King John distinguished his splendid abbey of Beaulieu in the New Forest by styling it Bellus Locus Regis, or King's Beaulieu.*

A writer who is anxious to vindicate the high claims of the Gaelic language says, the low country etymologists, because they are ignorant of Gaelic, seek in French the derivation of a native name, and grace the Celtic "Beula" with the transmigration of the French "Beau-lieu." He proceeds: "The name, however, is simple Gaelic. 'Béul-àlh,' the mouth, of the ford, from 'Béul,' a mouth, or deboucheur, and ́àlh,' pronounced 'à,' a ford. Like all other native designations, it is expressive of a local distinction; for the Priory and the town are situated upon the mouth of the river, and opposite to the most important ford upon the lower Glass, and which in old times was the principal passage into Ross.”†

A little historical inquiry would have led to a different conclusion, and if the name had a Celtic origin we should expect it to be used now by the Celtic population, but it is not so. "Beauly is not the Celtic name of the place, but 'Manachain;' you never hear a Highlander asking in Gaelic 'C'ait am bheil Beauly?' If he is not acquainted with English he does not know what the term refers to. He will ask you in his own language, 'C'ait am bheil a Manachain?' this is the Gaelic for 'Where is Beauly?' 'Manach' is the Gaelic for monk, and 'manachain' is the Gaelic for priory or monastery." +

Of course it is possible that the special name of the place may, though Celtic in origin, have been lost in the more generic title taken from the peculiar purpose to which it was dedicated, and, after all, the Bull of Pope Gregory is the best

* Beaulieu, in Hampshire, is pronounced as Beauly in Inverness-shire is—the Beau like the same syllable in Beauty, and the lieu, "ly." Macaulay's trumpetstirring lines in the Armada (1832):

"O'er Longleat's towers, o'er Cranbourne's oaks, the fiery herald flew : He roused the shepherds of Stonehenge, the rangers of Beaulieu,"

prove that he had then learned more by reading than by hearing.

+ Provincial Geography, Lays of the Deer Forest, vol. xi., p. 503. Edin. 1848. Transactions of Gaelic Society of Inverness, vol. i., Mr A. Mackenzie on Local Topography.

proof that the Priory was on its foundation called in French the Priory of Beaulieu.

Before examining the contents of this Bull, the earliest of the Beauly charters now printed, let us examine the account of the earliest charters given by the Wardlaw MS., which we shall afterwards more particularly describe. This account is as follows:

(1.) John Bisset by vow and promise erecting a priory of monks in Beauly, and granting a donation and mortification by charter and confirmation of the lands of Strathalvy and Achinbady or Beauly, to the monks Ordinis Vallis Caulium there. The limits of their possessions about the precinct, specified to be Onach-Tarridel to the east, and Rivulum de Breckach, westward. This charter is by the said Dom. Joan. Bisset, apud Cellam de St Durstan, die 9 mensis Julii anno Xti. 1223.*.

(2.) Donation and charter of confirmation of the Half Davoch Lands of Tarridale to the monks Ordinis Vallis Caulium by Gillichrist a Rosse, granted and subscribed in burgo de Inverness, in mense Martis anno Domini 1235.†

(3.) Donation and charter of mortification of the multures of several lands within the parochin of Wardlaw and Kiltarlity, by Joannes Bisset to the monks of Beauly, such as: Loveth, Lusfinan, Finasses, Monchitech ex utraque parte rivuli, Fochines et dimidiæ davach de Beaufort et Duary, Davatus de Muy et de Bruchach et de Kenniath, etc.‡

(4) Confirmation of all these donations by King Alexander II. to the monks of Beauly, A.D. 123 ;§ as they are set down at large by themselves.

Among the Lovat writs of 1652 we have this entry :

"Confirmation by King Alexander of the miln mutors of the

* Hutton MS., Add. MSS., B. M., 8144, p. 166; Extracts from Wardlaw MS., by the late Lewis M. Mackenzie of Findon.

Findon Extracts, Wardlaw MS., 1225.

Loveth is Lovat; Finasses, Fingask; Monchitech, Moniack Easter and Wester; Fochines, Phoineas; Beaufort et Duary, Beaufort and Downie; Muy, Moy; Bruchach, Bruiach.

§ Findon Extracts, 1231.

Half Davach Lands of Louich and Milne of Dowatrie, dated 20th Decr and 17th year of his reign."

The seventeenth year of Alexander II. is 1231.

Possibly among "the eight and forty pieces of parchment in old character," mentioned in the Dunbar Dunbar MS. as not of any importance in the eyes of Mr Alexander Abernethie, there may have been these charters from John Byset and Gillechrist a Rosse.

But to return to the Bull of Gregory IX. It introduces us to the founder of the House of Beauly, John Byset.* The first person of the name recorded in contemporary documents in Scotland is Henry Byset, who is a witness to a charter of William the Lion before 1198.†

John Byset first appears as the Lord of the Aird in the deeds of arrangement between him and Bricius, Bishop of Moray, who died in 1221, and which are confirmed by King Alexander II. in 1221. Byset must have been the first of the family who acquired the lands of the Aird, for the king's confirmation expressly mentions that the lands had been granted to John Byset personally. When, in 1226, giving the church of Kiltarlity to the leper house of Rathven, he does so, among other objects, for the soul of William, King of Scotland; so that the grant referred to by King Alexander II. had probably been made to Byset by King William the Lion.

The Scalacronica states that William the Lion, in 1174, on his return from captivity at Falaise and in England, brought back young Englishmen of family to seek their fortunes at the Scottish court. Among these are named the Bysets [Biseys]. At this time Henry Byset may have come into Scotland.

From 1179 to 1187 William the Lion was engaged in put

* The spelling is various, and was afterwards corrupted into Bisset; but we shall adopt this form of Byset, as having been used by the founder of the Priory of Beauly, and by writers of contemporary charters.

+ Chart. Melrose, vol. i., p. 123.

Scalacronica, Maitland Club, Edinb. 1836, p. 41.

B

ting down the rebellion of Donald Bane,* who, after the Boy of Egremont's defeat, claimed to be the Celtic heir of Malcolm Canmore. William completed with the people of Moray and Ross what his brother Malcolm had begun with the people of Moray, expelling great numbers of the Celtic inhabitants, putting the land under the feudal system, and granting it out in baronies, to be held of the Crown. Among these, in the province of Moray, the barony of the Aird was probably granted to John Byset, to secure his victory over Donald Bane; and about 1187 William the Lion founded two castles in Ross, one of which was called Ethirdover. This, by the combined light thrown on it by the lease of Kilcoy,t afterwards referred to, and the grant of Andrew de Boscho (Beauly Diplomata, No. VII.), is settled to be the castle of Edirdor, or Redcastle, on the Beauly Firth. In the latter part of his reign, the king probably appointed John Byset hereditary constable of this castle, and attached to it the lands of Edirdor, and at the same time gave him the barony of the Aird and the lands of Kilravoch, for we find all these-the castle and lands of Edirdor, the barony of the Aird, and the lands of Kilravoch-were the hereditary possessions of the granddaughters of John Byset.

The name of John Byset first occurs in contemporary documents in 1204 in the Register of the Abbey of Newbattle, and as a witness to a charter of Henry de Graham. As we find that the papal Bull for translating the parish church of Kirkhill was obtained in 1210, just about the time that the insurrection of the son of Donald Bane broke out in Ross-shire, and as John Byset's confirmation of this translation seems to

* It is said that Edmund, a son of Malcolm Canmore and St Margaret, joined in the conspiracy of Donald Bane against the succession of King Edgar, and when that king succeeded, Edmund seems to have adopted a course which saved his own life and preserved the honour of his family. He assumed the cowl at Montacute, the Cluniac priory, in Somersetshire. I note the fact as an illustration of the intimate connection then subsisting between England and Scotland, which is likewise shown in the history of the founder of Beauly.

+ Preface to Orig. Par. Scot., p. xxi.; Book of Kilravock, p. 109. Reg. Newbattle.

imply his having promoted it, we may not err in assuming that this grant was made by King William on the quelling of the rebellion in 1211.

John Byset's mother was alive in 1221, as in the deeds of arrangement he grants a glebe to the parish church of Kirkhill for the soul of his father, who was therefore dead, but not for the soul of his mother, who was therefore living. From the time of these deeds to 1232, we find John Byset witnessing the charters of King Alexander II. with William his brother, and with Walter Byset, who was the lord of Aboyne, in Aberdeenshire.

The Bysets in England were a family of baronial rank; they had the types and insignia of nobility; they held high office about the person of the Plantagenets; they witnessed the confirmation of Magna Charta, endowed abbeys and priories, and left that indubitable mark of their importance by the additional name which some English parishes have derived from them. Preston-Byset tells the country folks of Buckinghamshire now, as Combe-Byset informs the men of Wilts, of the days long ago, when a Byset was the lord of Preston and of Combe.* In particular, Manassar Byset, Sewer of the Household to King Henry II., founded a house of lepers at Maiden Bradley, in Wiltshire, and the successive members of his family confirmed and added to the endowment. The pious maid of honour, Margaret Byset, who, passing the night in watching and prayer, saved the life of Henry III. in 1238 at Woodstock from the hands of an assassin, had some time before added to the possessions of Maiden Bradley.

The English Bysets were a united family, each member assisting the other; and we find Manassar Byset giving the manor of East Bridgeford, Nottinghamshire, to his brother William, and this William Byset obtaining the consent of his

* There is no more certain mark of the early importance of a family than the affix of its name to that of an English parish. It is more to be relied on than the family having the same name as the parish; in the origin of surnames many families other than the owners of a village took their names from it; but no village ever took its second name from any family but that of its lords.