st of Scotland, the conquest of
civilization and of speech.

Our argument derives considerable support from the references to the
Highlands of Scotland which we find in mediaeval literature. Racial
distinctions were not always understood in the Middle Ages; but readers
of Giraldus Cambrensis are familiar with the strong racial feeling that
existed between the English and the Welsh, and between the English and
the Irish. If the Lowlanders of Scotland felt towards the Highlanders as
Mr. Hill Burton asserts that they did feel, we should expect to find
references to the difference between Celts and Saxons. But, on the
contrary, we meet with statement after statement to the effect that the
Highlanders are only Scotsmen who have maintained the ancient Scottish
language and literature, while the Lowlanders have adopted English
customs and a foreign tongue. The words "Scots" and "Scotland" are never
used to designate the Highlanders as distinct from other inhabitants of
Scotland, yet the phrase "Lingua Scotica" means, up to the end of the
fifteenth century, the Gaelic tongue.[13] In the beginning of the
sixteenth century John Major speaks of "the wild Scots and Islanders" as
using Irish, while the civilized Scots speak English; and Gavin Douglas
professed to write in Scots (_i.e._ the Lowland tongue). In the course
of the century this became the regular usage. Acts of the Scottish
Parliament, directed against Highland marauders, class them with the
border thieves. There is no hint in the Register of the Privy Council or
in the Exchequer Rolls, of any racial feeling, and the independence of
the Celtic chiefs has been considerably exaggerated. James IV and James
V both visited the Isles, and the chief town of Skye takes its name from
the visit of the latter. In the beginning of the sixteenth century, it
was safe for Hector Boece, the Principal of the newly founded university
of Aberdeen, to go in company of the Rector to make a voyage to the
Hebrides, and, in the account they have left us of their experiences, we
can discover no hint that there existed between Highlanders and
Lowlanders much the same difference as separated the English from the
Welsh. Neither in Barbour's _Bruce_ nor in Blind Harry's _Wallace_ is
there any such consciousness of difference, although Barbour lived in
Aberdeen in the days before Harlaw. John of Fordun, a fellow-townsman
and a contemporary of Barbour, was an ardent admirer of St. Margaret and
of Davi