Page:Chronicles of the Picts, chronicles of the Scots, and other early memorials of Scottish history.djvu/177

PEEFACE. clxix the subsequent chronicles, and they try to evade it in diiFerent ways. In the prose chronicle attached to the " Cronicon Elegiacum" it is said, " Iste voca- " tus est rex primus, non quia fuit, sed quia primus " leges Scotianas instituit, quas vocant leges Mac- " alpin." And in a later chronicle, in similar form, it is said of the Scottish kings of Dalriada, with a view to explain the apparent anomaly, " Isti omnes " fere interfecti sunt sed nee fuerunt reges quia non " dominabantur per electionem neque per sanguinem " sed per prodicionem." In the year 1174 William the Lyon was made prisoner by Henry, king of England, and carried over to Normandy. The Scots purchased his liberty by surrendering the independency of the nation ; and with the consent of the Scottish barons and clergy, William became the liegeman of Henry for Scotland and all his other territories, and in 1176 the Church of Scotland was required to yield obe- dience to the English Church. In 1189 Henry, king of England, died, and his successor Richard agreed to renounce his claim to the dependence of Scotland for a sum of money. During this period the question of the right of England to supremacy over Scotland must have been the subject of dis- cussion. In the whole of this discussion, in w^hich both parties referred to the early legendary history of their respective countries, as if they possessed historic authority, great use was made by England of the Welsh tale, that Brutus was the first colonist n