ssing of God). This seemingly innocent
phrase seems to have some ironical signification, for we find in the
_Auchinleck Chronicle_ (anno 1452) that it was used by some Highlanders
as a term of abuse towards the Bishop of Argyll. Another example occurs
in a coarse "Answer to ane Helandmanis Invective", by Alexander
Montgomerie, the court poet of James VI. The Lowland literature of the
sixteenth century contains a considerable amount of abuse of the
Highland tongue. William Dunbar (1460-1520), in his "Flyting" (an
exercise in Invective), reproaches his antagonist, Walter Kennedy, with
his Highland origin. Kennedy was a native of Galloway, while Dunbar
belonged to the Lothians, where we should expect the strongest
appreciation of the differences between Lowlander and Highlander.
Dunbar, moreover, had studied (or, at least, resided) at Oxford, and was
one of the first Scotsmen to succumb to the attractions of "town". The
most suggestive point in the "Flyting" is that a native of the Lothians
could still regard a Galwegian as a "beggar Irish bard". For Walter
Kennedy spoke and wrote in Lowland Scots; he was, possibly, a graduate
of the University of Glasgow, and he could boast of Stuart blood.
Ayrshire was as really English as was Aberdeenshire; and, if Dunbar is
in earnest, it is a strong confirmation of our theory that he, being
"of the Lothians himself", spoke of Kennedy in this way. It would,
however, be unwise to lay too much stress on what was really a
conventional exercise of a particular style of poetry, now obsolete.
Kennedy, in his reply, retorts that he alone is true Scots, and that
Dunbar, as a native of Lothian, is but an English thief:

"In Ingland, owle, suld be thyne habitacione,
Homage to Edward Langschankis maid thy kyn".

In an Epitaph on Donald Owre, a son of the Lord of the Isles, who raised
a rebellion against James IV in 1503, Dunbar had a great opportunity for
an outburst against the Highlanders, of which, however, he did not take
advantage, but confined himself to a denunciation of treachery in
general. In the "Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins", there is a well-known
allusion to the bag-pipes:

"Than cryd Mahoun[27] for a Healand padyane;
Syne ran a feynd to feche Makfadyane[28]
Far northwart in a nuke.[29]
Be he the correnoch had done schout
Erschemen so gadderit him about
In Hell grit rowme they tuke.
Thae tarmegantis with tag and tatter
Full lowde in Ersche be