The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

CHAP II] OF SCOTLAND 195
the previous history of this district, it is probable that this
name was derived from its forming the maritime part of the
territories of the Gallgael, in opposition to their inland pos-
sessions of Atholl. By the historians, the whole of this
extensive district is included under the term of Ergadia, and
the northern and southern divisions under those of Ergadia
Borealis and Ergadia Australis. When the Saxon polity of
sheriffdoms was introduced into Scotland, the government
had not such a secure footing in the Highlands as to enable
them to distribute it into numerous sheriffdoms, and thus to
force obedience to the laws, by means of the sheriffs, everywhere
established, as they did in the Lowlands. Such a
subjection to royal authority in the person of sheriffs could
only in the Highlands be a nominal one, but the principles
of the Saxon polity then introduced, required that the whole
country should either nominally or really be distributed into
sheriffdoms, and accordingly the whole of the Highlands was
divided into two, the districts north of the Mounth forming
the sheriffdom of Inverness, while those south of that range
were included in the sheriffdom of Perth. In this state the
Highlands remained till the reign of Alexander II., divided
into two sheriffdoms, each of which in extent resembled more
a petty kingdom than the sheriffdom of the rest of the
and that sheriff-making monarch revived the Saxon
country ;
policy of bringing conquered districts under permanent sub-
jection to the laws and government, by erecting them into a
new and separate sheriffdom, and thus arose the additional
shires of Elgin, Nairn, Banff, Cromarty, and Argyll. In this
way, previous to the reign of Alexander II., the districts of
North and South Argyll were included in separate shires, the
former being in Inverness, the latter in Perth. To the Norse
the whole district was known by the name of Dala, under
which appellation it is first mentioned in the end of the
tenth century, and is included among the conquests of Sigurd,
the second of that name, Earl of Orkney, and the same term
is used by the Norse writers for this district down to the end
the Western Isles were con-
of the twelfth century. In 1093
quered by Magnus Barefoot, king of Norway, and the conquest
was confirmed to him by ^Malcolm Kenmore, then commencing