The proposed taxation Columbkill strenuously and
successfully resisted. Up to this time, the colonists
had been bound only to furnish a contingent force, by
land and sea, when the King of Ireland went to war, and
to make them an annual present called "chief-rent."

From the Book of Rights we learn that (at least at the
time the existing transcript was made) the Scottish
Princes paid out of Alba, seven shields, seven steeds,
seven bondswomen, seven bondsmen, and seven hounds all
of the same breed. But the "chief-rent," or "eric for
kindly blood," did not suffice in the year 590 to satisfy
King Hugh. The colony had grown great, and, like some
modern monarchs, he proposed to make it pay for its
success. Columbkill, though a native of Ireland, and a
prince of its reigning house, was by choice a resident
of Caledonia, and he stood true to his adopted country.
The Irish King refused to continue the connection on the
old conditions, and declared his intention to visit Alba
himself to enforce the tribute due; Columbkill, rising
in the Assembly, declared the Albanians "for ever free
from the yoke," and this, adds an old historian, "turned
out to be the fact." From the whole controversy we may
conclude that Scotland never paid political tribute to
Ireland; that their relation was that rather of allies,
than of sovereign and vassal; that it resembled more the
homage Carthage paid to Tyre, and Syracuse to Corinth,
than any modern form of colonial dependence; that a
federal connection existed by which, in time of war, the