and exhibits the circumftances which, from the nature of the feudal policy, contributed to exalt the power of the monarch. The third contains the interval between the union of the crowns of England and Scotland, to the union of the two kingdoms. In this last period, the Scottish nation had not made fuch advances in commerce as could produce any great alteration in their political fyftem; but the administration of their government was then rendered fubordinate to that of England, a manufacturing and commercial country.

SECTION I.

OF THE GOVERNMENT OF SCOTLAND, FROM THE TIME WHEN BRITAIN WAS ABANDONED BY THE ROMANS, TO THE REIGN OF MALCOLM SECOND.

THE

DURING this early period, little is known with certainty; and we must be satisfied with a delineation, from probable conjecture, of the bare outlines and prevailing character of

the

the Scottish government. The appropriation of land gave rife in Scotland, as well as in the other countries of Europe, to feveral distinctions in the condition and rank of the people. The owner of a landed eftate obtained univerfally an authority over all those perfons whom he maintained upon his property. Those who acquired confiderable estates were led to distribute a part of them among their kindred and followers, under conditions of military service, and to put the remainder under the management of servants employed in the feveral branches of agriculture. The people fubfifting upon any estate came thus to be compofed of the matter, or proprietor, of the vaffals who attended him in war, and of the peasants by whose labour his household was fupported. As the whole kingdom comprehended a number of landed estates, difpofed and regulated in the fame manner, and differing only in the degrees of their magnitude, the whole people, exclufive of the clergy, were divided into thefe three orders of men.

It is probable, however, that in Scotland the peafantry, in proportion to the collective body of the nation, were lefs numerous than

in England; and that their condition was less abject and fervile. They were lefs numerous; because agriculture was in a lower state, and a great proportion of the country was employed merely in pafturage. Their condition was lefs abject and servile; because, as the country had never been conquered, like the provinces of the western empire, there had been no opportunity, by captivity in war, of reducing a great part of the inhabitants into a state of absolute flavery.

In all rude countries, thofe who earn fubfiftence by their labour are apt to feel much dependence upon the perfon who employs them ; and there can be no doubt that in Scotland, as well as in the neighbouring feudal kingdoms, the peasants were confidered as inferior in rank to the military tenants. But they appear to have been lefs diftinguished by peculiar marks of inferiority; less disqualified from serving their master in war; and more capable, by their industry and good behaviour, of bettering their circumftances. It should feem, accordingly, that the diftinction between the villains and the military tenants was earlier abolished in Scotland than in England. In the latter country, the

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copy-holders, the remains of the ancient villains, are ftill confidered as inferiour in rank to the free-holders, or military tenants; and are not, even at this day, admitted to a full participation of the fame political rights: whereas in Scotland, no fuch class of men as the copy-holders have any existence; nor in the prefent laws and customs of that country are any vestiges of the primeval villanage to be found.

As the state of property in Scotland was very fimilar to that which took place in the other countries of modern Europe, the form of government refulting from it was in all probability nearly the fame. The proprietor of every landed estate was the natural governour of the district which it comprehended. He was the military leader, and the civil magistrate, of all the people who lived it. These proprietors, originally independent of each other, were led by degrees into a confederacy, or political union, more or less extensive according to circumstances.

upon

In England the proprietors in the fame neighbourhood were united in a town or village, commonly called a tything. Ten of thefe villages are faid to have been affociated in form

ing an hundred or centenary; and an arbitrary number of these hundreds formed a fire or county. These districts were fubordinate one to another and in each of them there was appointed a military leader; by whom, with concurrence of the feveral free proprietors, all its political concerns were tranfacted. The proprietors of the different fhires were united under a king, their great military leader; by whom they were occasionally called to deliberate, in the last resort, upon the legislative, executive, or judicial business of the nation.

It is highly probable that this political arrangement, so natural and simple, took place in Scotland, as well as in England, and in other kingdoms upon the neighbouring continent; though, from the deficiency and imperfection of the Scottish records, a complete proof of it can hardly be adduced. The name of tything is scarcely to be found in the ancient monuments or hiftories of Scotland; but there are clear veftiges of the most important regulations connected with that inftitution. A tything in England, as well as upon the continent of Europe, was in reality a town or village divided into ten parts; and in the towns or villages of Scotland,

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