I desire to take this opportunity of acknowledging valuable aid derived from the recent works on Scottish History by Mr. Hume Brown and Mr. Andrew Lang, from Mr. E.W. Robertson's Scotland under her Early Kings , and from Mr. Oman's Art of War . Personal acknowledgments are due to Professor Davidson of Aberdeen, to Mr. H. Fisher, Fellow of New College, and to Mr. J.T.T. Brown, of Glasgow, who was good enough to aid me in the search for references to the Highlanders in Scottish mediæval literature

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 Bri

The Norman Conquest of England could not fail to modify the position of Scotland. Just as the Roman and the Saxon conquests had, in turn, driven the Brythons northwards, so the dispossessed Saxons fled to Scotland from their Norman victors. The result was considerably to alter the ecclesiastical arrangements of the country, and to help its advance towards civilization. The proportion of Anglo-Saxons to the races who are known as Celts must also have been increased; but a complete de-Celticizatio

When Alexander III was killed, on the 19th March, 1285-86, the relations between England and Scotland were such that Edward I was amply justified in looking forward to a permanent union. Since the ill-fated invasion of William the Lion in 1174, there had been no serious warfare between the two countries, and in recent years they had become more and more friendly in their dealings with each other. The late king had married Edward's sister, Margaret, and the child-queen was her grand-daughter; Ale

Edward I had failed to recognize the difference between the Scottish barons and the Scottish people, to which we have referred in a former chapter. To the Norman baron, who possessed lands in England and Scotland alike, it mattered little that he had now but one liege lord instead of two suzerains. To the people of Scotland, proud and high-spirited, tenacious of their long traditions of independence, resentful of the presence of foreigners, it could not but be hateful to find their country gover

Almost immediately after the conclusion of the Treaty of Northampton, the conditions of government in England and Scotland were reversed. Since the death of Edward I, Scotland, under a strong king, had gained by the weakness of the English sovereign; now England, under the energetic rule of Edward III, was to profit by the death of King Robert and by the succession of a minor. On the 7th June, 1329, King Robert died (probably a leper) at his castle of Cardross, on the Clyde, and left the Scottis

When Henry of Lancaster placed himself on his cousin's throne, Scotland was divided between the supporters of the Duke of Rothesay, the eldest son of Robert III and heir to the crown, and the adherents of the Duke of Albany, the brother of the old king. In 1399, Rothesay had just succeeded his uncle as regent, and to him, as to Henry IV, there was a strong temptation to acquire popularity by a spirited foreign policy. The Scots hesitated to acknowledge Henry as King of England, and he, in turn,

When, in 1501, negotiations were in progress for the marriage of James IV to Margaret Tudor, Polydore Virgil tells us that the English Council raised the objection that Margaret or her descendants might succeed to the throne of England. "If it should fall out so," said Henry, "the realm of England will suffer no evil, since it will not be the addition of England to Scotland, but of Scotland to England." It is obvious that the English had every reason for desiring to stop the irritating oppositio

Mary of Guise, thus for the second time a widow, was left the sole protector of the infant queen, against the intrigues of Henry VIII and the treachery of the House of Douglas. Fortunately, Margaret Tudor had predeceased her son in October, 1541, and her death left one disturbing element the less. But the situation which the dowager had to face was much more perplexed than that which confronted any other of the long line of Scottish queen-mothers. During the reign of James V the Reformed doctrin

When Mary fled to England, Elizabeth refused to see her, on the ground that she ought first to clear herself from the suspicion of guilt in connection with the murder of Darnley. In the end, Mary agreed that the case should be submitted to the judgment of a commission appointed by Elizabeth, and she appeared as prosecuting Moray and his friends as rebels and traitors. They defended themselves by bringing accusations against Mary, and produced the Casket Letters and other documents in support of

The new reign had scarcely begun when trouble arose between King Charles and his Scottish subjects. On the one hand, he alienated the nobles by an attempt, partially successful, to secure for the Church some of its ancient revenues. More serious still was his endeavour to bring the Scottish Church into uniformity with the usage of the Church of England. James had understood that any further attempt to alter the service or constitution of the Church of Scotland would infallibly lead to serious tr

On April 4th, 1689, a Convention of the Estates of Scotland met to consider the new situation which had been created by the course of events in England. They had no difficulty in determining their course of action, nor any scruples about deposing James, who was declared to have forfeited his right to the crown. A list was drawn up of the king's misdeeds. They included "erecting schools and societies of Jesuits, making papists officers of state", taxation and the maintenance of a standing army wi

"Rex interim, coactis in unum comitibus, optimisque regni sui proceribus, coepit cum eis de belli ratione tractare, placuitque plurimis, ut quotquot aderant armati milites et sagittarii cunctum praeirent exercitum, quatenus armati armatos impeterent, milites congrederentur militibus, sagittae sagittis obviarent. Restitere Galwenses, dicentes sui esse juris primam construere aciem.... Cum rex militum magis consiliis acquiescere videretur, Malisse comes Stradarniae plurimum indignatus: 'Quid est,'

"Mores autem Scotorum secundum diversitatem linguarum variantur; duabus enim utuntur linguis, Scotica videlicet, et Teutonica; cujus linguae gens maritimas possidet et planas regiones: linguae vero gens Scoticae montanas inhabitat, et insulas ulteriores. Maritima quoque domestica gens est, et culta, fida, patiens, et urbana; vestitu siquidem honesta, civilis atque pacifica; circa cultum divinum devota, sed et obviandis hostium injuriis semper prona. Insulana vero, sive montana, ferma gens est et

"Item anno Domini m°ccccxi fuit conflictus de Harlaw, in Le Gariach, per Donaldum de Insulis contra Alexandrum comitem de Mar et vicecomitem Angusiae, ubi multi nobiles ceciderunt in bello. Eodem anno combusta est villa de Cupro casualiter."—Bk. x, ch. xxii....

"Anno Dom. millesimo quadringentesimo undecimo, in vigilia sancti Jacobi Apostoli, conflictus de Harlaw in Marria, ubi Dovenaldus de Insulis cum decem millibus de insulanis et hominibus suis de Ross hostiliter intravit terram cis montes, omnia conculcans et depopulans, ac in vastitatem redigens; sperens in illa expeditione villam regiam de Abirdene spoliare, et consequenter usque ad aquam de Thya suae subjicere ditioni. Et quia in tanta multitudine ferali occupaverunt terram sicut locustae, cont

"Cum enim Aquitaniam, Andegaviam, Normanniam, Hiberniam, Valliamque Angli haberent, adhuc sine bellis in Scotia civilibus, nihil in ea profecerunt, et jam mille octingentos et quinquaginta annos in Britannia Scoti steterunt, hodierno die non minus potentes et ad bellum propensi quam unquam fuerint...."— Greater Britain , Bk. i. ch. vii. "Praeterea, sicut Scotorum, uti diximus, duplex est lingua, ita mores gemini sunt. Nam in nemoribus Septentrionalibus et montibus aliqui nati sunt, hos altae ter

"Nos vero qui in confinio Angliae sedes habemus, sicut Saxonum linguam per multa commercia bellaque ab illis didicimus nostramque deseruimus; ita priscos omnes mores reliquimus, priscusque nobis scribendi mos ut et sermo incognitus est. At qui montana incolunt ut linguam ita et caetera prope omnia arctissime tuentur.... Labentibus autem seculis idque maxime circa Malcolmi Canmoir tempora mutari cuncta coeperunt. Vicinis enim Britannis primum a Romanis subactis ocioque enervatis, ac postea a Saxo

"Angli etenim sicut et politiores Scoti antiqua illa Saxonum lingua, quae nunc Anglica dicitur promiscue, alia tamen atque alia dialecto loquuntur. Scotorum autem reliqui quos exteri (quod majorum suorum instituta, ac antiquam illam simplicemque amiciendi ac vivendi formam mordicus adhuc teneant) feros et sylvestres, montanos dicimus, prisca sua Hibernica lingua utuntur."— De Gestis Scotorum , Lib. i. ( De Populis Regnis et Linguis .)...

"Altero vero post anno, qui fuit a Christo 1411, Donaldus Insulanus Œbudarum dominus cum Rossiam iuris calumnia per Gubernatorem sibi ablatam, velut proximus haeres (uti erat) repeteret, ac nihil aequi impetraret, collectis insulanorum decem millibus in continentem descendit; ac Rossiam facile occupavit, cunctis libenter ad iusti domini imperium redeuntibus. Sed ea Rossianorum parendi facilitas animum praedae avidum ad maiora audenda impulit. In Moraviam transgressus eam praesidio destitutam sta

The object of this Appendix is to give a summary of the process by which Anglo-Norman feudalism came to supersede the earlier Scottish civilization. For a more detailed account, the reader is referred to Skene's Celtic Scotland , Robertson's Scotland under her Early Kings , and Mr. Lang's History of Scotland . The kingdom [94] of which Malcolm Canmore became the ruler in 1058 was not inhabited by clans. It had been, from of old, divided into seven provinces, each of which was inhabited by tribes