Albany

Albany, or ALBAN, an ancient name for the Highlands of Scotland, and still in some degree used to our own day. Etymologically connected with the Gaelic alp, 'a high hill,' and the Lat. albus, 'white,' it is the Gaelic form of the Cymric Albion, a term applied to the entire British Island in a treatise on the World, once ascribed to Aristotle. It may, indeed, be pretty safely assumed that Albion or Albany was the original name of Britain among its Celtic population; and we know that from the close of the 9th till the beginning of the 11th century, Pictavia, or the kingdom of Scone, was known as the kingdom of Alban (cf. Skene, Celtic Scotland: a History of Ancient Alban, 2d ed. 1887). The modern use of the name Albany may be said to have taken its rise in an act of a Scottish council held at Scone in 1398, when the title of Duke of Albany was conferred on the brother of King Robert III., then acting as regent of the kingdom. The title, being forfeited in the son of the first holder, was afterwards conferred on Alexander, second son of King James II., in the person of whose son, John, it became extinct in 1536. Subsequently it was conferred in succession on Henry, Lord Darnley, on Charles I. in infancy, on James II. in infancy, and (as a British title) on Frederick, second son of George III. Prince Charles Stuart assumed the appellation of Count of Albany as an incognito title, and gave the title of Duchess of Albany to his legitimated daughter. The title was restored in 1881, when the queen conferred it upon Prince Leopold (1853-84), and it now is borne by his son and namesake.