t "the true Scots, out of hatred to the 'Saxons' nearest
to them, leagued with the 'Saxons' farther off", if Mr. Hill Burton is
correct in describing the red Harlaw as a battle between foes who could
have no feeling of common nationality, there is nothing to be said in
support of the theory we have ventured to suggest. We may fairly expect
some signs of ill-will between those who maintained the Celtic
civilization and their brethren who had abandoned the ancient customs
and the ancient tongue; we may naturally look for attempts to produce a
conservative or Celtic reaction, but anything more than this will be
fatal to our case. The facts do not seem to us to bear out Mr. Freeman's
generalization. When the independence of Scotland is really at stake, we
shall find the "true Scots" on the patriotic side. Highlanders and
Islesmen fought under the banner of David I at Northallerton; they took
their place along with the men of Carrick in the Bruce's own division at
Bannockburn, and they bore their part in the stubborn ring that
encircled James IV at Flodden. At other times, indeed, we do find the
Lords of the Isles involved in treacherous intrigues with the kings of
England, but just in the same way as we see the Earls of Douglas
engaged in traitorous schemes against the Scottish kings. In both cases
alike we are dealing with the revolt of a powerful vassal against a weak
king. Such an incident is sufficiently frequent in the annals of
Scotland to render it unnecessary to call in racial considerations to
afford an explanation. One of the most notable of these intrigues
occurred in the year 1408, when Donald of the Isles, who chanced to be
engaged in a personal quarrel about the heritage which he claimed in
right of his Lowland relatives, made a treacherous agreement with Henry
IV; and the quarrel ended in the battle of Harlaw in 1411. The real
importance of Harlaw is that it ended in the defeat of a Scotsman who,
like some other Scotsmen in the South, was acting in the English
interest; any further significance that it may possess arises from the
consideration that it is the last of a series of efforts directed
against the predominance, not of the English race, but of Saxon speech
and civilization. It was just because Highlanders and Lowlanders did
represent a common nationality that the battle was fought, and the blood
spilt on the field of Harlaw was not shed in any racial struggle, but in
the cause of the real English conque