We have now traced, in outline, the connections between the northern and the southern portions of this island up to the date of the Norman Conquest of England.  We have found in Scotland a population composed of Pict, Scot, Goidel, Brython, Dane, and Angle, and we have seen how the country came to be, in some sense, united under a single monarch.  It is not possible to speak dogmatically of either of the two great problems of the period—­the racial distribution of the country, and the Edwardian claims to overlordship.  But it is clear that no portion of Scotland was, in 1066, in any sense English, except the Lothians, of which Angles and Danes had taken possession.  From the Lothians, the English influences must have spread slightly into Strathclyde; but the fact that the Celtic Kings of Scotland were strong enough to annex and rule the Lothians as part of a Celtic kingdom implies a limit to English colonization.  As to the feudal supremacy, it may be fairly said that there is no portion of the English claim that cannot be reasonably doubted, and whatever force it retains must be of the nature of a cumulative argument.  It must, of course, be recollected that Anglo-Norman chroniclers of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, like English historians of a later date, regarded themselves as holding a brief for the English claim, while, on the other hand, Scottish writers would be the last to assert, in their own case, a complete absence of bias.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 30:  Johnston:  Place-Names of Scotland, p. 102.]

[Footnote 31:  Rev. Duncan MacGregor in Scottish Church Society Conferences.  Second Series, Vol.  II, p. 23.]

[Footnote 32:  Hist.  Dun. Rolls Series, i. 218.]

[Footnote 33:  Duncan was the grandson of Malcolm, and, by Pictish custom, should not have succeeded.  The “rightful” heir, an un-named cousin of Malcolm, was murdered, and his sister, Gruoch, who married the Mormaor of Moray, left a son, Lulach, who thus represented a rival line, whose claims may be connected with some of the Highland risings against the descendants of Duncan.]

CHAPTER II

SCOTLAND AND THE NORMANS

1066-1286

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-Celticization of Southern Scotland could not, and did not, follow.  The failure of William’s conquest to include the Northern counties of England left Northumbria an easy prey to the Scottish king,