The Beginnings of Scotland 449-844
After the Romans left North Britain, it is a long time nearly a hundred and fifty years before we hear of it again, and the reason is that there are…
From: 449 C.E. To: 844 C.E.
Location: Scotland
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
The Beginnings of Scotland 449-844
From A Short History of Scotland by Peter Hume Brown, 1908.
After the Romans left North Britain, it is a long time nearly a hundred and fifty years before we hear of it again, and the reason is that there are no books to tell us what was happening in the country. When we next read about it in books, however, we find that a great change had taken place.
When Agricola came to North Britain, there were as many as seventeen tribes in the land, each with a chief of its own, who had nothing to do with each other except when they went to war among themselves. Now, however, instead of seventeen tribes we find only four great kingdoms, each governed by its own king. This was a great step forward, as it showed that the whole of North Britain might one day become one kingdom with one king to rule over it. We have now to see who those four peoples were, as it is from them that there came to be a country called Scotland, and it is from them that most Scotsmen of the present day are descended.
The largest of the four kingdoms was one which took in all the country from the river Forth to the Pentland Firth, and was inhabited by a people known as Picts, to whom the Romans gave this name because they painted their bodies when they went to war—the Latin word pictus meaning painted. We cannot tell where these Picts came from or even what language they spoke.
They were divided into the northern and southern Picts, but one king ruled over them both; and we shall presently hear of a Pictish king who did a thing which has made his name to be remembered. This Pictish kingdom lasted for several hundred years, but we shall see that it came to an end in a strange way, and that of all the four peoples of whom we are speaking, the Picts are the only people whose name went out of use, and is now only read of in books.
The name of the second people we cannot forget, because it is from them that Scotland got its name, and it is owing to them that there came to be a country called Scotland, and a nation known as the Scottish nation.
The "Scots" was the name of the second people, and fortunately we happen to know more about them than about the Picts. First of all, we know that they came from the country which we now call Ireland, but which then and for long afterwards was called, not Ireland, but Scotia or Scotland, so that Irishmen were Scotsmen before ourselves.
Then we know what language they spoke; it was the same as the Highlanders now speak, though, of course, it has changed a great deal during the hundreds of years since the ancient Scots spoke it. We know also the name they gave to the part of North Britain in which they settled; it was called Dalriada, after the part of Ireland from which they came, and was what we now call Argyleshire and the islands near it.
And, lastly, we know that the Scots were not pagans like the other three peoples, but Christians, for in Ireland, from which they came, Christianity was known before it was known in North Britain. Dalriada was the smallest of all the kingdoms, yet it was from it that the first kings came who ruled over the whole of Scotland.
The name of the third people can easily be remembered, because it is a name which is still given to both Scotsmen and Englishmen. They were called Britons, and the part of the country they inhabited was chiefly the valley of the river Clyde. When the Romans first came to our island, these Britons were the chief inhabitants whom they found there, and this was why they named the island Britannia, or Britain.
In course of time, however, the Britons had been driven into the west, both in South and North Britain, so that now they were not so strong and numerous as they had once been. They belonged to the same race as the Scots, that is, they were Celts; but the language they spoke was not like that of the Highlanders, but like that of the people of Wales, who are also Celts. The place where their king lived was called Alcluyd, which was afterwards named Dunbarton, or the "fortress of the Britons," and their country was known as Strathclyde, because it lay chiefly in the valley of the river Clyde.
The Britons must not have been so brave in war as the other three peoples; at least, they were usually beaten when they fought, which they often had to do, with the fourth people who have now to be mentioned.
These last people were called Angles, and their name, also, cannot be forgotten, as Angles is just English, and England is simply Angle-land. The Angles came from the banks of the river Elbe, in Germany, and settled along the east coast of Britain under different leaders. It is only with one of these leaders, however, that we have to do. His name was Ida, and in the year 547 he became king of a kingdom which was called Bernicia, or the "country of the braes," which reached from the river Tees in England to the Firth of Forth in Scotland.
These Angles were a very warlike people, and were constantly trying to conquer all their neighbours, and especially the Britons of Strathclyde, whom they hated and never left in peace. At one time, indeed, it seemed as if the Angles and not the Scots were to give the first kings to the whole of North Britain, and if that had happened, there would not have been a country named Scotland and a nation called Scotsmen, but only England and Englishmen. As for the language the Angles spoke, their name tells us that it was the same as we speak today, though many words have been changed and added since they spoke it.
We have, therefore, this strange thing—that Scotsmen get their name from the Scots, who spoke Gaelic, and their language gets its name from the Angles, who came from the banks of the Elbe. How this happened, we shall see before long.
Brown, Peter Hume. A Short History of Scotland. Oliver and Boyd, 1908.
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