An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) | Page 5

peaceful people".[12] There is no further evidence in
support of this statement, and almost the whole of Malcolm's short
reign was occupied with the settlement of Galloway. We know that he
followed his grandfather's policy of making grants of land in Moray,
and this is probably the germ of truth in Fordun's statement. Moray,

however, occupied rather an exceptional position. "As the power of the
sovereign extended over the west," says Mr. E.W. Robertson, "it was
his policy, not to eradicate the old ruling families, but to retain them in
their native provinces, rendering them more or less responsible for all
that portion of their respective districts which was not placed under the
immediate authority of the royal sheriffs or baillies." As this policy was
carried out even in Galloway, Argyll, and Ross, where there were
occasional rebellions, and was successful in its results, we have no
reason for believing that it was abandoned in dealing with the rest of
the Lowlands. As, from time to time, instances occurred in which this
plan was unsuccessful, and as other causes for forfeiture arose, the
lands were granted to strangers, and by the end of the thirteenth century
the Scottish nobility was largely Anglo-Norman. The vestiges of the
clan system which remained may be part of the explanation of the place
of the great Houses in Scottish History. The unique importance of such
families as the Douglasses or the Gordons may thus be a portion of the
Celtic heritage of the Lowlands.
If, then, it was not by a displacement of race, but through the subtle
influences of religion, feudalism, and commerce that the Scottish
Lowlands came to be English in speech and in civilization, if the
farmers of Fife and some, at least, of the burghers of Dundee or of
Aberdeen were really Scots who had been subjected to English
influences, we should expect to find no strong racial feeling in
mediæval Scotland. Such racial antagonism as existed would, in this
case, be owing to the large admixture of Scandinavian blood in
Caithness and in the Isles, rather than to any difference between the
true Scots and "the English of the Lowlands". Do we, then, find any
racial antagonism between the Highlands and the Lowlands? If Mr.
Freeman is right in laying down the general rule that "the true Scots,
out of hatred to the 'Saxons' nearest to them, leagued with the 'Saxons'
farther off", if Mr. Hill Burton is correct in describing the red Harlaw
as a battle between foes who could have no feeling of common
nationality, there is nothing to be said in support of the theory we have
ventured to suggest. We may fairly expect some signs of ill-will
between those who maintained the Celtic civilization and their brethren
who had abandoned the ancient customs and the ancient tongue; we

may naturally look for attempts to produce a conservative or Celtic
reaction, but anything more than this will be fatal to our case. The facts
do not seem to us to bear out Mr. Freeman's generalization. When the
independence of Scotland is really at stake, we shall find the "true
Scots" on the patriotic side. Highlanders and Islesmen fought under the
banner of David I at Northallerton; they took their place along with the
men of Carrick in the Bruce's own division at Bannockburn, and they
bore their part in the stubborn ring that encircled James IV at Flodden.
At other times, indeed, we do find the Lords of the Isles involved in
treacherous intrigues with the kings of England, but just in the same
way as we see the Earls of Douglas engaged in traitorous schemes
against the Scottish kings. In both cases alike we are dealing with the
revolt of a powerful vassal against a weak king. Such an incident is
sufficiently frequent in the annals of Scotland to render it unnecessary
to call in racial considerations to afford an explanation. One of the most
notable of these intrigues occurred in the year 1408, when Donald of
the Isles, who chanced to be engaged in a personal quarrel about the
heritage which he claimed in right of his Lowland relatives, made a
treacherous agreement with Henry IV; and the quarrel ended in the
battle of Harlaw in 1411. The real importance of Harlaw is that it ended
in the defeat of a Scotsman who, like some other Scotsmen in the South,
was acting in the English interest; any further significance that it may
possess arises from the consideration that it is the last of a series of
efforts directed against the predominance, not of the English race, but
of Saxon speech and civilization. It was just because Highlanders and
Lowlanders did represent a common nationality that the battle was
fought, and the blood spilt on the field