Minerals and Mines. 29 



tenants in capite ; and in the reign of David II. a committee 

 was chosen out of the three estates of the realm, whereby what 

 was already the cream of the Scottish aristocracy was once 

 more skimmed. It is not therefore surprising to learn that 

 this select committee, to whom the most plenary powers had 

 been delegated, divided with their royal master as much of 

 the old popular rights as they could lay hold of.^ It was, 

 as we have shown, only in the Highlands that the seignorial 

 powers of Feudalism were limited ; and it is doubtful if these 

 universal licences to work minerals, so often ceded to foreigners, 

 were of much value in those parts of Scotland where the kilted 

 Celt held undisputed sway. It would be interesting to dis- 

 cover if Eustachius Roche, who received a general grant in 

 1583 to work all the mines and minerals of the country, to 

 search for hidden ore anywhere and everywhere, and to use 

 for firing and smelting, not only timber out of all the royal 

 forests, but coals and peats that might be necessary,^ ever 

 attempted to exercise his rights amidst the fastnesses of the 

 clansmen. 



When we come to examine the history of coal-mining, we do 

 not find much trace of its early importance, either in England 

 or Scotland. The British name of " glo " for coal, however, would 

 imply its use in prehistoric times,^ and there was a " coalry " not 

 far from Benwell supposed to have been worked by the Romans. 

 In 852 we read in the Saxon Chronicle of the Abbey at Peter- 

 boro', that twelve loads of fossil or pit coal were paid to the 

 monks. Then in the Bolden Booh we have a record of a 

 Norman bishop's grant to a collier of a toft and croft for pro- 

 viding coals for the cart smith of Coundon. The smith at 

 Bishopswearmouth had as much as twelve acres for the neces- 

 sary supply of iron and coal in his cart manufactory. In the 

 second quarter of the thirteenth century coal begins to be 

 worked in the neighbourhood of Newcastle, those same opera- 

 tions which we have shown in an earlier chapter* to have 



' Hallam's Const. Hist., vol. iii. chap. xvii. 



" Early Mining Eecorch in Scotland, Introduction, Cochran Patrick. 



» Hull's Coal-Fields. 



* Landed Interest, Part I. chap. xvi. p. 211. 



