We venture to plead for a modification of this theory, which may fairly be called the orthodox account of the circumstances.  It will at once occur to the reader that some definite proof should be forthcoming that the Celtic inhabitants of Scotland, outside the Lothians, were actually subjected to this process of racial displacement.  Such a displacement had certainly not been effected before the Norman Conquest, for it was only in 1018 that the English of Lothian were subjected to the rule of a Celtic king, and the large amount of Scottish literature, in the Gaelic tongue, is sufficient indication that Celtic Scotland was not confined to the Highlands in the eleventh century.  Nor have we any hint of a racial displacement after the Norman conquest, even though it is unquestionable that a considerable number of exiles followed Queen Margaret to Scotland, and that William’s harrying of the north of England drove others over the border.  It is easy to lay too much stress upon the effect of the latter event.  The northern counties cannot have been very thickly populated, and if Mr. Freeman is right in his description of “that fearful deed, half of policy, half of vengeance, which has stamped the name of William with infamy”, not very many of the victims of his cruelty can have made good their flight, for we are told that the bodies of the inhabitants of Yorkshire “were rotting in the streets, in the highways, or on their own hearthstones”.  Stone dead left no fellow to colonize Scotland.  We find, therefore, only the results and not the process of this racial displacement.  These results were the adoption of English manners and the English tongue, and the growth of English names, and we wish to suggest that they may find an historical explanation which does not involve the total disappearance of the Scottish farmer from Fife, or of the Scottish artisan from Aberdeen.

Before proceeding to a statement of the explanation to which we desire to direct the reader’s attention, it may be useful to deal briefly with the questions relating to the spoken language of Lowland Scotland and to its place-names.  The fact that the language of the Angles and Saxons completely superseded, in England, the tongue of the conquered Britons, is admitted to be a powerful argument for the view that the Anglo-Saxon conquest of England resulted in a racial displacement.  But the argument cannot be transferred to the case of the Scottish Lowlands, where, also, the English language has completely superseded a Celtic tongue.  For, in the first case, the victory is that of the language of a savage people, known to be in a state of actual warfare, and it is a victory which follows as an immediate result of conquest.  In Scotland, the victory of the English tongue (outside the Lothians) dates from a relatively advanced period of civilization, and it is a victory won, not by conquest or bloodshed, but by peaceful means.  Even in a case of conquest, change of speech is not conclusive evidence of change