An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) | Page 8

bone Senzhour, and gud morn!
* * * * *
Sen ye ar Scottis, zeit salust sall ye be; Gud deyn, dawch Lard, bach
lowch, banzoch a de".
In "The Book of the Howlat", written in the latter half of the fifteenth
century, by a certain Richard Holland, who was an adherent of the
House of Douglas, there is a similar imitation of Scottish Gaelic, with
the same phrase "Banachadee" (the blessing of God). This seemingly
innocent phrase seems to have some ironical signification, for we find
in the Auchinleck Chronicle (anno 1452) that it was used by some

Highlanders as a term of abuse towards the Bishop of Argyll. Another
example occurs in a coarse "Answer to ane Helandmanis Invective", by
Alexander Montgomerie, the court poet of James VI. The Lowland
literature of the sixteenth century contains a considerable amount of
abuse of the Highland tongue. William Dunbar (1460-1520), in his
"Flyting" (an exercise in Invective), reproaches his antagonist, Walter
Kennedy, with his Highland origin. Kennedy was a native of Galloway,
while Dunbar belonged to the Lothians, where we should expect the
strongest appreciation of the differences between Lowlander and
Highlander. Dunbar, moreover, had studied (or, at least, resided) at
Oxford, and was one of the first Scotsmen to succumb to the attractions
of "town". The most suggestive point in the "Flyting" is that a native of
the Lothians could still regard a Galwegian as a "beggar Irish bard".
For Walter Kennedy spoke and wrote in Lowland Scots; he was,
possibly, a graduate of the University of Glasgow, and he could boast
of Stuart blood. Ayrshire was as really English as was Aberdeenshire;
and, if Dunbar is in earnest, it is a strong confirmation of our theory
that he, being "of the Lothians himself", spoke of Kennedy in this way.
It would, however, be unwise to lay too much stress on what was really
a conventional exercise of a particular style of poetry, now obsolete.
Kennedy, in his reply, retorts that he alone is true Scots, and that
Dunbar, as a native of Lothian, is but an English thief:
"In Ingland, owle, suld be thyne habitacione, Homage to Edward
Langschankis maid thy kyn".
In an Epitaph on Donald Owre, a son of the Lord of the Isles, who
raised a rebellion against James IV in 1503, Dunbar had a great
opportunity for an outburst against the Highlanders, of which, however,
he did not take advantage, but confined himself to a denunciation of
treachery in general. In the "Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins", there is
a well-known allusion to the bag-pipes:
"Than cryd Mahoun[27] for a Healand padyane; Syne ran a feynd to
feche Makfadyane[28] Far northwart in a nuke.[29] Be he the
correnoch had done schout Erschemen so gadderit him about In Hell
grit rowme they tuke. Thae tarmegantis with tag and tatter Full lowde

in Ersche begowth to clatter, And rowp lyk revin and ruke. The Devill
sa devit was with thair yell That in the depest pot of Hell He smorit
thame with smoke."
Similar allusions will be found in the writings of Montgomerie; but
such caricatures of Gaelic and the bagpipes afford but a slender basis
for a theory of racial antagonism.
After the Union of the Crowns, the Lowlands of Scotland came to be
more and more closely bound to England, while the Highlands
remained unaffected by these changes. The Scottish nobility began to
find its true place at the English Court; the Scottish adventurer was
irresistibly drawn to London; the Scottish Presbyterian found the
English Puritan his brother in the Lord; and the Scottish Episcopalian
joined forces with the English Cavalier. The history of the seventeenth
century prepared the way for the acceptance of the Celtic theory in the
beginning of the eighteenth, and when philologists asserted that the
Scottish Highlanders were a different race from the Scottish
Lowlanders, the suggestion was eagerly adopted. The views of the
philologists were confirmed by the experiences of the 'Forty-five, and
they received a literary form in the Lady of the Lake and in Waverley.
In the nineteenth century the theory received further development
owing to the fact that it was generally in line with the arguments of the
defenders of the Edwardian policy in Scotland; and it cannot be denied
that it holds the field to-day, in spite of Mr. Robertson's attack on it in
Appendix R of his Scotland under her Early Kings.
The writer of the present volume ventures to hope that he has, at all
events, done something to make out a case for re-consideration of the
subject. The political facts on which rests the argument just stated will
be found in the text, and an Appendix contains the more important
references to the Highlanders in mediæval Scottish literature, and offers
a brief account