oof 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completely superseded, in England, the tongue of the conquered Britons,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the English language has completely superseded a Celtic tongue.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 warfa