The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

APPEND.] OF SCOTLAND 165
It has been fully shewn in the previous part of the Work,
that the Pictish monarchy was an elective one, and that the
king of the Picts was chosen from tribes.i
among the chiefs of the
Adomnan mentions the existence of a senatus among
the Picts. This senatus, then, must have been the constitutional
body by whom the Pictish monarch was elected, or his right
to the Pictish throne judged of; and it is equally clear that
it must originally have been formed out of the chiefs of these
tribes ; but while the Southern Picts consisted of three great
tribes only, the nature of the country, and other causes inci-
dental to mountain districts, had caused the division of the
Northern Picts into a much greater number. Although these
tribes were probably originally independent of each other, yet
in a representation of the nation by the heads of its tribes, it
was absolutely necessary that the one division of the nation
should not have too great a preponderance over the other, in
numbers and extent of territory equally powerful ; and in this
way, I think, arose the arrangement of the tribes of the
Northern Picts into four provinces, in each of which one tribe
alone, and probably the most powerful, was selected to form
a part of the national council, and to which tribes the others
would soon become dependent. The division of the nation into
seven provinces was then a political institution, whose origin
the balance between
is unknown, for the purpose of preserving
the two great branches of the Picts, whose habits of life, and the
nature of their country, rendered their interests very different ;
and the seven great chiefs, by whom the seven provinces were
represented, alone had a voice in the senatus of the nation, and
constituted the electors of the Pictish monarch, and the judges
of his right to the throne, when the principle of succession was
introduced.2
Such, then, was the constitution of the Pictish monarchy
'
Part I., chap. ii. sponsione Apostoli letificati, proelium
- The seven provinces of the Picts, pararimt ; et diviso exercitu, circa
and the seven great chiefs who pre- regem siium septem agmina statue-
sided over them, are plainly alluded runt."— Pinkerton, App. No. 7.
to in the following passages in the
"
Altero autem die, evenit regi praeold
accounts of the foundation of St. dicto, cum septem comitibus amicissi-
Andrews :— mis, ambulare."— Pinkerton, App. No.
"
Die autem postero Picti, ex 12.