Archaeological Essays Part 4

Though small in its geographical dimensions, Inchcolm is rich in historical and archaeological a.s.sociations. In proof of this remark, I might adduce various facts to show that it has been at one time a favoured seat of learning, as when, upwards of four hundred years ago, the Scottish historian, Walter Bower, the Abbot of its Monastery, wrote there his contributions to the ancient history of Scotland;[17] and at other times the seat of war, as when it was pillaged at different periods by the English, during the course of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries.[18] For ages it was the site of a monastic inst.i.tution and the habitation of numerous monks;[19] and at the beginning of the present century it was temporarily degraded to the site of a military fort, and the habitation of a corps of artillery.[20]

During the plagues and epidemics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it formed sometimes a lazaretto for the suspected and diseased;[21] and during the reign of James I. it was used as a state-prison for the daughter of the Earl of Ross and the mother of the Lord of the Isles[22]--"a mannish, implacable woman," as Drummond of Hawthornden ungallantly terms her;[23] while fifty years later, when Patrick Graham, Archbishop of St. Andrews, was "decernit ane heretique, scismatike, symoniak, and declarit cursit, and cond.a.m.nit to perpetuall presoun," he was, for this last purpose, "first transport.i.t to St.

Colmes Insche."[24] Punishments more dark and dire than mere transportation to, and imprisonment upon Inchcolm, have perhaps taken place within the bounds of the island, if we do not altogether misinterpret the history of "a human skeleton standing upright," found several years ago immured and built up within the old ecclesiastic walls.[25] Nor is this eastern Iona, as patronised and protected by St.

Columba,--and, at one period of his mission to the Picts and Scots, his own alleged dwelling-place,[26]--devoid in its history of the usual amount of old monkish miracles and legends. The Scotichronicon contains long and elaborate details of several of them. When, in 1412, the Earl of Douglas thrice essayed to sail out to sea, and was thrice driven back by adverse gales, he at last made a pilgrimage to the holy isle of Aemonia, presented an offering to Columba, and forthwith the Saint sped him with fair winds to Flanders and home again.[27] When, towards the winter of 1421, a boat was sent on a Sunday (die Dominica) to bring off to the monastery from the mainland some house provisions and barrels of beer brewed at Bernhill (in barellis cerevisiam apud Bernhill brasiatam), and the crew, exhilarated with liquor (alacres et potosi), hoisted, on their return, a sail, and upset the barge, Sir Peter the Canon,--who, with five others, was thrown into the water,--fervently and unceasingly invoked the aid of Columba, and the Saint appeared in person to him, and kept Sir Peter afloat for an hour and a half by the help of a truss of tow (adminiculo cujusdam stupae), till the boat of Portevin picked up him and two others.[28] When, in 1385, the crew of an English vessel (quidam filii Belial) sacrilegiously robbed the island, and tried to burn the church, St. Columba, in answer to the earnest prayers of those who, on the neighbouring sh.o.r.e, saw the danger of the sacred edifice, suddenly s.h.i.+fted round the wind and quenched the flames, while the chief of the incendiaries was, within a few hours afterwards, struck with madness, and forty of his comrades drowned.[29] When, in 1335, an English fleet ravaged the sh.o.r.es of the Forth, and one of their largest s.h.i.+ps was carrying off from Inchcolm an image of Columba[30] and a store of ecclesiastical plunder, there sprung up such a furious tempest around the vessel immediately after she set sail, that she drifted helplessly and hopelessly towards the neighbouring island of Inchkeith, and was threatened with destruction on the rocks there till the crew implored pardon of Columba, vowed to him rest.i.tution of their spoils, and a suitable offering of gold and silver, and then they instantly and unexpectedly were lodged safe in port (et statim in tranquillo portu insperate ducebantur).[31] When, in 1336, some English pirates robbed the church at Dollar--which had been some time previously repaired and richly decorated by an Abbot of Aemonia--and while they were, with their sacrilegious booty, sailing triumphantly, and with music on board, down the Forth, under a favouring and gentle west wind, in the twinkling of an eye (non solum subito sed in ictu oculi), and exactly opposite the abbey of Inchcolm, the s.h.i.+p sank to the bottom like a stone. Hence, adds the writer of this miracle in the _Scotichronicon_,--and no doubt that writer was the Abbot Walter Bower,--in consequence of these marked retaliating propensities of St. Columba, his vengeance against all who trespa.s.sed against him became proverbial in England; and instead of calling him, as his name seems to have been usually p.r.o.nounced at the time, St. Callum or St. Colam, he was commonly known among them as _St. Quhalme_ ("et ideo, ut non reticeam quid de eo dicatur, apud eos vulgariter _Sanct Quhalme_ nuncupatur"[32]).

But without dwelling on these and other well-known facts and fictions in the history of Inchcolm, let me state,--for the statement has, as we shall afterwards see, some bearing upon the more immediate object of this notice,--that this island is one of the few spots in the vicinity of Edinburgh that has been rendered cla.s.sical by the pen of Shakspeare.

In the second scene of the opening act of the tragedy of Macbeth, the Thane of Ross comes as a hurried messenger from the field of battle to King Duncan, and reports that Duncan's own rebellious subjects and the invading Scandinavians had both been so completely defeated by his generals, Macbeth and Banquo, that the Norwegians craved for peace:--

"Sueno, the Norways' King, craves composition; Nor would we deign him burial of his men Till he disbursed, at Saint Colmes Inch, Ten thousand dollars to our general use."

Inchcolm is the only island of the east coast of Scotland which derives its distinctive designation from the great Scottish saint. But more than one island on our western sh.o.r.es bears the name of St. Columba; as, for example, St. Colme's Isle, in Loch Erisort, and St. Colm's Isle in the Minch, in the Lewis; the island of Kolmbkill, at the head of Loch Arkeg, in Inverness-s.h.i.+re; Eilean Colm, in the parish of Tongue;[33] and, above all, Icolmkill, or Iona itself, the original seat and subsequent great centre of the ecclesiastic power of St. Columba and his successors.[34]

An esteemed antiquarian friend, to whom I lately mentioned the preceding reference to Inchcolm by Shakspeare, at once maintained that the St.

Colme's Isle in Macbeth was Iona. Indeed, some of the modern editors[35]

of Shakspeare, carried away by the same view, have printed the line which I have quoted thus:--

"Till he disbursed, at Saint Colme's-kill Isle,"

instead of "Saint Colmes ynch," as the old folio edition prints it. But there is no doubt whatever about the reading, nor that the island mentioned in Macbeth is Inchcolm in the Firth of Forth. For the site of the defeat of the Norwegian host was in the adjoining mainland of Fife, as the Thane of Ross tells the Scotch king that, to report his victory, he had come from the seat of war--

"from Fife, Where the Norwegian banners flout the sky."

The reference to Inchcolm by Shakspeare becomes more interesting when we follow the poet to the original historical foundations upon which he built his wondrous tragedy. It is well known that Shakspeare derived the incidents for his story of Macbeth from that translation of Hector Boece's _Chronicles of Scotland_, which was published in England by Raphael Holinshed in 1577. In these Chronicles, Holinshed, or rather Hector Boece, after describing the reputed poisoning, with the juice of belladonna, of Sueno and his army, and their subsequent almost complete destruction, adds, that shortly afterwards, and indeed while the Scots were still celebrating this equivocal conquest, another Danish host landed at Kinghorn. The fate of this second army is described by Holinshed in the following words:--

"The Scots hauing woone so notable a victorie, after they had gathered and diuided the spoile of the field, caused solemne processions to be made in all places of the realme, and thanks to be giuen to almightie G.o.d, that had sent them so faire a day ouer their enimies. But whilest the people were thus at their processions, woord was brought that a new fleet of Danes was arriued at Kingcorne, sent thither by Canute, King of England, in reuenge of his brother Suenos ouerthrow. To resist these enimies, which were alreadie landed, and busie in spoiling the countrie, Makbeth and Banquho were sent with the Kings authoritie, who hauing with them a conuenient power, incountred the enimies, slue part of them, and chased the other to their s.h.i.+ps. They that escaped and got once to their s.h.i.+ps, obteined of Makbeth for a great summe of gold, that such of their friends as were slaine at this last bickering, might be buried in Saint Colmes Inch. In memorie whereof, manie old sepultures are yet in the said Inch, there to be seene grauen with the armes of the Danes, as the maner of burieng n.o.ble men still is, and hieretofore hath beene vsed.

A peace was also concluded at the same time betwixt the Danes and Scotishmen, ratified (as some haue written) in this wise: that from thencefoorth the Danes should neuer come into Scotland to make anie warres against the Scots by anie maner of meanes. And these were the warres that Duncane had with forren enimies, in the seuenth yiere of his reigne."[36]

To this account of Holinshed, as bearing upon the question of the St.

Colme's Isle alluded to by Shakspeare, it is only necessary to add one remark:--Certainly the western Iona, with its nine separate cemeteries, could readily afford fit burial-s.p.a.ce for the slain Danes; but it is impossible to believe that the defeated and dejected Danish army would or could carry the dead and decomposing bodies of their chiefs to that remote place of sepulture. And, supposing that the dead bodies had been embalmed, then it would have been easier to carry them back to the Danish territories in England, or even across the German Ocean to Denmark itself, than round by the Pentland Firth to the distant western island of Icolmkill. On the other hand, that St. Colme's Inch, in the Firth of Forth, is the island alluded to, is, as I have already said, perfectly certain, from its propinquity to the seat of war, and the point of landing of the new Scandinavian host, namely, Kinghorn; the old town of Wester Kinghorn lying only about three or four miles below Inchcolm, and the present town of the same name, or Eastern Kinghorn, being placed about a couple of miles further down the coast.

We might here have adduced another incontrovertible argument in favour of this view by appealing to the statement, given in the above quotation, of the existence on Inchcolm, in Boece's time, of Danish sepulchral monuments, provided we felt a.s.sured that this statement was in itself perfectly correct. But before adopting it as such, it is necessary to remember that Boece describes the sculptured crosses and stones at Camustane and Aberlemno,[37] in Forfars.h.i.+re, as monuments of a Danish character also; and whatever may have been the origin and objects of these mysteries in Scottish archaeology,--our old and numerous Sculptured Stones, with their strange enigmatical symbols,--we are at least certain that they are not Danish either in their source or design, as no sculptured stones with these peculiar symbols exist in Denmark itself. That Inchcolm contained one or more of those sculptured stones, is proved by a small fragment that still remains, and which was detected a few years ago about the garden-wall. A drawing of it has been already published by Mr. Stuart.[38] (See woodcut, Fig. 1.) In the quotation which I have given from Holinshed's Chronicles, the "old sepultures there (on Inchcolm) to be seene grauen with the armes of the Danes," are spoken of as "manie" in number.[39] b.e.l.l.e.n.den uses similar language: "Thir Danes" (he writes) "that fled to thair schippis, gaif gret sowmes of gold to Makbeth to suffer thair freindis that war slane at his jeoperd to be buryit in Sanct Colmes Inche. In memory heirof, _mony_ auld sepulturis ar yit in the said Inche, gravin with armis of Danis."[40] In translating this pa.s.sage from Boece, both Holinshed and b.e.l.l.e.n.den overstate, in some degree, the words of their original author.

Boece speaks of the Danish monuments still existing on Inchcolm in his day, or about the year 1525, as plural in number, but without speaking of them as many. After stating that the Danes purchased the right of sepulture for their slain chiefs (n.o.biles) "in Emonia insula, loco sacro," he adds, "extant et hac aetate notissima Danorum monumenta, lapidibusque insculpta eorum insignia."[41] For a long period past only one so-called Danish monument has existed on Inchcolm, and is still to be seen there. It is a single rec.u.mbent block of stone above five feet long, about a foot broad, and one foot nine inches in depth, having a rude sculptured figure on its upper surface. In his _History of Fife_, published in 1710, Sir Robert Sibbald has both drawn and described it.

"It is (says he) made like a coffin, and very fierce and grim faces are done on both the ends of it. Upon the middle stone which supports it, there is the figure of a man holding a spear in his hand."[42] He might have added that on the corresponding middle part of the opposite side there is sculptured a rude cross; but both the cross and "man holding a spear" are cut on the single block of stone forming the monument, and not, as he represents, on a separate supporting stone. Pennant, in his _Tour through Scotland_ in 1772, tells us that this "Danish monument"

"lies in the south-east [south-west] side of the building (or monastery), on a rising ground. It is (he adds) of a rigid form, and the surface ornamented with scale-like figures. At each end is the representation of a human head."[43][44] In its existing defaced form,[45] the sculpture has certainly much more the appearance of a rec.u.mbent human figure, with a head at one end and the feet at the other, than with a human head at either extremity. The present condition of the monument is faithfully given in the accompanying woodcut, which, like most of the other woodcuts in this little essay, have been copied from sketches made by the masterly pencil of my esteemed friend, Mr. James Drummond, R.S.A.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 1. Sculptured Stone, Inchcolm.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 2. Danish Monument.]

It is well known that, about a century after the occurrence of these Danish wars, and of the alleged burial of the Danish chiefs on Inchcolm,--or in the first half of the thirteenth[47] century,--there was founded on this island, by Alexander I., a monastery, which from time to time was greatly enlarged, and well endowed. The monastic buildings remaining on Inchcolm at the present day are of very various dates, and still so extensive that their oblong light-grey ma.s.s, surmounted by a tall square central tower, forms a striking object in the distance, as seen in the summer morning light from the higher streets and houses of Edinburgh, and from the neighbouring sh.o.r.es of the Firth of Forth. These monastic buildings have been fortunately protected and preserved by their insular situation,--not from the silent and wasting touch of time, but from the more ruthless and destructive hand of man. The stone-roofed octagonal chapter-house is one of the most beautiful and perfect in Scotland; and the abbot's house, the cloisters, refectory, etc., are still comparatively entire. But the object of the present communication is not to describe the well-known conventual ruins on the island, but to direct the attention of the Society to a small building, isolated, and standing at a little distance from the remains of the monastery, and which, I am inclined to believe, is of an older date, and of an earlier age, than any part of the monastery itself.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig 3. Inchcolm.]

The small building, cell, oratory, or chapel, to which I allude, forms now, with its south side, a portion of the line of the north wall of the present garden, and is in a very ruinous state; but its more characteristic and original features can still be accurately made out.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 4. Ground-plan of Oratory.]

The building is of the quadrangular figure of the oldest and smallest Irish churches and oratories. But its form is very irregular, partly in consequence of the extremely sloping nature of the ground on which it is built, and partly perhaps to accommodate it in position to three large and immovable ma.s.ses of trap that lie on either side of it, and one of which ma.s.ses is incorporated into its south-west angle. It is thus deeper on its north than on its south side; and much deeper at its eastern than at its western end. Further, its remaining eastern gable is set at an oblique angle to the side walls, while both the side walls themselves seem slightly curved or bent. Hence it happens, that whilst externally the total length of the north side of the building is 19 feet and a half, the total length of its south side is 21 feet and a half, or 2 feet more. Internally, also, it gradually becomes narrower towards its western extremity; so that, whilst the breadth of the interior of the building is about 6 feet 3 inches at its eastern end, it is only 4 feet and 9 inches at its western end. Some of these peculiarities are shown in the accompanying ground-plan drawn by Mr. Brash (see woodcut, Fig.

4), in which the line A B represents the whole breadth of the building; A the north, and B the south wall of it. Unfortunately, as far as can be gathered amid the acc.u.mulated debris at the western part of the building, the gable at that end is almost destroyed, with the exception of the stones at its base; but, judging from the height of the vaulted roof, this gable probably did not measure externally above 8 feet, while the depth of the eastern gable, which is comparatively entire, is between 14 and 15 feet. The interior of the building has been originally, along its central line, about 16 feet in length; it is nearly 8 feet in height from the middle of the vaulted roof to the present floor; and the interior has an average breadth of about 5 feet.

Internally the side walls are 5 feet in height from the ground to the spring of the arch or vault.

Three feet from the ground there is interiorly, in the south wall, a small four-sided recess,[48] 1 foot in breadth, and 15 inches in height and depth. (See C in ground plan, Fig. 4; and also Fig. 8.) In the same south-side wall, near the western gable, is an opening extending from the floor to the spring of the roof. It has apparently been the original door of the building; but as it is now built up by a layer of thin stone externally, and the soil of the garden has been heaped up against it and the whole south wall to the depth of several feet, it is difficult to make out its full relations and character. There is a peculiarity, however, about the head of this entrance which deserves special notice.

The top of the doorway, as seen both from within and from without the building, is arched, but in two very different ways. When examined from within, the head of the doorway is found to be composed of stones laid in the form of a horizontal arch, the superinc.u.mbent stones on each side projecting more and more over each other to const.i.tute its sides, and then a large, flat, horizontal stone closing the apex. (See woodcut, Fig. 5.) On the contrary, when examined from without, the top of the doorway is formed by stones laid in the usual form of the radiating arch, and roughly broken off, as if that arch at a former period had extended beyond the line of the wall. (See woodcut, Fig. 6.) This doorway, let me add, is 5 feet high, and on an average about 4 feet wide,[49] but it is 2 or 3 inches narrower at the top, or at the spring of the arch, than it is at the bottom.[50] The north side wall of the building is less perfect; as, in modern times, a large rude opening has been broken through as an entrance or door (see woodcut, Fig. 7, and ground-plan, Fig. 4), after the original door on the other side had become blocked up.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 5. Horizontal arch of the door, as seen from within the cell.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 6. Semi-circular arch of the door as seen from without, the garden earth filling the doorway.]

The eastern gable is still very entire, and contains a small window,[51]

which, as measured outside, is 1 foot 11 inches in height, and 10 inches in breadth. But the jambs of this window incline or splay internally, so as to form on the internal plane of the gable an opening 2 feet 3 inches in breadth.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 7. Eastern gable and north side of the building.]

The squared sill stone of the window is one of the largest in the eastern gable. Its flat lintel stone projects externally in an angled or sharpened form beyond the plane of the gable, like a rude attempt at a moulding or architrave, but probably with the more utilitarian object of preventing entrance of the common eastern showers into the interior of the cell. The thin single flat sandstones composing the jambs are each large enough to extend backwards the whole length of the interior splay of the window, and, from the marks upon them, have evidently been hammer-dressed.[53] Internally, in this eastern gable, there is placed below the window, and in continuation of its interior splay, a recess about 18 inches in depth, and of nearly the same breadth as the divergence of the jambs of the window. The broken base or floor of this recess is in the position of the altar-stone in some small early Irish chapels.

The accompanying sketch (see woodcut, Fig. 7) of the exterior of the eastern gable shows that the stones of which it is built have been prepared and dressed with sufficient care--especially those forming the angles--to ent.i.tle us to speak of it as presenting the type of rude ashlar-work. The stones composing it, particularly above the line of the window, are laid in pretty regular horizontal courses; lower down they are not by any means so equable in size. The masonry of the side walls is much less regular, and more of a ruble character. The walls are on an average about 3 feet in thickness.[54] The stones of which the building is composed are, with a few exceptions, almost all squared sandstone.

The exceptions consist of some larger stones of trap or basalt, placed princ.i.p.ally along the base of the walls. Both secondary trap and sandstone are found _in situ_ among the rocks of the island. A roundish basalt stone, 2 feet long, forms a portion of the floor of the building at its southern corner. At other points there is evidence of a well-laid earth floor. The whole interior of the building has been carefully plastered at one time. The surface of this plaster-covering of the walls, wherever it is left, is so dense and hard as to be scratched with difficulty. The lime used for building and cementing the walls, as shown in a part at the west end which has been lately exposed, contains oyster and other smaller sea-sh.e.l.ls, and is as firm and hard as some forms of concrete.

I have reserved till the last a notice of one of the most remarkable architectural features in this little building, namely, its arched or vaulted stone roof,--the circ.u.mstance, no doubt, to which the whole structure owes its past durability and present existence.

Stone roofs are found in some old Irish buildings, formed on the principle of the horizontal arch, or by each layer of stone overlapping and projecting within the layer placed below it till a single stone closes the top. A remarkable example of this type of stone roof is presented by the ancient oratory of Gallerus in the county of Kerry; and stone roofs of the same construction covered most of the old beehive houses and variously shaped cloghans that formerly existed in considerable numbers in the western and southern districts of Ireland, and more spa.r.s.ely on the western sh.o.r.es of Scotland. In the Inchcolm oratory the stone roof is constructed on another principle--on that, namely, of the radiating arch--a form of roof still seen in some early Irish oratories and churches, whose reputed date of building ranges from the sixth or seventh onward to the tenth or eleventh centuries.

The mode of construction of the stone roof of the Inchcolm cell is well displayed in the accidental section of it that has been made by the falling in of the western gable. One of Mr. Drummond's sketches (see woodcut, Fig. 9) represents the section as seen across the collection of flower-tipped rubbish and stones made by the debris of the gable and some acc.u.mulated earth. The roof is constructed, first, of stones placed in the shape of a radiating arch; secondly, of a thin layer of lime and small stones placed over the outer surface of this arch; and, thirdly, the roof is finished by being covered externally with a layer of oblong, rhomboid stones, laid in regular courses from the top of the side walls onwards and upwards to the ridge of the building. This outer coating of squared stones is seen in the external surface of the roof to the left in one sketch (see woodcut, Fig. 9); but a more perfect and better preserved specimen of it exists immediately above the entrance-door, as shown in another of Mr. Drummond's drawings (see woodcut, Fig. 6).

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 8. Interior of the building, showing splayed window in eastern gable, recess in interior of south wall, vaulted roof, etc.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 9. Exposed section of the arch of the vault.]

The arch or vault of the roof has one peculiarity, perhaps worthy of notice (and seen in the preceding woodcut, Fig. 9). The central keystone of the arch has the form of a triangular wedge, or of the letter V, a type seen in other rude and primitive arches. Interiorly, a similar keystone line appears to run along the length of the vault, but not always perfectly straight; and the whole figure of the arch distinctly affects the pointed form.

Several years ago I first saw the building which I have described when visiting Inchcolm with Captain Thomas, Dr. Daniel Wilson, and some other friends, and its peculiar antique character and strong rude masonry struck all of us, for it seemed different in type from any of the other buildings around it. Last year I had an opportunity of visiting several of the oldest remaining Irish churches and oratories at Glendalough, Killaloe, Clonmacnoise, and elsewhere, and the features of some of them strongly recalled to my recollection the peculiarities of the old building in Inchcolm, and left on my mind a strong desire to re-inspect it. Later in the year Mr. Fraser and I visited Inchcolm in company with our greatest Scottish authority on such an ecclesiological question--Mr.

Joseph Robertson. That visit confirmed us in the idea, first, that the small building in question was of a much more ancient type than any portion of the neighbouring monastery; and, secondly, that in form and construction it presented the princ.i.p.al architectural characters of the earliest and oldest Irish churches and oratories. More lately I had an opportunity of showing the various original sketches which Mr. Drummond had made for me of the building to the highest living authority on every question connected with early Irish and Scoto-Irish ecclesiastical architecture--namely, Dr. Petrie of Dublin; and before asking anything as to its site, etc., he at once p.r.o.nounced the building to be "a Columbian cell."

The tradition, as told to our party by the cicerone on the island on my first visit, was, that this neglected outbuilding was the place in which "King Alexander lived for three days with the hermit of Inchcolm." There was nothing in the rude architecture and general character of the building to gainsay such a tradition, but the reverse; and, on the contrary, when we turn to the notice of a visit of Alexander I. to the island in 1123, as given by our earliest Scotch historians, their account of the little chapel or oratory which he found there perfectly applies to the building which I have been describing. In order to prove this, let me quote the history of Alexander's visit from the _Scotichronicon_ of Fordun and Bower, the _Extracta e Cronicis Scocie_, and the _Scotorum Historia_ of Hector Boece.[55]

The _Scotichronicon_ contains the following account of King Alexander's adventure and temporary sojourn in Inchcolm:--

"About the year of our Lord 1123, under circ.u.mstances not less wonderful than miraculous, a monastery was founded on the island Aemonia, near Inverkeithing. For when the n.o.ble and most Christian Sovereign Alexander, first of this name, was, in pursuit of some state business, making a pa.s.sage across the Queensferry, suddenly a tremendous storm arose, and the fierce south-west wind forced the vessel and sailors to make, for safety's sake, for the island of Aemonia, where at that time lived an island hermit (_eremita insula.n.u.s_), who, belonging to the service of St. Columba, devoted himself sedulously to his duties at a certain little chapel there (_ad quandam inibi capellulam_), content with such poor food as the milk of one cow and the sh.e.l.l and small sea fishes which he could collect. On the hermit's slender stores the king and his suite of companions, detained by the storm, gratefully lived for three consecutive days. But on the day before landing, when in very great danger from the sea, and tossed by the fury of the tempest, the king despaired of life, he vowed to the Saint, that if he should bring him and his companions safe to the island, he would leave on it such a memorial to his honour as would render it a future asylum and refuge to sailors and those that were s.h.i.+pwrecked. Therefore, it was decided on this occasion that he should found there a monastery of prebendaries, such as now exists; and this the more so, as he had always venerated St. Columba with special honour from his youth; and chiefly because his own parents were for several years childless and dest.i.tute of the solace of offspring, until, beseeching St. Columba with suppliant devotion, they gloriously obtained what they sought for so long a time with anxious desire. Hence the origin of the verse--

'M.C, ter, I. bis, et X literis a tempore Christi, Aemon, tunc ab Alexandro fundata fuisti Scotorum primo. Structorem Canonicorum Transferat ex imo Deus hunc ad alta polorum.'"[56]

The preceding account of King Alexander's visit to Inchcolm, and his founding of the monastery there, occurs in the course of the fifth book (lib. v. cap. 37) of the _Scotichronicon_, without its being marked whether the pa.s.sage itself exists in the original five books of Fordun, or in one of the additions made to them by the Abbot Walter Bower.[57]

The first of these writers, John of Fordun, lived, it will be recollected, in the reigns of Robert II. and III., and wrote about 1380; while Walter Bower, the princ.i.p.al continuator of Fordun's history, was Abbot of Inchcolm from 1418 to the date of his death in 1449.

In the work known under the t.i.tle of _Extracta e Variis Cronicis Scocie_,[58] there is an account of Alexander's fortuitous visit to Inchcolm, exactly similar to the above, but in an abridged form. Mr.

Tytler, in his _History of Scotland_,[59] supposes the _Extracta_ to have been written posterior to the time of Fordun, and prior to the date of Bower's _Continuation of the Scotichronicon_,--a conjecture which one or more pa.s.sages in the work entirely disprove.[60] If the opinion of Mr. Tytler had been correct, it would have been important as a proof that the story of the royal adventure of Alexander upon Inchcolm was written by Fordun, and not by Bower, inasmuch as the two accounts in the _Scotichronicon_ and in the _Extracta_ are on this, as on most other points, very similar, the _Extracta_ being merely somewhat curtailed. As evidence of this remark, let me here cite the original words of the _Extracta_:--

"Emonia insula seu monasterium, nunc Sancti Columbe de Emonia, per dictum regem fundatur circa annum Domini millesimum vigesimum quartum miraculose. Nam c.u.m idem n.o.bilis rex transitum faciens per Pa.s.sagium Regine, exorta tempestas valida, flante Africo, ratem c.u.m naucleris, vix vita comite, compulit applicare ad insulam Emoniam, ubi tunc degebat quidam heremita insula.n.u.s, qui seruicio Sancti Columbe deditus, ad quamdam inibi capellulam tenui victu, utpote lacte vnius vacce et conchis ac pisiculis marinis contentatus, sedule se dedit, de quibus cibariis rex c.u.m suis, tribus diebus, vento compellente, reficitur. Et quia Sanctum Columbam a juventute dilexit, in periculo maris, ut predicitur, positus, vouit se, si ad prefatam insulam veheretur incolumis, aliquid memoria dignum ibidem facere, et sic monasterium ibidem construxit canonicorum, et dotauit."[61]

I shall content myself with citing from our older Scottish historians one more account of Alexander's adventure upon Inchcolm--namely, that given by Hector Boece, Princ.i.p.al of King's College, Aberdeen, in his _Scotorum Historia_, a work written during the reign of James V., and first published in 1526. In this work, after alluding to the foundation of the Abbey of Scone, Boece proceeds to state that--(to quote the translation of the pa.s.sage as given by b.e.l.l.e.n.den)--"Nocht long efter King Alexander come in Sanct Colmes Inche; quhair he was constrainit, be violent tempest, to remane thre dayis, sustenand his life with skars fude, be ane heremit that dwelt in the said inche: in quhilk, he had ane litill chapell, dedicat in the honoure of Sanct Colme. Finaly, King Alexander, becaus his life was saiffit be this heremit, biggit ane Abbay of Chanonis regular, in the honour of Sanct Colme; and dotat it with sindry landes and rentis, to sustene the abbot and convent thairof."[62]