An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707)Rait, Robert S. (Robert Sangster)
History
An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707)
Rait, Robert S. (Robert Sangster)
England -- Foreign relations -- Scotland; Scotland -- Foreign relations -- England
In the end of the fifth century and the beginning of the sixth, a new
settlement of Goidels was made. These were the Scots, who founded the
kingdom of Dalriada, corresponding roughly to the Modern Argyllshire.
Some fifty years later (_c._ 547) came the Angles under Ida, and
established a dominion along the coast from Tweed to Forth, covering the
modern counties of Roxburgh, Berwick, Haddington, and Midlothian. Its
outlying fort was the castle of Edinburgh, the name of which, in the
form in which we have it, has certainly been influenced by association
with the Northumbrian king, Edwin.[30] This district remained a portion
of the kingdom of Northumbria till the tenth century, and it is of this
district alone that the word "English" can fairly be used. Even here,
however, there must have been a considerable infusion of Celtic blood,
and such Celtic place-names as "Dunbar" still remain even in the
counties where English place-names predominate. A distinguished Celtic
scholar tells us: "In all our ancient literature, the inhabitants of
ancient Lothian are known as Saix-Brit, _i.e._ Saxo-Britons, because
they were a Cymric people, governed by the Saxons of Northumbria".[31] A
further non-Celtic influence was that of the Norse invaders, who
attacked the country from the ninth to the eighteenth century, and
profoundly modified the racial character of the population on the south
and west coasts, in the islands, and along the east coast as far south
as the Moray Firth.
Such, then, was the racial distribution of Scotland. Picts, Goidelic
Celts, Brythonic Celts, Scots, and Anglo-Saxons were in possession of
the country. In the year 844, Kenneth MacAlpine, King of the Scots of
Dalriada, united under his rule the ancient kingdoms of the Picts and
Scots, including the whole of Scotland from the Pentland Firth to the
Forth. In 908, a brother of the King of Scots became King of the Britons
of Strathclyde, while Lothian, with the rest of Northumbria, passed
under the overlordship of the House of Wessex. We have now arrived at
the commencement of the long dispute about the "overlordship". We shall
attempt to state the main outlines as clearly as possible.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account