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Leith. But the extraordinary circumstance is the perpetuity of clerical greediness; for even at the present day in Protestant Scotland, the industrious and hardy fishermen, who expose their lives in gaining their bread, have to deliver the tithe of the produce of their toil! In 1834, petitions were sent by the fishermen to the Legislature for relief from this severe exaction, but as yet, we believe, without success. The partiality and injustice to the fishermen are manifest. After the Reformation in Scotland, the tithes of land were commuted into what are called tiends, and as the old valuations remain unaltered, the rates, by the difference in the value of money, are now almost nominal; but as the poor fishermen could not protect their rights, like the powerful individuals by whom the church lands were seised, the tenth of the gross produce is still demanded. The Scottish people, in their protests against papal aggression, act unfairly and selfishly, in retaining the most iniquitous part of ancient papal rapacity in their country. This tenth of fish demanded of fishermen, for the maintenance of ministers of the Gospel, is probably as remarkable a tax as ever was imposed on man. By the Levitical law there was no tithe of fish; and we learn that in the time of our Saviour, the Jews were minute in their exactions of cummin, rue, and mint, and other herbs, but there is no mention of fish. Neither Andrew nor Peter, as far as we know, ever delivered on the sea-beach of Tiberias a tithe to the tax-gatherer. There was a dignity imparted to the calling of fishermen, and the bishop of Rome, among his other pretensions, seals his bulls with the "RING OF THE FISHERMAN." There is, however, in the circumstances

* Popular History of the Reformation in Scotland, by J. P. Lawson.

attending the payment of the tribute-money demanded of Peter, something that, from analogy, would give ground to suppose that there was a municipal tax on fish, for Peter was commanded to cast his hook into the sea, and from the fish's mouth to extract a piece of money. But this will not justify the tithe on Scottish fishermen.*

The Scottish nation having assumed to itself the honour of choosing Andrew, the holy apostle, for its guardian saint, it was in keeping to have his diagonal or saltier cross painted on the national banners. Whoever the person was, and whatever his name, who first displayed the sign of the diagonal cross, and affirmed that he had seen the figure in the heavens, was a mere

* The pages of this sheet are corrected for the press on the 7th February, 1854, and we learn from the newspapers of the day that the Russian Ambassador has retired from London, and the British Ambassador at St. Petersburgh has been recalled from that Court, or, in other words, the British nation is now in an attitude of war with Russia. The note of preparation has been heard for many months past, and the call has been actually sounded to arms. In a crisis so important, the people of the British Islands must be ready to defend their country against the aggressions of the most despotic and barbarous military power in the world. No man living can foresee the issue of the tremendous conflict into which the British nation is now entering; but the people must be prepared for every event. The sea-faring people on the coasts of the island are summoned to man the fleets, and along the east coasts of Scotland the fishermen are answering the call to the defence. In the name of our common country we appeal to the Government to free the faithful and stouthearted fishermen from the greedy tax on the fish caught by them in the narrow seas; and we urge the Scottish nation to act fairly in this matter, and if it be thought proper to pay from the public purse the stipends and wages of ministers of religion, to do so out of other funds than papistical collections from herring-boats, or from codfish. Let the people of England and Scotland wash their hands of papistical relics and mean exactions, and get rid of the emblazonry of mummeries.

copyist. He may have seen a bright light in the sky, as a person may see on most clear winter nights in Scotland auroræ of all shapes and colours; but in these matters Constantine is entitled to priority and to originality, in adopting the cross for a war standard. There is something singular in this story of the vision of the diagonal cross, and there is an obscurity in the names, the place, and the time, which cannot be penetrated. It was said that it was seen by the king, or the commander, on the night before a decisive battle in Haddingtonshire, with a Saxon king of the name of Athelstane. The year is not mentioned, but the period is supposed to be about the end of the eighth or beginning of the ninth century. The Scottish king's name, by one account, is Achaius, and by another, Hungus. Athelstane is a Saxon name, but in the list of English kings there is none of that name until about a hundred years after the time when the battle was said to have taken place. But in favour of the fact of the name, it is to the present day preserved in a village near the town of Haddington. It must be borne in mind, that the historic period of Scotland really did not begin till the tenth or eleventh century; and all transactions before the tenth, are involved in the confusion of rival pretensions of the Irish, ScotoIrish, Norwegians, Dalriads, Picts, and Scots, affording curious subjects for the antiquarian, but not for the historian. The story of the vision is, that Saint Andrew appeared to the Pictish or Scoto-Pictish king, and assured him of an approaching victory, and commanded him to uplift the sign of his cross. The king, on gaining the victory, expressed his gratitude by a solemn pilgrimage to Saint Andrew's shrine, made valuable gifts to the priests and monks, conferred

lands, and it is said that a tenth of all his domains was bestowed.*

Having given the substance of the traditionary gossip of the origin of the cross of Saint Andrew for the national banner of Scotland, we will now state what appears to us the most curious circumstance in the whole affair. In the chronological tables of names, and nothing else, of Pictish and Scoto-Pictish kings of Scotland of the eighth and ninth centuries, CONSTANTINE occurs no less than four times; the first in 791-821, and the last in 994. In the chronological list of the Pictish kings in Browne's History of the Clans, Ungus, the son of Urguis, first appears between 730 and 761; and between 791 and 821 there appears Constantine, the son of Urguis; and following him Ungus, the son of Urguis, between 821 and 833. Who this mysterious Urguis was, the chronicle does not tell. Achaius does not appear in Browne's list of kings, but the name is found in the year 800, in the table of the contemporary Sovereigns of Europe, published in Nicolas's Chronology of History. We may therefore presume that the names of Ungus and Achaius belonged to the same individual, and that this

* Grierson's History of Saint Andrew's. The following is the story related by George Buchanan, the historian of Scotland: "Athelstane, the Angle, wasted the country of the Picts. Hungus got as auxiliaries 10,000 Scots. Hungus during the night, after having set his watches, fell into slumber overcome by sleep, and Saint Andrew appeared to him, and as the Picts and Angles were about to engage the next day, a decussated cross appeared in the heavens which terrified the English."From the chapter of Buchanan's History on the "Conquest of the Picts by the Scots during the Ninth Century."

+ See Chronology of the Pictish and Scottish Kings, in Browne's Hist. of the Highlands, vol. i. pp. 61 and 95.

individual and Constantine were brothers, whose father was the aforesaid Urguis. The remarkable thing is to find a civilised and Christian-looking name such as Constantine, in a list of names, the etymology and spelling of which put criticism at defiance; and in a case of this nature, we claim a right to form a theory, or hazard a conjecture, to explain on rational principles the first appearance of the diagonal cross as an ensign in battle. Our theory is simply this. Scotsmen in all ages have been wanderers, and we conjecture that Urguis had travelled, and perhaps fought abroad, and had read the history of Constantine, and admired his exploits, and, in commemoration, gave that celebrated name to his own son and heir; or, from motives of respect, may have given the name in compliment to Constantine, who, at the end of the eighth and the beginning of the ninth century, filled the throne of the eastern empire. His second son, Ungus, or Achaius, knowing the history, and inspired by the example, of the Roman Emperor, seized an opportunity, like a sagacious officer, to imitate him, gained a battle, and saved his kingdom. Another conjecture may be hazarded. The Saracens, or Arabs, under their standard of the crescent, were then in possession of Spain, and threatened other countries of Europe, and the ensign of the cross may have been displayed in Scotland, as a token of encouragement to the Christian mind against the advance of the infidels.

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