Schottische Geschichte, Kapitel 2

By the end of the seventh century, the four kingdoms of Alban were united in the Christian faith, but not much else. As in Wales, the clergy retained some of the traditions of the early Celtic Church, which put them out of touch with Rome. Thus, the ever-prejudiced English Churchman Bede condemned them. We may be sure that "The Celtic Church gave love; the Roman Church gave law" was not one of his favorite sayings.

Even the constant raids of the Norsemen, beginning in the eighth century and culminating in the conquest of Orkney, Shetland, the Western Isles, Caithness and Sutherland, (where, in many areas, the non-Celtic Pictish tongue was replaced by the Scandinavian Norn), could not bring the four kingdoms together in a common cause. Picts and Scots, with their own separate languages, were still enemies; and the Welsh-speaking Britons of Strathclyde were desperately trying to hold on to their culture in the face of ever-increasing hostility from the Angles of Lothian and Northumbria. They were only kept from further conquest by a defeat by the Picts at the Battle of Nectansmere in 685.

Even before this battle, however, the incursions of the Northumbrians had separated the Celts of Strathclyde from their kinfolk in Wales. A semblance of unity among the warring societies of the Picts, Scots, Britons and Angles did eventually arrive, however, by the year 843, thanks to the determined efforts of Kenneth MacAlpin, King of the Scots of Dalriada, who claimed the throne of the Picts after he had defeated them in battle. He created his capital at Forteviot, in Pictish territory; moved his religious center to Dunkeld, on the River Tay, in present-day Perthshire, where he transferred the remains of St. Columba from Iona.

According to the Huntingdon Chronicle, MacAlpin "was the first of the Scots to obtain the monarchy of the whole of Albania, which is now called Scotia." From that time on, the Picts, the tattooed or painted people, have remained a shadowy, poorly documented race. It is a pity that no Pictish literature has survived. All we have are the sculptured stones with their remarkable designs incised that show warriors, huntsmen and churchmen. At roughly the same time that the people of Wales were separated from the invading Saxons by the artificial boundary of Offa's Dyke, MacAlpin was creating a kingdom of Scotland. His successes in part were due to the threat coming from the raids of the Vikings, many of whom became settlers. The seizure of control over all Norway in 872 by Harold Fairhair caused many of the previously independent Jarls to look for new lands to establish themselves.

One result of the coming of the Norsemen and Danes with their command of the sea was that Scotland became surrounded and isolated. The old link with Ireland was broken; the country was now cut off from southern England and the Continent. Thus, the kingdom of Alba established by MacAlpin was thrown in upon itself and united against a common foe. In 1018, under MacAlpin's descendant Malcolm II, the Angles were finally defeated in this northerly part of Britain and Lothian came under Scottish rule. In the same year, the British (Celtic) King of Strathclyde died leaving no heir; his throne went to Malcolm's grandson Duncan. In 1034, Duncan became King of a much-expanded Scotland that included Pictland, Scotland, Lothian, Cumbria and Strathclyde. It excluded large tracts in the north, the Shetlands, Orkneys and the Western Isles, which were held by the Scandinavians. There was still no established boundary between Scotland and England. Duncan met his fate at the hands of Macbeth in 1040; himself slain by Malcolm (Ceann Mor or Bighead) who became King Malcolm III. Malcolm married his second wife the English Princess Margaret, who had fled to Scotland at the coming of the Normans.

She introduced many English fashions and customs to Scotland and established a refined court life. Margaret also imposed English religious practices on the Scottish clergy and her husband moved the cultural center of his kingdom to Lothian, away from the Celtic north. Unfortunately for the stability of Malcolm and Margaret's kingdom, however, the Scottish king's constant excursions into Northern England brought him the enmity of the Norman William who forced him to pay homage at Abernethy in 1071. On one of his attacks on Northumberland in 1093, Malcolm was killed, his sainted wife following him in death a few days later. Margaret was later canonized for her benefactions to the Church including the rebuilding of the monastery at Iona. It was under the rule of David I, the ninth son of Malcolm III that Norman influence began to percolate through much of southern Scotland. David, King of Scotland, was also Prince of Cumbria and through marriage Earl of Northampton and Huntingdon. Brother-in-law to the King of England, he was raised and educated in England by Normans who "polished his manners from the rust of Scottish barbarity."

In Scotland, he distributed large estates to his Anglo-Norman cronies who also took over important positions in the Church. Into the Lowlands he introduced a feudal system of land ownership, founded on a new, French-speaking Anglo-Norman aristocracy that remained aloof from the majority of the Gaelic-speaking Celtic population. Though this element, mainly inhabiting the Highlands and the Western Isles, remained mainly aloof, it is to David that Scotland's future as an independent kingdom can be traced. He put a national system of justice and administration under the monarch's control.

Using the lessons he had learned as a youth in England, he selected a central governing body to advise him, to carry out his orders and to deal with administrative and judicial problems. He appointed a number of justiciars and sheriffs, granted borough status to a number of towns and encouraged foreign trade. He also founded bishoprics, built and endowed churches and monasteries and succeeded in retaining a certain amount of autonomy from Rome for the Scottish Church. When conflict arose between the new (and weak) English King Stephen and the Empress Matilda, David took the opportunity to reassert old territorial claims to the borderlands, including Cumbria. At the Treaty of Durham in 1136, he retained Carlisle (which he had earlier seized). His invasion of England took him into Yorkshire, where he was defeated in the "Battle of the Standard." However, due mainly to Stephen's troubles, the Scottish king was able to gain practically all of Northumbria at a second treaty of Durham in 1139.

When David died in 1153, the kingdom of Scotland had been extended to include the Modern English counties of Northumberland, Cumberland and Westmoreland, territories that were in future to be held by the kings of Scotland. Alas, the accession of Henry II to the English throne in 1154 changed everything. David had been succeeded by his grandson, Malcolm IV an eleven-year old boy. He was no match for the powerful new King of England. At the Treaty of Chester, 1157 Henry's strength, "the authority of his might," forced Malcolm to give up the northern counties solely for the confirmation of his rights as Earl of Huntingdon. The Scottish border was considerably shifted northwards. And there it remained until the rash adventures of William, Malcolm's brother and successor, got him captured at Alnwich, imprisoned at Falaise in Normandy, and forced to acknowledge Henry's feudal superiority over himself and his Scottish kingdom.

In addition, to add insult to injury, the strategic castles of Edinburgh, Stirling, Roxburgh, Jedburgh and Berwick were to be held by England with English garrisons at Scottish expense. Henry II's successor was Richard I, whose main concern was the Third Crusade. Desperately needing money to finance his overseas adventures, Richard freed William from all "compacts" extorted by Henry and restored the castles of Berwick and Roxburgh for a sum of 1,000 marks of silver. Thus, the humiliation of the Falaise agreement was canceled. Richard showed little interest in running his English kingdom, less interest in Scotland and departed for the crusade in 1189. Once again, Scotland was a free and independent country. Much work remained to be done in order to bring those parts of Scotland under Scandinavian control into the kingdom. In a series of campaigns lasting until 1202, William "The Lion" took control of Caithness, Sutherland and Ross. However, in the Western Isles, the hold of the Norwegians had been strengthened by military expeditions led by Magnus Barefoot. An alliance forged between Magnus and Scottish King Edgar in 1098 had left Magnus in control of all the islands to the west of Scotland "between which and the mainland he could go in a ship with the rudder in its place." Fifty years later, the Scandinavians were driven out of Argyll by Somerled the Viking who then defeated Godfrey the Norwegian king of the Western Isles and the Isle of Man.

In 1184, Somerled, who overestimated his strength, was killed in battle by Malcolm IV of Scotland near Renfrew. Further successes against the Norwegian's hold on the Western Isles came from Alexander II who subdued Argyll. His successor Alexander III defeated the Hakon, King of Norway at Largs, greatly aided by the destruction of the Norwegian fleet by a fierce storm. The disaster at Largs caused Magnus king of Man to submit to Alexander and Hakon's son Magnus IV convinced the Norwegian Assembly that the Western Isles were too troublesome to defend. At the Treaty of Perth, 1266, the Western Isles and the Isle of Man were ceded to Scotland (though they long enjoyed a virtually independent authority under their clan chiefs). Orkney and Shetland remained under the control of the Norwegians until 1468 when James II of Scotland married Margaret, daughter of Christian I of Denmark. Orkney and Shetland were part of the dowry. Further, in 1470, the Earl of Orkney resigned his territories in exchange for lands in Fife, thus giving James II all the lands and rights in the northern isles. These were then annexed to the Scottish crown by Parliament in 1472. The much more vexing problems of the border with England were not settled until the time of Robert the Bruce.

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