"
While holding in profound respect these illustrious names, the writer
ventures to ask for a modification of this verdict. That the Scottish
Lowlanders (among whom we include the inhabitants of the coast
districts from the Tay to the Moray Firth) were, in the end of the
thirteenth century, "English in speech and manners" (as Mr. Oman[5]
guardedly describes them) is beyond doubt. Were they also English in
blood? The evidence upon which the accepted theory is founded is
twofold. In the course of the sixth century the Angles made a descent
between the Humber and the Forth, and that district became part of the
English kingdom of Northumbria. Even here we have, in the evidence of
the place-names, some reasons for believing that a proportion of the
original Brythonic population may have survived. This northern portion
of the kingdom of Northumbria was affected by the Danish invasions, but
it remained an Anglian kingdom till its conquest, in the beginning of
the eleventh century, by the Celtic king, Malcolm II. There is, thus,
sufficient justification for Mr. Freeman's phrase, "the English of
Lothian", if we interpret the term "Lothian" in the strict sense; but it
remains to be explained how the inhabitants of the Scottish Lowlands,
outside Lothian, can be included among the English of Lothian who
resisted Edward I. That explanation is afforded by the events which
followed the Norman Conquest of England.
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