Historical and genealogical memoirs of the House of Hamilton

xii INTRODUCTION.
of the lands south of the Forth, and had formed many settlements on the
north side of that river.
With these new people were introduced a new language, new manners,
new laws, a new dynasty of kings, and new titles. To the Celtic tongue
succeeded the English or Anglo-Saxon, interspersed with Norman words.
The Celtic customs gave way to a new jurisprudence, of Anglo-Norman
origin, and the Gaelic thanes and marmors were succeeded by the Anglo-
Norman counts and the Anglo-Saxon earls.
The number, and extent of power or authority, of the Celtic and Gaelic
marmors and thanes, has been lost in the mists of antiquity. Of the thirteen
earls who, at the end of the Scoto-Saxon period in 1306, when Robert the
Bruce ascended the throne, composed the whole of the peerage, there is only
one lineally represented by the same blood at this day.* Of the three hun-
dred peers, consisting of fifteen dukes, nine marquisses, one hundred and
seven earls, thirty-two viscounts, and one hundred and thirty-seven lords of
parliament, created since that period by our several kings, there existed
only, at the union of the two kingdoms, one hundred and thirty-seven, —
being ten dukes, three marquisses, seventy earls, sixteen viscounts, and
thirty-eight barons.
Such have been the changes amongst our nobility. Several titles of
inferior degree have merged in higher ones ; but they have been chiefly
reduced in number by natural causes and legal means ; and, in the year
1822, there existed only, of the long lists of former times, eighty-one peers.
Having thus shown the various sources from which the Scottish no-
bility were derived, we shall now proceed to trace the history and descent
of the Ancient and Noble Family, the Chiefs of which have been at the
head of this gallant and illustrious body of men for nearly two centuries.
* The Countess of Sutherland, Marchioness of Stafford.