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192 CRANIA BRITANNICA. [CHAP. VI.
retreated to Ms possessions in Orkney, where he died. The Hebrides and Isle of Man were very
soon after ceded to Alexander III. of Scotland; and the last of these transmarine dominions of
Norway, the Orkneys and the Shetland islands, just two hundred years afterwards came to the
Scottish crown hy the marriage of James III. with a princess of Denmark—a change of rule
which at once interrupted further communication with the northern countries, and tended to the
introduction of the subjects of Scotland, of quite a different race, into aU these numerous islets.
If in Ireland we have met with a considerable mingling of races, the fate of Scotland, as
before remarked, has not been less diversified with respect to its population. The very name
imports an immigrant people from Hibernia, who overspread the western side of the country
from Kintu-e, through Southern Argyle and Inverness-shire northwards, up to the eastern
dividing ridge of Drumalban. These immigrants intermingled with the ancient Caledonians,
rather than superseded them. The two races were not always at war, but for a long period lived
in friendly aUiance. Probably both may exist in tolerable purity in some districts, whilst a
large amount of amalgamation has gone on in most. But the eastern section pf the country was
far from being inhabited by a homogeneous race descended from the Picts. In the north we
meet with a people derived from Norse ancestry. At a period as early as the middle of the sixth
centm-y, the Angles, imder Ida who iavaded Bernicia, overran the country south of the Prith of
Forth, Anglo-Saxons having been settled in Northumbria at least a century before *. The battle
of Kaltraeth is considered to have finaUy established the power of the Northumbrian Angles
over the British tribes to the south of the Porth. The latter were reduced to subjection, many
of them to thraldom, whilst the Anglo-Saxon authority was extended and confirmed, and a
numerous Anglo-Saxon population settled in the lowland country. " The language that was
commonly spoken in those times, throughout the extensive bishopric of Lindisfarne, founded
A.D. 635, was the Anglo-Saxon, which, on the subduement of the Romanized Ottadini, succeeded
to the British tongue " t - Although the battle of Kaltraeth may have given the immigrant race
the predominance, it was not by any means the last contest between the Picts and the Saxons.
The Saxon kings of Northumbria strenuously pursued the subjugation of the Pictish tribes,
under various successes and checks, until, at the commencement of the eighth century, the Porth
was allowed to limit the two peoples. Soon afterwards, Eadbert extended his dominion westwards
to the Prith of Clyde, introducing, in a small degree, a Saxon element of population to the two
others already in possession of that country J:. Even beyond the Porth, Anglo-Saxon settlers
took up their abode on the eastern coast to some extent § ; and the Danes, in the latter half of
the ninth century, when they invaded Northumberland under Halfdene, pushed their incursions
as far as Galloway and the old kingdom of Strathclyde. But before this time a peaceful introduction
of Anglo-Saxons into lowland Scotland had been going on, especially after the conquests
of the Danes and Norsemen in the more southern regions of the island. It will thus be seen
that all lowland Scotland has felt the full force of the intromission of Teutonic blood.
The more inland country, between the Moray Prith and those of the Clyde and Porth, is the
permanent abode of a race which has the greatest claims to be regarded as of true Caledonian
* It has already been mentioned that a Saxon settlement
under Octa and Ebissa took place in the country of the Ottadini
almost as early as the time of Hengist and Horsa.—
Hinde, ArchBeol. Journ. TOI. xiv. p. 301.
f Chalmers, " Caledonia," vol. i. p. 32.7.
I Beda, at the commencement of the eighth century, gives
the Friths of Forth and Clyde as the southern limits of the
Picts and Scots.
§ Mr. Earle, late Professor of Anglo-Saxon, points to the
term "low" {klaw, a hill, Anglo-Saxon) as an indication of
Anghan presence, in contradistinction to Saxon. The Scottish
form " Law " extends to Fifeshire.—Archreol. Journ. xvii. 100.
CHAP. VI.] ETHNOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OP SUCCESSIVE POPULATIONS. 193
descent. It is in this part of the island, if anywhere, that we must look for the representatives
of the ancient Picts. Still it must not be forgotten, although the Western Highlands were the
first scenes of the aggressions of the Scots from Ireland, that when in 842 the Scottisli princes
came to embrace under one dominion the territories of both Scots and Picts, the former people
were introduced into every part of Pictavia in increasing numbers.
The further history of the Saxons in modern Scotland, demands in this place another word
or two. The Cumbrian kingdom, as elsewhere related, was given up by Edmund of England to
Malcolm king of Scotland, as a feudatory, and was under the immediate dominion of the
Scottish king's eldest son. His subjects no doubt were somewhat heterogeneous. A multitude
of the original Britons would stUl remain in the land, but mostly in a subordinate position. The
Saxons and the Danes from Northumbria constituted the influential people, whose importance
was most likely largely shared in some districts by Norse colonists introduced from the western
shores *. At length, in 971, Kenneth III., king of the Scots, acquired from Edgar, the English
king, a similar supremacy over the Lothians and the Merse, the richest portions of Scotland,
•nith all their Anglo-Saxon inhabitants ; and it is this acquisition, more than any other, which has
told both upon the institutions and upon the population of the northern division of the island.
A further immigrant race and another conquest remain to be enumerated—a race less
removed from those which came immediately before, and producing less specific change in the
population, but a conquest far more rapid, decisive, and permanent than those we have already
had occasion to notice. The Normans, deduced from a lineage closely connected with that of
the Norwegian Vikingr, had not been domiciled more than 150 years in their new home, in
Neustria, before their ambitious ruler coveted the dominion of rich, powerful, and fertile
England. The followers of RoUo, whose number has been estimated by M. de Sismondi at
30,000, had made no merit of preserving the purity of their descent in Normandy. Indeed they
had wasted the country so greatly before it was ceded into their hands, that the neighbouring
Counts were engaged to provide food for the new settlers; and when the sea-rovers by necessity
turned to the cultivation of the soil, they invited strangers from every quarter to their assistance.
In this century and a half they had relinquished their religion and their own national tongue, and
had taken up a corruption of Latin, a Romance language, by which we may estimate their comparative
fewness in Neustria. They had become much assimilated to the other Neustrians, save
in their enterprising and vigorous spii-it, which was unchanged and at the same time distinct +.
The companions of William the Bastard, in his grand invasion, embraced the feudal barons of his
Duchy, whose forefathers had crossed the North Sea; men of Normandy of every degree and
* "Worsaae has shown the probability of the Northmen being
induced to settle in the neighbourhood of Cumberland and on
the western coast, rather than the eastern, from the presence of
their countrymen in the former parts in early times. (Danes
and Norwegians, p. 203.) Mr. Ferguson has taken this subject
up with great ability and research, and is led to the inference
that the early Scandinavian settlers of Cumberland and
Westmoreland were of Norse origin, and invaded these regions
from their own colonies in the Isle of Man, and from the
western coast. In the absence of historical records, there is
great probability in this view, which is most ingeniously and
convincingly supported by Mr. Ferguson's philological inquiries
into the local names of the two northern counties. One
branch of the subject, which seems to promise fruitful results.
has been overlooked by this author, viz. an investigation into
the local nomenclature of the western islets, unquestionablv
Norse, and a comparison with those of Cumberland and Westmoreland.
This would seem very likely to determine the
D.-inish or Norwegian relation of the latter " The Northmen
in Cumberland and Westmoreland." By Robert Ferguson.
1856, p. IG.
f An evidence of the diversity of race iu Normandy is seen
iu the extensive secret combination of the peasantry (composed
of so many different ingredients, but agreeing in being kept
down and retained in an inferior condition by their dominant
Northmen masters) which was discovered and suppressed in the
reign of Richard-le-Bon.