[18] Late in the sixteenth century, John
Lesley, the defender of Queen Mary, who had been bishop of Ross, and
came of a northern family, wrote in a strain similar to that of Major
and Boece. "Foreign nations look on the Gaelic-speaking Scots as wild
barbarians because they maintain the customs and the language of their
ancestors; but we call them Highlanders."[19]
Even in connexion with the battle of Harlaw, we find that Scottish
historians do not use such terms in speaking of the Highland forces as
Mr. Hill Burton would lead us to expect. Of the two contemporary
authorities, one, the Book of Pluscarden, was probably written by a
Highlander, while the continuation of Fordun's _Scoti-chronicon_, in
which we have a more detailed account of the battle, was the work of
Bower, a Lowlander who shared Fordun's antipathy to Highland customs.
The _Liber Pluscardensis_ mentions the battle in a very casual manner.
It was fought between Donald of the Isles and the Earl of Mar; there was
great slaughter: and it so happened that the town of Cupar chanced to be
burned in the same year.[20] Bower assigns a greater importance to the
affair;[21] he tells us that Donald wished to spoil Aberdeen and then to
add to his own possessions all Scotland up to the Tay. It is as if he
were writing of the ambition of the House of Douglas. But there is no
hint of racial antipathy; the abuse applied to Donald and his followers
would suit equally well for the Borderers who shouted the Douglas
battle-cry.
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