The Highland Clans of Scotland, Eyre-Todd
"It is now well understood
that the Celts originally came out of the east.
Guest, in his "Origines Celticae"
describes the routes by which they streamed
across Europe and along the
north coast of Africa in a bygone century. The
migration did not stop till
it had reached the shores of the Atlantic. The
Celtic flood was followed
within the Christian era by the migrations of
succeeding races - Huns, Goths,
Vandals, Franks and before the successive
waves the Celts were driven
against the western coast. This process was
seen in Scotland when the
British inhabitants were driven westward by the
oncoming waves of Saxons,
Angles, and Danes in the fifth and following
centuries.
"Thus driven against the western
shores of Brition these Celts were known,
down to the Norman Conquest,
as the Britons or Welsh of Strathclyde, of
Wales and of West Wales or
Cornwall.
"In the north, beyond the Forth
and among the mountain fastnesses, as well
as in the south of Galloway,
the Celtic race continued to hold its own. By
the Roman chroniclers the
tribes there were known as the Caledonians or
Picts. Between the Forth
and the Grampians were the Southern Picts, north
of the Grampians were the
Northern Picts, and in Galloway were the
Niduarian Picts. To
which branch of the Celtic race, British or Gaelic, or
a separate branch by themselves,
the Picts belonged, is not now known.
From the fact that after the
Roman legions were withdrawn they made fierce
war upon the British tribes
south of the Forth, it seems likely that they
were not British. Dr
W.F. Skene, in his Highlanders of Scotland, took
elaborate pains to prove that
the Picts were Gaelic, an earlier wave of the
same race as the Gaels or
Scots who then peopled Ireland, at that time
known as Scotia.
"Exactly how these Scots came
into the sister isle is not now known.
According to their own tradition
they derived their name from Scota,
daughter of one of the Pharoahs
(of Egypt), whom one of their leaders
married as they passed westward
through Egypt, and it is possible they may
be identified with the division
of the Celtic tribes which passed along the
north coast of Africa.
According to Gaelic tradition the Scots migrated
from Spain to the south of
Ireland. According to the same tradition they
brought with them the flat
brown stone, about nine inches thick, known as
Lia Fail, or Stone of Destiny,
on which their kings were crowned, and which
was said to have been Jacob's
pillow at Bethel on the plain of Luz.
"From Ireland they began to
cross into Kintyre - "Headland" - in the sixth
century. Their three
leaders were Fergus, Lorn, and Angus, sons of Erc,
and their progress was not
always a matter of peaceful settlement. Fergus,
for instance, made a landing
in Ayrshire, and defeated and slew Coyle the
British king of the district,
whose tumulus is still to be seen at
Coylesfield, and whose name
is still commemorated as that of the region,
Kyle, and in popular rhymes
about 'Old King Cole.'
"In Kintyre and the adjoining
neighbourhood the invaders established the
little Dalriadic kingdom,
so called from their place of origin in the
north-east of Ireland, Dal-Riada,
the "Portion of Riada," conquered in the
third century by Fergus's
ancestor, Cairbre-Riada, brother of Cormac, an
Irish King. They had
their first capital at Dun-add near the present
Crinan Canal, and from their
possession the district about Loch Awe took
the name of Oire-Gaidheal,
or Argyall, the "Land of the Gael."
"These settlers were Christian,
and the name of their patron saint, Kiaran,
remains in Kilkiaran, the
old name of Campbelltown, Kil-kiaran in Islay,
Kilkiaran in Lismore, and
Kilkerran in Carrick, which is still in
possession of the Fergusons
at the present hour. The invasion, however,
received one of its strongest
impulses from a later missionary. Columba
crossed from Ireland and settled
in Iona in the year 565, and very soon,
with his followers, began
a great campaign of Christian conversion among
the Northern Picts.
The Picts and early Britons, as is shown by their
monuments and the folk-customs
they have handed down to us, were
worshippers of Baal and Ashtaroth.
Columba's conversion of Bruud, king of
the Northern Picts at his
stronghold at Inverness, opened up the whole
country to the Gaelic influence.
"By and by marriages took place
between the Pictish and the Gaelic royal
houses, and these led, in
the ninth century, to disputes over the
succession to the Pictish
crown. In the struggle which followed, Alpin,
king of the Scots, was beheaded
by the Picts on Dundee Law, in sight of his
own host. But the whole
matter was finally decided by the victory of
Alpin's son, Kenneth II, over
the last Pictish army, in the year 838, at
the spot called Cambuskenneth
after the event, on the bank of the Forth
near Stirling. Six years
later Kenneth succeeded to the Pictish throne.
"The history of these early
centuries is to be gathered from Adamnan's Life
of Columba, the Annals of
Tighernac, the Annals of Ulster, the Albanach
Duan, Bede's Chronicle, and
other works.
"By that time another warlike
race made its appearance on the western
coasts. At their first
coming, the Dalriads or Scots from Ireland had been
known as Gallgael - Gaelic
strangers. The new piratical visitors who now
appeared from the eastern
shores of the North Sea, received the name of
Fion-gall or "fair-haired
strangers." Worshippers of Woden and Thor, they
proved at first fierce and
bitter enemies to the Christian Picts and Gaels,
slaying the monks of Iona
on their own alter, and even penetrating so far
as to burn Dunbarton, the
capital of the Britons of Srathclyde, in the year
780. In the face of
this menace, Kenneth, in the year of his victory over
the Picts, (838) removed the
Lia Fail from his own stronghold of
Dunstaffnage on Loch Etive,
to Scone on the Tay, transferred the bones of
Columba from Iona to Dunkeld,
and fixed his own royal seat at the ancient
capital of the Southern Picts,
Forteviot on the Earn. This remained the
capital of the Scoto-Pictish
kings for two centuries, till in 1057 Malcolm
Canmore, son of the "gracious"
Duncan and the miller's daughter of
Forteviot, overthrew Macbeth,
and set up the Capital of his new dynasty at
Dunfermline.
"Meanwhile the Norsemen overran
not only the Western Isles but much of the
northern part of the country.
For a time it was an even chance whether
ancient Caledonia should become
Norseland or Scotland. Under Malcolm
Canmore and his sons, however
the Scots pushed their conquests south of the
Forth, annexed Strathclyde,
Northumberland, and Westmoreland, and became a
formidable power in the land.
David I fortified his dynasty against attack
by planting the country with
Norman and English barons and introducing the
feudal system; and the final
issue with the Norsemen was fought out by the
last of his race, the last
of the Celtic line of kings, Alexander III, at
the battle of Largs in 1263."
After the death of Columba
more than four centuries had to elapse before
Scotland was united under
the rule of a single King. To rule the whole of
Scotland he must break three
rival kings in battle or march into their
kingdom when they were attached
by other enemies or take advantage of a
disputed succession to snatch
the coveted crown, or establish a claim
through marriage and descent.
For a time it seemed as if
the whole of Scotland might be merged in the
English Kingdom of Northumbria.
That kingdom already included Lothian, and
in the middle of the seventh
century the Northumbrian King forced the
rulers of Pictland and Strathclyde
to acknowledge him as their overlord.
When a more vigorous Pictish
King challenged the Northumbrian power, King
Ecgfrith of Northumbria invaded
Pictland and was slain in battle.
The Picts freed from the Northumbrian
menace, resumed vigorous warfare
against the kings of Dalriada.
Alpin's son, Kenneth, possessed himself of
the stronghold of the Pictish
kings at Forteviot and became king of both
Picts and Scots in 844.
Kenneth's accession marks the end of the first
stage in the unification of
Scotland and the beginning of the Kingdom of
Alba as it was now called.
In 1016, Eadulf Cudel Earl
of Northumbia bought off Malcolm, King of Scots,
by surrendering to him the
whole of Lothian. And by 1018 the bond that
united Cumbria or Strathclyde
to Malcolm's other possessions was tightened.
Up to this time Cumbria
had its own line of kings, although they had long
been kinsmen of the kings
of Alba. When in 1018 Owen the Bald, the last of
his line, died he was succeeded
by Duncan, the grandson of King Malcolm and
the heir to the Scottish Crown.
So in the year 1018 the boundaries
of Scotland became pretty much what they
are at the present day.
There two important differences: the southern
boundary line dipped much
farther down than it does now, for Stathclyde
included not only the basin
of the Clyde, but Cumberland, Westmoreland, and
part of Lancashire, and the
western boundary line kept close to the
mainland, for though the Norsemen
in the Hebrides seldom obeyed the King of
Norway, they never obeyed
the King of Scots.
In the thirteenth century a
curious change came over Scotland: the Norman
baron, the bishop who knew
more Latin and French than English, the
English-speaking traders and
farmers of Fife and Lothian, the
Gaelic-speaking herdsman from
the hills, all began to look on themselves as
Scotsmen, as people bound
together by some mysterious tie, like but not
quite the same as, the tie
of kinship. In other words, they were no longer
a collection of different
races; they had become a nation. Something very
like national pride in the
independence of the Scottish kingdom was being
expressed.