opinion of his learning and abilities, that they attributed these attainments to some supernatural agency; and he was by them deemed, like Zoroaster or Numa, a magician. The Manks, to this day, entertain a great veneration for this chief. In their ancient records they called him a paynim, and superstitiously affirmed, that, at his pleasure, he kept, by necromancy, the land of Man under mists, and, to an enemy, could make one man seem an hundred.

About this period St Patrick landed in Mona*, and, after labouring in the introduction of Christianity, he left Germanus, a canon of the Lateran, in the words of Jocelinus," ad regendum et erudendum populum in fide Christi.

We learn, both from the antiquities of Glastonbury and Harding's Chronicle, that about the year 520, King Arthur conquèred the Isle of Man, which he afterwards restored to the native prince. These chronicles do not mention the name of this prince, but it is highly probable he was father to Brennus, or, as he is styled by Buchanan, " Brendinus Regulus Eubonia," and nephew to Aydan, King of Scotland, who was slain in 594, when fighting for his uncle at the head of his Manks men against the Picts. Soon afterwards Eugenius the Fifth, the son of Aydan, obtained the crown of Scotland; and, in memory of his education in the island, and the kind reception he had found there, sent his three sons, Fer

* Joscelin, vita Pat. c. 92, A. D. 447. Usher's Antiq. p. 644.

guard, Fiacre, and Donald, to be educated under Conanus, bishop of the Isle*. It is recorded to the honour of the Manks prince, that he was admitted one of the celebrated Knights of the Round Table. So associated, it is highly probable that he would derive instruction, not only in the romantic laws of chivalry and honour, which the ambition and peculiar character of the times had learned to practise and improve, but also in the great principles of legislative government, then in its infancy, and which Alfred the Great, after he had attained the meridian of glory, so happily matured.

With respect to the celebrated trial by jury, which polity was afterwards improved and established in England, by the superior genius of Alfred, that tribunal was coeval with, and interwoven in the feudal constitution, and universally established amongst all the northern nations †, and, consequently, was not only used, but esteemed a privilege of the most extensive and beneficial nature in the Isle of Man.

Mr Camden, in his Britannia, furnishes us with an account of a long line of princes, of the Irish, Norwegian, Scottish, Manks, and English race, who were chiefly engaged in the contentions and warfare of those barbarous periods, with little leisure or ability to cherish the arts of jurisprudence, or soften, by legislative wisdom, the uncivilized manners of the times. Probably Macon, who reigned in the tenth century, may be excepted from this

* Boeth. Hist. Scot. p. 114. Hollingsh. p. 144. + Blackstone, 1. 3. p. 350.

sweeping charge. He was deprived of the crown of Man for refusing to do homage to the English monarch Edgar, who afterwards not only restored him to the throne, but made him admiral of a great fleet, with which he swept the seas of the Danes and Normans.

Sir Henry Spelman calls him "totius Angliæ Archipirata," which, in another place, he interprets, Prince of Seamen;" and from him the ancient bearing of the island was a ship* in her ruff sables, with this inscription, "Rex Manniæ et insularum."

Macon was one of the eight kings who rowed Edgar on the Dee, and he was next, after the King of Scotland, a subscribing witness to Edgar's confirmation of the charter of Glastonbury. But whatever may have been the meritorious conduct and abilities of Macon, or of another very eminent prince, Goddard Crownan, mentioned by Camden, Reginald, of the family of Goddard, in the year 1219, made himself particularly notorious; for, so far from legislating for the benefit of himself and subjects, he absolutely surrendered his rights, by a formal abdication, to the see of Rome, as exemplified by the following instru

ment:

66

Reginaldus, Rex Insulæ Man, constituit se vasallum sedis Romanæ, et ex insulâ suâ facit Feudum oblatum, Londini 10 cal. Octob. 1219.

The old coat of arms of Sicily were the same as are now quartered by the Duke of Atholl, viz. three armed legs of man, bending in the hams. Mr Camden was in possession of a seal with the ancient bearing and inscription.---Spelman.

Sanctissimo Patri et Domino Honorio Dei gratiâ summo pontifici, Reginaldus Rex insularum commendationem cum osculo pedum. Noverit sancta paternitas vestra, quod nos, ut participes simus bonorum quæ fiunt in Ecclesiâ Rom: juxta admonitionem, et exhortationem dilecti patris Domini P. Norwicen electi Camerarii et Legati vestri, dedimus et obtulimus nomine Ecclesiæ Romanæ, et vestro, et Catholicorum vestrorum successorum, Insulam nostram de Man, quæ ad nos jure hæreditario pertinet, et de qua nulli tenemur aliquod servititium facere, et deinceps nos, et hæredis nostri in perpetuum tenebimus in feudam dictam Insulam ab Ecclesiâ Romanâ, et faciemus ei per hoc homagium et fidelitatem, et in recognitionem dominii, nomine census, nos et hæredes nostri in perpetuum annuatim solvemus Ecclesiæ Rom. duodecim Marcas Sterlingorum in Anglia apud Abbatiam de Furnes Cistertionsis ordinis in festo Purificationis B. Mariæ. Et si non esset ibi aliquis ex parte vestra vel successorum vestrorum, deponentur dictæ duodecim Marchæ per nos et hæredes nostros penes Abbatem et Conventum, Ecclesiæ Rom. nomine. Hanc donationem et oblationem dictus dominus Legatus recipit ad voluntatem et bene placitum vestrum, et post receptionem factam ab eo sic ipsi dominus Legatus dictam Insulam dedit mihi et hæredibus meis in feudum perpetuo possidendedam et tenendam nomini Ecclesiæ Rom. Et me inde per annulum aureum investivit, &c. Actumi Lond. in domo militiæ Templi, 10. Kal. Octob. Anno Dom. milles o ducentesimo decima

nono. Et ne super his aliquando possit dubitari, has literas fieri fecimus et sigillo nostro muniri."-" Codex juris Gentium Diplomati cus, per Godefredum Gulielmum Liebnitzium, impressus Hanoveræ, 1693, fol. prodromus, pag. 5."

It is remarkable, that this prince was also the first that submitted to the crown of England, in the sixth year of the reign of King John, on the express condition that he should be admiral of the seas. John not only gave Reginald a knight's fee in Ireland, " pro feodo et servitio," but took him into his particular fa vour and protection." Johannes Rex. Sciatis quod suscipimus dilectum consanguineum nostrum Reginaldum Regem Manniae in custodiam, pro-, tectionem, &c. Apud Woodstock, Feb. 8, 1205*"

The friendship between these princes being thus established, it may reasonably be concluded, that the pusillanimous sacrifice and example of the English monarch, in surrendering his crown to the Pope, induced Reginald to complete the similitude, by tendering the like resignation.

Owing to the destruction of the records, we have no account of the laws by the Manks' princes during the Norwegian and Scotish dynasties. History merely informs us, that Alexander the Third, King of Scotland, having conquered the island, Mary Waldebeof, the last of the great family of Goddard Crownan, claimed the protection of the King of England, and offered to do homage for the Isle of

Rymeri Fœdera.