The Scots

Researched by Donald D. Erwin

The people the Romans called Scotti originally came from Ireland. During England’s period of Roman occupation (45 to 450 AD) the Scots lived in Dalriatic settlements in the northeastern part of Ireland that is now County Antrim. During the 300s and 400s they raided the Lowlands of modern-day Scotland from Northern Ireland, and as time passed they established settlements.

An important point to remember is that although the Romans penetrated the Lowlands, they did not stay, and they never seriously attempted to conquer the northern part of the island, known as the “Highlands.” The early Anglo-Saxons could not do it either. It would take over a thousand years for the English to finally absorb Scotland into the British Empire, and then not as a result of battle, but by merging the two royal families by marriage.

Although small numbers of Scots had been raiding and settling across the North Channel for many years, it was in 498 that three Scots princes of Irish Dalriata, sons of King Erc, led a group of followers across the Channel. They settled and established a government in the rugged and mountainous area of Argyll in southwestern Scotland. It was only a short distance to the Kintyre Peninsula and the Firth of Clyde. There the three brothers, Loarn (Lorne), Fergus, and Aonghus (Angus), created the Dalriadic Kingdom of Scots. They divided up the new territory between supportive families or groups of families whom they called Tuath or Cinel (meaning kindred), or Clan (meaning children). Lorne governed the northern part of the kingdom while Angus controlled the Islay Peninsula and the Western Isles. Fergus administered the Argyll area, which included the Kintyre Peninsula where many Dalriadic settlements already existed. The three brothers governed their kingdom jointly, but Fergus would eventually succeed his brothers and rule until his death in 505. It was from Fergus MacErc (son of Erc, who was descended from Cairbre Riadhi, the founder of the Irish Kingdom of Dalriata), that the Scots kings for the next several generations would descend.

The Scots were warriors, but they were also farmers and fisherman. They were livestock breeders and traders, and cows, sheep and pigs were their economic currency. A Scot was judged by the number of animals he owned, and purchases were made with a cow or pig or sheep. Before long they were encroaching on the more desirable lands of their neighbors. They recognized and appreciated good farming land and lost little time in enlarging their sphere of influence. The Scots—early on—were known for their ability to ferment alcoholic drinks, and modern-day Scots continue to enjoy a nip or two…almost as much as the Irish.

The presence of the Scots in Argyll did not go unnoticed by the Picts. The Picts had been in the northern part of the island for a long time and regarded all of the lands above the Forth-Clyde line as their personal property. The Picts were also fierce fighters, and there were many bloody clashes between the two tribes. The Scots, however, gradually took over the fertile Midland Valley. As time passed the two peoples found that they had common enemies – mainly the Vikings – as well as common problems, and over the next five hundred years or so the two peoples gradually became one.

By the ninth century AD the culture of the aggressive Scots had become dominant, and it was their identity that has survived. Constantine MacFergus – a Scottish chieftain who was a descendant of Pictish kings (via the female line) – claimed the Pictish throne and was able to win it. Alpin, king of the Dalriadic Scots, married a Pictish princess, and the affairs of the combined kingdom prospered comparatively peacefully. Their son, Kenneth MacAlpin of Dalriada (c. 800-858), inherited the crown of the Dalriadic Scots as well as that of the Picts.

In 843 Kenneth MacAlpin was able to unite the two peoples, Picts and Scots and formed the state that came to be called Scotia, and later Scotland. Shortly after he was acknowledged as the king of the two groups, he moved his seat of power out of Dalriada and into the heart of the Pictish territory, and Dalriada ceased to exist. Later, at the Battle of Carham, Scotia gained parts of Northumbria and Cumbria as well.

Kenneth’s unification of the two kingdoms as a new political entity established the roots of what would be Scotland. He also founded the first recognizable Scottish royal family. As a result, Scotland’s kings are formally numbered from Kenneth I. History also recognizes him as the first King of Scots. Kenneth I died in his palace at Forteviot in 858.

The success and growth of Scotia was due in part to the law of tanistry. From the time of Kenneth’s conjoined kingly status, it was necessary to devise a system of succession that would suit the Pictish nation as well as the Scots. It was decided that Pictish princesses would marry Kenneth’s sons and grandsons, with the proviso that new monarchs would be chosen from the various offspring during the lifetime of each reigning king. The sitting king and his government ministers – which included the Celtic Christian Clergy – made the heir selections. On being nominated each heir would become a co-ruler until the king’s death. Then, after a period of sole rule, the new king would follow the same procedure by selecting his successor from a parallel family line. The inheritors chosen by this process were called tanists, and the system of selection was known as tanistry. In general, the system – which would be in force for about three hundred years – worked well, although succession could become bloody if the chosen heir was unable to restrain his ambition.

The Gaelic of the Scots soon overcame the Pictish language, and as a result the use of their written symbols fell into disuse. Over time the Pictish written records were lost as well. Some early historians speculated that large numbers of the Picts were massacred by the Scots, or to use the modern term, that there was “ethnic cleansing.” The current belief, however, is that the disappearance of the Picts, and their language, was merely the result of assimilation and integration into the more dominant culture of the Scots.

In 875 the forces of Olaf the White, the King of Dublin, captured Dumbarton (later to be known as Strathclyde) and remained a source of worry to the surrounding peoples until 945. At that time Eadmund, King of England, and Malcolm I, King of Scots, combined to permanently expel the Danes. Eadmund and Malcolm set up a kingdom that was held jointly but ruled by the Scots. The King of Scots used Strathclyde as a training ground for the heir-apparent to his throne.

In 954 the Scottish tribes captured Edinburgh and made it their capital. The same year the English finally drove out the last of the Viking invaders from the island of Briton. In 1018 Malcolm II conquered Lothian (the region south of the Tweed) and merged it with the area previously held by the Picts and the Scots. Celtic supremacy as an ethnic people in the Lowlands seemed assured, but the Danish invasion of what is now England had driven thousands of “English” north into southern Scotland and, over time, infused a strong Anglo-Saxon element into the Scottish blood. Unrest in the Border area, however, would continue for several centuries.

Malcolm II had no male heir when he was assassinated in 1034. The throne was occupied by the grandson of Malcolm and son of Erinus, Duncan Erivine I. History credits Duncan I (r.1034-1040) with having merged the Scots, the Celtic Britons and the Anglo-Saxons – as well as the remnants of the Picts – into one Kingdom of Scotland. Duncan’s defeat by the English at Durham gave an opening to Macbeth, his general, to claim the throne. Macbeth’s claim was based on the fact that Gruoch, his wife, was the granddaughter of Kenneth III. Macbeth murdered his first cousin Duncan I in 1040, and reigned for seventeen years (r.1040-1057). It is around Duncan’s murder that Shakespeare’s play MacBeth is based.

Macbeth, fearful of eventual competition from Duncan’s two young sons, drove them out of Scotland. They remained in hiding until about 1057. Malcolm fled to England, and there became the protégé of King Edward the Confessor. Donald Ban, the second son, fled to the Western Isles. With the help of Lord MacDuff, Thane of Fife, Malcolm Erivine raised an army and defeated Macbeth’s forces in 1057. The captured MacBeth was summarily executed.

MacBeth was temporarily succeeded by Lulach (r.1057-1057), a stepson of Macbeth. Lulach was known by the unflattering nickname of “Lulach the Simpleton.” He was hunted down and killed in March 1058 by Malcolm’s forces. As a result, Malcolm became the next King of Scots, and reigned as Malcolm III (r.1058-1093). This succession included David I “The Saint,” who created all of the offices of the royal court, as well as William “The Lion of Justice,” who created the lion rampant as his battle crest and coat of arms. The line ended with Alexander III when he rode his horse over a cliff on a dark December night in 1286. It was a violent age. Of seventeen kings who ruled Scotland from 844 to 1057, twelve died by assassination.

 

Although Scotland may have appeared to be one kingdom with the arrival of Malcolm III in 1058, it was still divided. The authority of Scottish kings effectively covered the Lowlands and the Border area plus much of the eastern seaboard. But Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles, as far north as the Isle of Man, were still under the effective control of the King of Norway. It was not until the defeat of the Norse at the Battle of Largs in 1263 that the outer territories – with the exception of Orkney – came under Scottish rule. The Treaty of Perth of July 2, 1266 made it official, even though the Lord of the Isles – as chieftain of the MacDonald Clan – pretty much went his own way. This situation prevailed for the next two hundred years, with the MacDonald lords operating as if they were kings in their own right, frequently openly defying the Scottish monarch. Orkney remained under Norse sovereignty until May 20, 1469.

Several early Scottish kings were related to Irwynes. Alexander III, who ruled from 1249 to 1286, was the last. He and his wife Margaret had two sons who died young, and a daughter named Margaret Irwyne who married Eric the Red, King of Norway. Eric the Red is credited with discovering a large ice-covered island in the North Atlantic, which he named Greenland. Eric and Margaret had one daughter, also named Margaret, and who was known to Scots as “The Maid of Norway.” So, when Alexander III died it was his four-year-old granddaughter who was the next-in-line heir to his throne. Edward I of England – in an effort to combine the crowns of England and Scotland – arranged a marriage between Margaret and his son, the Prince of Wales. Unfortunately, however, the child died during the voyage from Norway to Scotland.

The death of the Maid of Norway – on September 26, 1290 – created a severe crisis for the Kingdom of Scotland. There was no immediate successor to the throne, although there were a number of claimants. The Scottish lords agreed that Edward would arbitrate the final shortlist of thirteen claimants. On November 17, 1292 Edward nominated John Balliol to accede to the throne of Scotland.

The reign of Balliol was short lived, however, and after the Battle of Dunbar he was forced by Edward to abdicate in July 1296. Next followed the rebellion led by William Wallace (well portrayed in the movie Braveheart), and this set the stage for Robert the Bruce to become King of Scots in 1306.

 

The Danes were an ancient North Germanic tribe residing in modern day southern Sweden and on the Danish islands. About 800 AD, some three to four hundred years after the Angles and Saxons settled in England, they came swarming on its coasts. Though the Danes came first to plunder, they were also looking for territorial conquests. They soon started to establish towns and villages, but they continued to murder and plunder their neighbors. King Alfred the Great, the Anglo-Saxon king, was able to stop their conquests, and the Danes, for the most part, gradually withdrew, although their presence can still be seen in the light-colored hair and pale skins of a large portion of the population.

In 853 AD, however, the Danes invaded Ireland as well, and shortly thereafter settlers followed. This group did not leave and, over time, gradually assimilated with the local population and adopted Christianity.

In the first millennium AD, in the area that we now know as Denmark, Norway and Sweden, there lived a hardy race of people called Norsemen, or “Men of the North.” History remembers them as Vikings. They were seamen, and they lived along the coastlines, in the fjords and creek estuaries.

The dense northern forests supplied plenty of wood for ships, and over time the Norsemen learned to build seagoing ships, and became skilled and daring sailors. Their ships were long and narrow, with forty to fifty oars and a large square sail. The prows were high and most were carved to look like huge dragons’ heads, with the sterns resembling their tails. All around the railings of the ships were the shields of the warriors.

The Vikings had not taken any part of the earlier invasions of Europe, but in the ninth century they began exploring the northern sea in every direction in their long many-oared ships. Some sailed to Iceland, Greenland and Labrador, but their most notable impact at the time was on the west coast of France. They came in large numbers, and soon forced the French king to grant them a stretch of land lying along the English Channel.

As time passed the Norsemen, or Normans they came to be known, gave up their old heathen customs and adopted the language, manners and customs of the Frankish people among whom they had settled. In time the descendants of the savage Vikings became the polished dukes of Normandy.

In 1066 William, Duke of Normandy, assembled an army and a large fleet and sailed across the English Channel. His forces fought the English forces under King Harold at Hastings. Harold was defeated, and William declared himself King of England. Historians named him William the Conqueror.

According to Icelandic sagas written in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries (but based on much earlier oral tradition), in about 985 Bjarni Herjólfsson, a Norse settler in Greenland, was blown off course and sighted a continent west of Greenland but did not go ashore. About fifteen years later Leif Eiríksson (son of Erik the Red) explored the new continent. For the next ten years a number of voyages were made from Greenland to the new land, which the Norsemen called “Vinland” because of the profusion of wild grapes that grew there. Most historians believe that the settlement was located somewhere in Newfoundland.

There are some who believe that we Americans should celebrate Eriksson Day instead of Columbus Day.

The Old Counties of Scotland: