The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

APPEND.] OF SCOTLAND 159
of the seven provinces are the same in both ; the first province
in the second list being equivalent to Fife and Fothreve ; the
second, to Stratherne and Menteth ; the third, to Angus and
Merns ; the fourth, to Marr and Buchan ; the fifth, to Atholl ;
and the sixth, Moray and Ross ; while in the first list, the
seventh is Cathanesia, and in the second it is Argyll.
This variation, it is plain, could not arise from any error in
the ancient documents from which these two accounts are taken ;
and the two lists can only represent the division of Scotland
into seven provinces, at different periods, since otherwise we
could not account for the omission of either Argyll or Caithness
This variation, however, points out distinctly the different periods
in the history of Scotland to which the two lists apply. The
first list omits Argyll ; the second includes Argyll and omits
Caithness ; and the ninth century produced exactly the changes
in the history of Scotland which would account for this varia-
tion ; for the Scottish conquest, in 843, added Dalriada, which
afterwards became Argyll, to the rest of Scotland, and towards
the end of the same century, Caithness fell into the hands
of the Norwegians. The second list thus exhibits the exact
territories possessed by the king of Scotland subsequent to
the ninth century, while the first list gives an equally faithful
picture of the extent of the Pictish kingdom previous to the
Scottish conquest. This is very plain, when we find that the
seven provinces in the first list form exactly the possessions
of the Picts, and that the part omitted is just the territory
of the Dalriads ; and this is most important, for it proves that
the division into seven provinces was peculiar to the Picts, and
that the Pictish kingdom formed the basis of the subsequent
Scottish monarchy. Having thus established the fact that the
seven provinces contained in the first list were the territorial
divisions of the Pictish kingdom previous to the Scottish
conquest, we now proceed to enquire into the nature and
purpose of this division.
Giraldus mentions a tradition that the seven provinces arose
from a division of the territory of the Picts among seven
brothers. These seven brothers, however, are manifestly the
same with the seven sons of Cruthne, the progenitor of the
Picts mentioned in the following passage of the Pictish chronicle: