A Short History of Scotland | Page 3

the land was part of the early English
kingdom of Bernicia; here the invading Angles were already
settled--though river-names here remain Gaelic, and hill-names are
often either Gaelic or Welsh. The great Northern Pictland was divided
into seven provinces, or sub-kingdoms, while there was an over-King,
or Ardrigh, with his capital at Inverness and, later, in Angus or
Forfarshire. The country about Edinburgh was partly English, partly
Cymric or Welsh. The south-west corner, Galloway, was called Pictish,
and was peopled by Gaelic-speaking tribes.
In the course of time and events the dynasty of the Argyll Scoti from
Ireland gave its name to Scotland, while the English element gave its
language to the Lowlands; it was adopted by the Celtic kings of the
whole country and became dominant, while the Celtic speech withdrew
into the hills of the north and northwest.

The nation was thus evolved out of alien and hostile elements, Irish,
Pictish, Gaelic, Cymric, English, and on the northern and western
shores, Scandinavian.


CHAPTER III.
EARLY WARS OF RACES.
In a work of this scope, it is impossible to describe all the wars between
the petty kingdoms peopled by races of various languages, which
occupied Scotland. In 603, in the wild moors at Degsastane, between
the Liddel burn and the passes of the Upper Tyne, the English
Aethelfrith of Deira, with an army of the still pagan ancestors of the
Borderers, utterly defeated Aidan, King of Argyll, with the Christian
converted Scots. Henceforth, for more than a century, the English
between Forth and Humber feared neither Scot of the west nor Pict of
the north.
On the death of Aethelfrith (617), the Christian west and north
exercised their influences; one of Aethelfrith's exiled sons married a
Pictish princess, and became father of a Pictish king, another, Oswald,
was baptised at Iona; and the new king of the northern English of
Lothian, Edwin, was converted by Paullinus (627), and held Edinburgh
as his capital. Later, after an age of war and ruin, Oswald, the convert
of Iona, restored Christianity in northern England; and, after his fall, his
brother, Oswiu, consolidated the north English. In 685 Oswiu's son
Egfrith crossed the Forth and invaded Pictland with a Northumbrian
army, but was routed with great loss, and was slain at Nectan's Mere, in
Forfarshire. Thenceforth, till 761, the Picts were dominant, as against
Scots and north English, Angus MacFergus being then their leader
(731- 761).
Now the invaders and settlers from Scandinavia, the Northmen on the
west coast, ravaged the Christian Scots of the west, and burned Iona:
finally, in 844-860, Kenneth MacAlpine of Kintyre, a Scot of Dalriada
on the paternal, a Pict on the mother's side, defeated the Picts and
obtained their throne. By Pictish law the crown descended in the
maternal line, which probably facilitated the coronation of Kenneth. To

the Scots and "to all Europe" he was a Scot; to the Picts, as son of a
royal Pictish mother, he was a Pict. With him, at all events, Scots and
Picts were interfused, and there began the Scottish dynasty, supplanting
the Pictish, though it is only in popular tales that the Picts were
exterminated.
Owing to pressure from the Northmen sea-rovers in the west, the
capital and the seat of the chief bishop, under Kenneth MacAlpine
(844-860), were moved eastwards from Iona to Scone, near Perth, and
after an interval at Dunkeld, to St Andrews in Fife.
The line of Kenneth MacAlpine, though disturbed by quarrels over the
succession, and by Northmen in the west, north, and east, none the less
in some way "held a good grip o' the gear" against Vikings, English of
Lothian, and Welsh of Strathclyde. In consequence of a marriage with a
Welsh princess of Strathclyde, or Cumberland, a Scottish prince,
Donald, brother of Constantine II., became king of that realm (908),
and his branch of the family of MacAlpin held Cumbria for a century.

ENGLISH CLAIMS OVER SCOTLAND.
In 924 the first claim by an English king, Edward, to the over-lordship
of Scotland appears in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. The entry contains
a manifest error, and the topic causes war between modern historians,
English and Scottish. In fact, there are several such entries of Scottish
acceptance of English suzerainty under Constantine II., and later, but
they all end in the statement, "this held not long." The "submission" of
Malcolm I. to Edmund (945) is not a submission but an alliance; the old
English word for "fellow-worker," or "ally," designates Malcolm as
fellow-worker with Edward of England.
This word (midwyrhta) was translated fidelis (one who gives fealty) in
the Latin of English chroniclers two centuries later, but Malcolm I. held
Cumberland as an ally, not as a subject prince of England. In 1092 an
English chronicle represents Malcolm III. as holding Cumberland "by