y, and with mansion-houses of hardly less fame, that gleam
from among their ancestral trees--a Strath that may be fitly
characterised as the Scottish Esdraelon, in which many things have
happened, and many men have been well worthy of being held in remembrance.

I had intended in this paper to give an account of some early inroads
into Strathearn, but the exigencies of space have determined for me that
I can deal with only one--the earliest of all--the Roman invasion. I
should have liked to have told the story of the invasion by Egfrid of
Northumbria, which ended so disastrously for him at Nechtansmere--most
likely Dunnichen, in Forfarshire, in the year 685 A.D., and of which it
may well be that we have a solitary trace in the name Abercairny--plainly
identical with Abercornig--Abercorn in the Lothians--where the Angles
founded a monastery under Abbot Trumuini, who, being engaged in
Strathearn advocating the adoption of the Roman in opposition to the
prevalent Columban cult, had to beat a hasty retreat beyond the Forth
when disaster came to Egfrid. The larger subject would have included
also the invasion by Siward, Earl of Northumberland, in support of the
claims of Prince Malcolm, afterwards Malcolm Canmore, in opposition to
Macbeth, the usurper, as he is commonly, perhaps unfairly, called. The
first stage of the inroad ended with an encounter at Tula Amon--at the
junction of the Tay and the Almond, near Perth. The result was not
decisive, for it would seem that for a little while Macbeth kept
possession of the country north of the Forth, being especially strong in
Fife, where he had powerful family connections and friends in the Culdee
brotherhood at Lochleven, while Malcolm reigned in the Lothians. And a
little later, in connection with the complications into which Malcolm was
forced through his fortunate marriage with Margaret, sister of the
Atheling, we have traces--somewhat indistinct, truly, but still
historical--of an inroad by the grim conqueror of England--William, and
of a meeting between him and Malcolm at Forteviot. All this might have
proved instructive in detailed exposition, but I must content myself with
this condensed reference. My subject is, therefore, the earliest
historical inroad into Strathearn--the Roman inroad, which I have called,
in the heading of this paper, the Opening Up of Strathearn.

Everybody knows that Julius Caesar set foot in Britain and conducted a
campaign against the nativ