pope Celestine to the " then believing Scots" as their first bishop.. A.D. 431. When + Hyona was destroyed, the monastery of Dunkeld rose to rival that religious seminary. St. Andrews was the next in order of the institution, among the religious establishments of Scotland. Malcolm III. had founded the sees of Murray and Caithness, and the monastery of Dunfermline. * Other bishoprics and religious houses had been founded by different princcs, and at last the clergy began to hold regular councils. In the year 906, king Constantine, Kellach the bishop, and the Scots, solemnly vowed to observe the laws and discipline of faith, the rights of the churches, and of the gospel, on a little hill near Scone. Several of these councils were The isle of St. Colm is near three miles long, and above a mile broad. Among the ruins of the old cloister, there remains a church-yard, in the west part of which are the tombs of forty-eight kings of Scotland in the middle on the right side those of four kings of Ireland; and on the left, those of eight kings of Norway. All the noble families of the western islands have their particular burying places in the rest of the church-yard. Before the reformation, there were in Scotland two archbishoprics, twelve bishops, twenty-seven abbacies, and thirteen priories, but very few nunneries. held held during the reign of Malcolm Canmore, by the pious zeal of his royal consort, St. Margaret, as Turgot relates, for the re- establishing ecclesiastical discipline, and the reformation of manners. The monks, who applied themselves to prayer, teaching, and preaching, were called Culdees, from the Latin cultores Dei, servants of God. No mention is made of them by Nennius, in the seventh, nor by Bede, in the eighth age. They seem not to have been known before the ninth century, in which we find them at St. Andrew's though Boece, and other Scottish writers, pretend the Culdees to have been as ancient as christianity in that country. The monks of Columba were for a long time the only clergy in Scotland. From among them the bishops were chosen, who after their ordination, still retained their veneration for their old superior, the abbot. In process of time, when the nation came to be provided with secular clergy, the pastoral charge devolved upon them, and the regulars were left to the exercise of a monastic life. This revolution could not be effected without the jarrings of party spirit: hence the differences about the votes of the Culdees in the election of bishops, and in other ecclesiastical matters. The clergy of Scotland, if not learned, were certainly not illiterate. Abstracting from their religious tenets, the morality they taught was pure and sublime as that of the theologians and philosophers of the most enlightened ages. In the monasteries, copies of books were multiplied by transcription. The monks could read and |