Orkney remained under Norwegian rule till 1468, when it was impignorated to the Scotch king as security for the dowry of Margaret, the daughter of the king of Norway and bride of James III of Scotland.

In the marriage treaty of 1468 it was stipulated that the laws and customs of Norway should be continued in Orkney till it was redeemed.

It never was redeemed, and by lapse of time became incorporated in the dominion of the Scotch king.

The Udal system of land tenure was in sway in Orkney when it was impignorated, and, protected by the treaty stipulation and acts of the Scottish Parliament, has continued, to some extent, in force to this day.

The circumstances attending the alienation of the Orkney lands, and their distribution on descent, are quaintly referred to in the following opinion given by the Bishop of Orkney in 1642, in answer to demand made of him what the lands haldin in Udill'

are:

Ratio nominis, alse far as ever I could trye is, that the kings of Norroway sent one UDILLAUS, wha divyded the londs of orknay and Shetlond in pennie londs and used fonds, as Irelond is now divyded in aikers: from yat divisione to this day they have possessit yoir londs as heritors without wreate. They sell yoir londs; utheris buyes yame at alse dear a rate as any lond in Scotlond. Thir londs be the law of Norroway, were equallie divyded among the children, be ane inquest founded upon a warraund of the superior. ... Thair holding, I think, be like the copiehold of Inglond....

How far the good bishop was correct in his history of the word Udal it would be sacrilegious to question, but he would no doubt be well acquainted with the actual incidents of the holdings of his day. Erskine, in dealing with the proper form of investiture in Scotland, says :

Traces of the old proper investiture. . . are preserved where the practise is retained of giving possession on the ground of the lands by the symbol of a stone, a staff, or a bundle of grass, without any writing, in the presence of the neighbouring inhabitants, who were assumed to fill up the place of the pares curiae (i. e. the Lord's vassals attending him in his Baron Court). The Udal right of the Stewartry of Orkney and Shetland is of the same nature.'

XX. The Orkney and Manx Tenures are compared.

Here we have an example of Udal land which had become freely alienable in the seventeenth century, though no doubt originally inalienable as against the kindred.

But note the traditionary account of the division into penny lands (or lands within the dykes) and used lands (or lands without the dykes), which, when enclosed, became known and distinguishable as 'outbreks.'

This is very suggestive of the division existing between farm lands and intacks, and it is to be noted that s. 47 of the Declaration of 1442 provides for the delivery to every man of his pennyworth, the meaning of which is not otherwise clear. Note also that the men of Orkney were heritors without writ, and alienated by delivering a bundle of grass in the presence of the neighbouring inhabitants who filled the place of pares curiae, and reminded the jurists of 1642 of copyholders, though nothing is more certain than that they were originally nothing of the kind.

This is again very suggestive of the process of alienation described by Parr, writing shortly afterwards, and also reminded him of copyholders, as no doubt his employer (the Earl of Derby) would be very glad to hear.

A third time, note that on the death of a proprietor the lands were by the law of Norway divided amongst the children by an inquest founded on the warrant of a superior.

This is exactly what was suggested to have been originally the case in Mann before the eldest son's rights developed, and is very suggestive moreover as to the origin of the Sett Enquest and its ancient duties, whilst the process of division of land by the Enquest amongst the kindred is more than hinted at in s. 15 of the declaration of 1577.

XXI. The Statutes and Ordinances.

But, like the dying Socrates, I owe a cock to Asclepius, and must on no account omit to pay it.

In other words, I must redeem my promise to our imaginary assailants, and make a reference of sorts to the Statutes and Ordinances of the Isle of Mann.

In the century and a half of turmoil and confusion that followed upon the extinction of the royal line of Mann, and the fierce strife between the English and Scottish kings over the ownership of this unfortunate island, its ancient constitution, its landed rights, and even its very customary laws, seem to have been thrown into the melting-pot, and to have been largely forgotten by, or fallen into desuetude amongst the inhabitants.

The land-at one time (according to Henry of Huntingdon) 'from its fortunate fertility most productive of corn'-devastated by successive invasions, seems to have gone out of cultivation, the fences to have become obliterated, and the inhabitants-a prey to the

rapacity of succeeding lords and bailiffs-to have gradually abandoned their farms, and taken themselves to eking out a precarious existence by pasturing flocks of cattle and sheep on what had apparently become a treeless boggy wilderness, overgrown with gorse and rank grass.

So much is to be gathered from a perusal of what are termed the Statutes and Ordinances of the Isle of Mann under date 1417, 1419, 1422, and 1577, of such ancient maps and charts as are extant, and from the evidence of the eyesight when the age of the existing timber of this island is examined.

The astonishing ignorance of the people in 1417 on the subject of their constitution, their land rights, and their laws, I deduce from the answers of the Deemsters and the twenty-four given in that year and in 1419 to certain questions, no doubt propounded to them by the lord proprietor himself.

Such a strange concatenation of vague tradition, of confusion of thought, and of ignorance of law terms, would indeed be astonishing in any legal assembly.

A sort of hurly-burly of barons in the third degree, of beneficed men, deemsters, officers, clerks, knights, esquires, yeomen, and worthiest men, are introduced into the answer, though what the distinction between barons and beneficed men, or of yeomen and commons, might be, or why some of them were in the third degree any more than in the second or fourth, and why the commons were to be called upon to 'show their charters how they hould of you,' without any explanation of the sudden creation of charters they had not got and never had had, are problems that would dumbfounder a Philadelphia lawyer. This is followed by a reference to squatting on the commons, and to 'tenants julaynes,' so obscurely worded, that its meaning was never understood till it was cleared up by a statute of 1645.

Later on comes a reference to Taxiaxi, without explanation of who they were, or why so called, a confounding of them with the Keys and freeholders, and vague talk of 'King Orrey's days,' without any explanation of what the connexion between Keys and taxiaxi might be, or whether there were any Keys in those days, or who King Orry was, or whether he ever existed, and if so when and where; talk of written laws in Orry's days and the time of Michael Blundell, without any explanation of what those laws were, where to be found or how lost, when and where Michael Blundell lived, and what he was.

These and numerous other instances demonstrate that the degenerate successors of the Taxiaxi-worthiest men and deemsters as well as unworthy commons and yeomen-were in abject igno

rance of the most elementary details of their kings, their constitution, their assemblies, and their laws.

The only plausible explanation of such ignorance is, indeed, the one given, namely, that there had never been any certainty (i. e. continuity of existence) in the twenty-four since the days —then quite traditionary—of Orry, of whom the only fact they appeared certain about was that he was a king.

XXII. The Ruin of Mann.

It would have been marvellously strange had it been otherwise, for fearful indeed had been the fate of the unfortunate Manxmen since the death on November 24, 1265, of Magnus, the last of the Norwegian kings of Mann.

Deprived of his strong arm and powerful influence, Mann was abandoned to its fate by King Haco of Norway in 1266 by the treaty of Perth, by the terms of which he absolutely ceded the island to Alexander III of Scotland on payment of 4,000 marks and a yearly rent of 100.

From that year to the year 1290 the unfortunate islanders groaned under the heavy hand of the grasping Scotchman.

;

The laws of Scotland, under the provisions of the treaty, were forced upon them at the point of the sword; the feudal system in its most Scotch, and therefore most grinding, form was introduced ; and a succession of bailiffs, ruling with a heavy hand for the King, so racked the land with heavy exactions and injustice, that they drove the inhabitants into open rebellion. That rebellion was crushed in 1275, with a slaughter so prodigious in comparison to the population that it passed into a traditionary distich of woe.

At the same time the Scotch afforded little or no protection to the island from the plundering incursions of pirates and marauders, and its condition grew so grievous that in 1290 the oppressed and desperate islanders, assembling at Rushen Abbey, addressed a piteous appeal to the terrible Hammer of the Scots' (then in the flood-tide of his martial career), imploring him to take under his powerful protection their one time fertile and prosperous country, then 'desolate and full of wretchedness for want of protection and defence.' Even in the stress of the business of two great realms, the stern, but just, Edward found time to respond to the appeal.

The wardship of the island was committed to Walter de Huntercombe and a commission of three justices dispatched to hear and adjudicate upon the complaints of the people.

Policy, however, determined the English king on restoring the island to Balliol, which was effected in 1292, and for one hundred and forty-three miserable years the wretched Manxmen were tossed

about from king to king and from lord to lord, conquered and reconquered, bought and sold, mortgaged and pledged, and no less than eighteen successive kings or lords proprietors wrung from the island the produce of its soil and trampled on its constitution, its laws, and the liberties of its people.

It was undoubtedly during this frightful period that the Udal tenure (modified as it had not improbably been by the Norwegian kings) became obliterated, and the land, partially abandoned by its original owners, lay open and uncultivated, desolate and wild, ready to be seized as his demesne by any lord proprietor sufficiently determined and able to enforce to its fullest extent the already partially operative feudal system, and to reduce the inhabitants to the legal position of serfs or villeins.

XXIII: The Establishment of the Feudal Tenure.

Such a man was at hand in the person of Sir John Stanley, to whom the Isle of Mann was granted in perpetuity by King Henry IV in the year 1406.

He and his son, Sir John Stanley the second, the ambitious, determined, and able founders of the Derby family, soon introduced order into the distracted kingdom, and placed upon a sure basis their assumed rights as lords of the manor.

The entries in the Manorial Rolls and the provisions in the early part of the Statute-book, prove beyond all possibility of doubt that the Stanleys had effectually seized unto their hands all the lands both common and enclosed in the whole island, save those of the eight freeholders, or Barons, already mentioned, and affected to grant them out again to the inhabitants as leaseholds by the year, in some cases for years, and in a very few for life.

The three following specimen entries in the Manorial Rolls for the years 1511 and 1515, the earliest which have descended to us, demonstrate the nature of the holding to be leasehold :

:

A. D. 1511. Parochia Sancti Trinitatis in Rushen. Fysh Garth. De Jenken, Martenson et Willmo Martenson pro duobus tenementis et uno quartron terrae dimiss: sibi et assignatis pro term: vijm annorum hoc anno vjto XXXI. A.D. 1515. Parochia Sancti Trinitatis (Lezayre).

Particula. De Johanne McCurry (Curphey) et Gilcolm McCurry pro duobus tenementis et uno quartron terrae dimiss: sibi. XVII".

A.D. 1515. Parochia de Jourby (Jurby).

Firma Molendi. De Patricio McBrew pro molendino de Carlan (Carlane Mill) cum pistar: aquae ibidem per annum dimiss: sibi. XVI.