An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707). Robert S. Rait
iv.
[13] There is a possible exception in Barbour's Bruce (Bk. XVIII, 1. 443)—"Then gat he all the Erischry that war intill his company, of Argyle and the Ilis alswa". It has been generally understood that the "Erischry" here are the Scottish Highlanders; but it is certain that Barbour frequently uses the word to mean Irishmen, and it is perhaps more probable that he does so here also than that he should use the word in this sense only once, and with no parallel instance for more than a century.
[14] Chronicle, Book II, c. ix. Cf. App. A.
[15] Ibid, Book V, c. x. Cf. App. A.
[16] History of Greater Britain, Bk. I, cc. vii, viii, ix. Cf. App. A.
[17] Scotorum Regni Descriptio, prefixed to his "History". Cf. App. A.
[18] Fasti Aberdonenses, p. 3.
[19] De Gestis Scotorum, Lib. I. Cf. App. A. It is interesting to note, as showing how the breach between Highlander and Lowlander widened towards the close of the sixteenth century, that Father James Dalrymple, who translated Lesley's History, at Ratisbon, about the beginning of the seventeenth century, wrote: "Bot the rest of the Scottis, quhome we halde as outlawis and wylde peple". Dalrymple was probably a native of Ayrshire.
[20] Liber Pluscardensis, X, c. xxii. Cf. App. A.
[21] Scoti-chronicon, XV, c. xxi. Cf. App. A.
[22] Greater Britain, VI, c. x. Cf. App. A. The keenness of the fighting is no proof of racial bitterness. Cf. the clan fight on the Inches at Perth, a few years before Harlaw.
[23] Scotorum Historiæ, Lib. XVI. Cf. App. A.
[24] Rerum Scotorum Historia, Lib. X. Cf. App. A.
[25] Top. Hib., Dis. III, cap. xi.
[26] Britannia, section Scoti.
[27] Mahoun = Mahomet, i.e. the Devil.
[28] The Editor of the Scottish Text Society's edition of Dunbar points out that "Macfadyane" is a reference to the traitor of the War of Independence:
"This Makfadzane till Inglismen was suorn;
Eduard gaiff him bath Argill and Lorn".
Blind Harry, VII, ll. 627–8.
[29] "Far northward in a nuke" is a reference to the cave in which Macfadyane was killed by Duncan of Lorne (Bk. VIII, ll. 866–8).
CHAPTER I
RACIAL DISTRIBUTION AND FEUDAL RELATIONS
c. 500–1066 a.d.
Since the beginning of the eighteenth century, it has been customary to speak of the Scottish Highlanders as "Celts". The name is singularly inappropriate. The word "Celt" was used by Cæsar to describe the peoples of Middle Gaul, and it thence became almost synonymous with "Gallic". The ancient inhabitants of Gaul were far from being closely akin to the ancient inhabitants of Scotland, although they belong to the same general family. The latter were Picts and Goidels; the former, Brythons or Britons, of the same race as those who settled in England and were driven by the Saxon conquerors into Wales, as their kinsmen were driven into Brittany by successive conquests of Gaul. In the south of Scotland, Goidels and Brythons must at one period have met; but the result of the meeting was to drive the Goidels into the Highlands, where the Goidelic or Gaelic form of speech still remains different from the Welsh of the descendants of the Britons. Thus the only reason for calling the Scottish Highlanders "Celts" is that Cæsar used that name to describe a race cognate with another race from which the Highlanders ought to be carefully distinguished. In none of our ancient records is the term "Celt" ever employed to describe the Highlanders of Scotland. They never called themselves Celtic; their neighbours never gave them such a name; nor would the term have possessed any significance, as applied to them, before the eighteenth century. In 1703, a French historian and Biblical antiquary, Paul Yves Pezron, wrote a book about the people of Brittany, entitled Antiquité de la Nation et de la Langue des Celtes autrement appellez Gaulois. It was translated into English almost immediately, and philologists soon discovered that the language of Cæsar's Celts was related to the Gaelic of the Scottish Highlanders. On this ground progressed the extension of the name, and the Highlanders became identified with, instead of being distinguished from, the Celts of Gaul. The word Celt was used to describe both the whole family (including Brythons and Goidels), and also the special branch of the family to which Cæsar applied the term. It is as if the word "Teutonic" had been used to describe the whole Aryan Family, and had been specially employed in speaking of the Romance peoples. The word "Celtic" has, however, become a technical term as opposed to "Saxon" or "English", and it is impossible to avoid its use.
Besides the Goidels, or so-called Celts, and the Brythonic Celts or Britons, we find traces in Scotland of an earlier race who are known as "Picts", a few fragments of whose language survive. About the identity of these Picts another controversy has been waged. Some look upon the Pictish tongue as closely allied to Scottish Gaelic; others regard it as Brythonic rather than Goidelic; and Dr. Rhys surmises that it is really an older form of speech, neither Goidelic nor Brythonic, and probably not allied to either, although, in the form in which its fragments have come down to us, it has been deeply affected by Brythonic forms. Be all this as it may, it is important for us to remember that, at the dawn of history, modern Scotland was populated entirely by people now known as "Celts", of whom the Brythonic portion were the later to appear, driving the Goidels into the more mountainous districts. The Picts, whatever their origin, had become practically amalgamated with the "Celts", and the Roman historians do not distinguish between different kinds of northern barbarians.
In the end of the fifth century and the beginning of the sixth, a new settlement of Goidels was made. These were the Scots, who founded the kingdom of Dalriada, corresponding roughly to the Modern Argyllshire. Some fifty years later (c. 547) came the Angles under Ida, and established a dominion along the coast from Tweed to Forth, covering the modern counties of Roxburgh, Berwick, Haddington, and Midlothian. Its outlying fort was the castle of Edinburgh, the name of which, in the form in which we have it, has certainly been influenced by association with the Northumbrian king, Edwin.[30] This district remained a portion of the kingdom of Northumbria till the tenth century, and it is of this district alone that the word "English" can fairly be used. Even here, however, there must have been a considerable infusion of Celtic