A History of Scotland

Allan I. Macinnes

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9780333671481
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781350306943
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

This illuminating and insightful guide offers a comprehensive overview of Scottish history, from the kingdom's genesis in the ninth century to the independence debates of the present day. Considering both internal dynamics and international horizons, Allan Macinnes asserts Scotland's heritage as significant and compelling in its own right, rather than reducing it to an offshoot of England's past.

Rigorous and wide-ranging, this textbook is an essential companion for undergraduate and postgraduate students of History. Its lively and accessible style makes it suitable for anyone with an interest in Scotland's national development.

1Shaping a Mongrel Nation, 832–1214

According to legend, sometime in 832 at Athelstaneford, the Picts under their king, Aengus II, were preparing to fight a force of Angles from Northumbria, when the ominous formation of white clouds against a blue sky signified the Cross of St Andrew. With this heavenly blessing, the Picts were inspired to secure victory in the contested territories of the Lothians. Eleven years later, the Picts, who held east-central and northern districts over the Firth of Forth, were instrumental in promoting union with the Gaels of the western and central Highlands in the kingdom of Alba. This was a Celtic union of ancient migrant peoples, confederated under warlords, with more recent incomers who had established themselves in Argyll by the outset of the sixth century in the kingdom of Dalriada. Although they spoke different Celtic languages, the Picts and the Gaels shared a common Celtic Christianity that was spread by holy men from Dalriada. Christianity was also influenced by the legacy of the Roman occupation of Britain, which lasted until the outset of the fifth century but rarely advanced beyond the Firths of Forth and Clyde. The Britons, as the Celts most closely associated with the Romans, shared a similar if not the same language as the Picts that has been transmitted as Cumbric or Welsh. The Romano-British Church had already established a religious presence among the Britons through the influence of holy men in Galloway at the end of the fourth century, whose mission had reached Glasgow by the mid-sixth century. As part of the accord between the Romano-British and the Celtic Churches, some reputed relics of St Andrew, one of the original disciples of Jesus Christ who travelled great distances to spread the Christian message before his crucifixion on a cross at Paras in Greece in AD 60, had arrived in Kilrymont in Fife via Hexham in Northumbria in the mid-eighth century. Kilrymont became known as St Andrews.

St Andrew, associated with hospitality, instinctive humanity and a natural affinity to bring people together, was an apposite patron saint for shaping kindreds of migratory peoples into a mongrel nation. The Angles who had moved into Northumbria were then beginning to spread into Lothians and Borders, a migration that was checked in the eleventh century, without eradicating the Anglo-Saxon (English) tongue. Incursions by Norse-speaking Vikings from the close of the eighth century in the Northern Isles of Orkney and Shetland and their subsequent settlement from the Hebrides to Galloway at the expense of the Picts, Gaels and Britons proved more problematic. As Alba was transformed into the kingdom of Scots in the eleventh century, the hybrid presence of the Norse-Gael on the western seaboard remained distinctive well into the thirteenth century. A new migratory element from the twelfth century was the arrival of Normans (and their French, Breton and Flemish associates) mainly through England. Brought in to consolidate and enhance the territorial influence of successive kings of Scots, the Anglo-Normans certainly facilitated the expansion of the kingdom to the north and to the west. But their continuing links to England made Scotland vulnerable to being taken over by its better resourced southern neighbour.

THE MAKING OF ALBA

The Picts have left no written record of substance. They were certainly noticed by the Romans who had penetrated the region they termed Caledonia as far north as Moray before they consolidated behind Hadrian’s Wall, the fortified line between the rivers Solway and Tyne constructed in AD 121. By the time the Romans established the Antonine Wall between the Firths of Clyde and Forth in AD 139, they had named the tattooed people of both sexes whom they encountered in Caledonia as Picts. By the outset of the third century, the Romans had abandoned incursions into Caledonia though the Picts had continued to attack them until they finally withdrew from Hadrian’s Wall at the end of the fourth century. The Gaels adopted the alternative name of Cruithne for the Picts who, by 600, seemed to have coalesced around an overking based north of the Mounth (the Grampian massif) in the kingdom of Fortriu. Although four of the seven reputed Pictish provinces were located south of the Mounth, that overkings were based north of the Mounth is supported by the initial missions of Columba from Iona and Moluag from Lismore to convert the Picts around Inverness and in Moray prior to 600.¹ There is also impressive archaeological evidence for Pictish centres of religious and secular power along the north-east coast from the monastery at Portmahomack in Easter Ross to the promontory fort at Burghead in Moray. Despite its coastal location, there is a notable lack of shipping either for war or for trade inscribed on monumental stones in Pictland.

Sculpted scenes of hunting on horseback, of the mobilising of hosts of fighting men and of actual battles suggest a society geared to war and a redistributive rather than a commercial economy, a situation supported by the lack of coins produced by the Picts, the Britons and the Gaels. The enig-matic symbols of abstract art represented on the monumental stones may be connected to a continuous practice of tattooing among the Picts. The social elite – from local warlords as provincial leaders to Pictish overkings – offered protection, hospitality and booty. In return, they expected allegiance, tributes and rents paid in kind (that is, livestock, grain and other consumables) and flexible military and labour services. Pictish fortifications no longer depended on the defensive round, thick-walled towers known as brochs which littered the northern and western coasts even before the arrival of the Romans. But the presence of brochs certainly added prestige to territories of warlords which continued as the Picts gave way to the Gaels in the West Highlands and Islands from the sixth century and to the Vikings in the Northern Isles from the eighth century.

A key factor in the diminishing territorial influence of the Picts was that, in a society geared to war, their succession was matrilineal; it passed through the female not the male line to the most able leader. Thus a warlord from another kindred or even migratory people, who married the sister or daughter of a Pictish warlord, made possible the succession of his male offspring through the Pictish mother. Matrilineal succession, rather than the vanquishing of the Picts by the Gaels, appears to have facilitated Kenneth MacAlpin, from the royal house of Dalriada, becoming king of the Picts in the mid-ninth century. The Gaels had first appeared on the western seaboard in the guise of pirates from Ireland who were designated as Scots for their predatory raiding on Roman Britain, activities which continued from Galloway to the Northern Isles. Gaelic settlements in Argyll were well underway during the fifth century. By AD 500, Fergus MacErc, the Gaelic king of Dalriada, transferred his kingdom from Ireland to Argyll and, in the process, laid claim to being the first king of Scots. Succession among the Gaels was patrilineal, passing through the male line usually to brothers, uncles or cousins not directly to sons. The cer-emonial centre for the kingship of Dalriada was initially at Dunadd, but after the arrival of Columba in Iona, he began ordaining the kings there from 574.

Although Irish links were maintained throughout the seventh century, the Gaels of Dalriada were increasingly looking north, east and south to expand into the territories of the Picts and, to a lesser extent, the Britons. Subsequent expansion from Argyll was at the expense of the Picts to the north-west and on through Skye to the Western Isles. Raiding for booty and slaves rather than settling seemingly prevailed in the incursions of the Gaels into the Northern Isles. A Gaelic presence at the expense of the Britons was established in the Lennox around Loch Lomond, in Galloway and the Isle of Man, albeit in these latter two locations this presence was more likely the result of direct migration from Ireland rather than Argyll. Notwithstanding intermittent warfare between the Gaels, Picts and Britons, four of the six kings of Dalriada between 768 and 843 became kings of Fortriu.

A less belligerent and more pervasive incursion into Pictland was made by the Irish-inspired Celtic Church, which continuously pushed conversions from Iona and Lismore. Through the biography of St Adamnan, who served as abbot of Iona in the later seventh century, Columba appears the paramount influence as prophet and healer. Iona, in turn, became a centre of pilgrimage for Britons, Picts and Angles as well as the Gaels. Columba was the inspiration for religious works of art, such as the free-standing St Oran’s and St John’s Crosses, and most notably the Book of Kells, a work which commenced on Iona in the late eighth century. It was moved to Ireland for completion in the ninth century at Kells Abbey in County Meath, following Viking incursions in the Hebrides. Yet Moluag from Lismore had considerably more evangelising influence in the Pictish north-east. The conversion of the Picts was actually instigated by Ninian from Whithorn and Mungo from Glasgow. Later missions also came from Northumbria with Cuthbert and Boniface to the fore. No less significant in the work of conversion were inspirational women. Particularly prominent were the followers of St Brigid of Kildare in Ireland, who came to Scotland in the sixth century. Apparently 15 female saints with the name Brigid or Bride are commemorated in Scottish place names, in which context their influence was on a par with that of Columba and greater than that of Moluag.

The Celtic Church which developed in Ireland had distinctive religious observances that were spread through its evangelising missions from Dalriada into Pictland and Cumbria and on to Northumbria. The Romano-British Church had been revitalised through St Augustine’s mission from Rome to the Anglo-Saxons of England in the late sixth century. Divergence over the dating of Easter, with the Celtic Church adhering to a more conservative and less scientific format, was not resolved by the Synod of Whitby in 663 that favoured the Romano-British. While this Synod can be held to have checked the expansion of the Celtic Church into the territory of the Angles, there continued to be significant interaction and co-operation in terms of illuminated works of art, carved stone monuments and pilgrimages between Gaels, Picts, Briton and Angles.

The penetration of the Celtic Church among the Britons of Strathclyde in the tenth and eleventh centuries is evident from the free-standing Christian crosses at Hamilton on the upper reaches and at Govan on the lower reaches of the River Clyde. But Govan also houses a sarcophagus or stone shrine that is derived from Pictish and Anglian sources and distinctive hogback tombstones from the same timeline that suggest a further Anglian influence. Hogbacks are also found in the Lennox at Luss on Loch Lomond, at Brechin in Angus, at Meigle in Strathmore and on the island of Inchcolm in Fife. They certainly indicate a continuing connection with Britons and Angles in the north of England at a time of Viking incursions. But it is difficult to attribute them to Scandinavian inspiration. Hogback tombstones do not feature significantly or at all in early medieval Scandinavia.

Both the Romano-British and the Celtic Churches had monasteries and administrative districts or dioceses under the control of bishops. Such bishoprics served to spread and consolidate the faith while monasteries promoted spiritual depth. Moluag had established the bishopric of Aberdeen at Mortlach in Strathbogie. Columba had also endorsed a bishopric for the Isles at Iona. Monastic practice, however, could differ between the Romano-British and the Celtic Churches. The latter had a tradition of retreats for hermits, as evident from the beehive huts on the Garvellach Islands in Argyll, a tradition based on the early Christian practice of retreat into the Egyptian and Syrian deserts. Romano-British monasteries tended to be led by abbots, which was not necessarily the case for all Celtic monasteries, albeit lay abbots served as hereditary protectors of some foundations from the outset of the ninth century, particularly after the incursions of Vikings.

The monastic foundations of the Culdees tended to be led by a spiritual elite. The Culdees were notably prominent among the Picts from St Andrews in Fife to Monymusk in the Garioch. Their spiritual elite, who abstained from worldly comforts and pleasures in pursuit of an ascetic religious life, certainly drew on the hermetic tradition which had crossed from Ireland to Scotland before Columba established himself on Iona. But the main body of Culdees, who supported the spiritual elite both piously and materially, were influenced by another early Christian practice of sustaining the faith through communal living. Culdees certainly included married clergy and may have included single women as well as single men. In all events, their religious communities afforded a spiritual dynamic to the Celtic Church that was sustained well into the eleventh century.

SCANDINAVIANS, VIKINGS AND NORSE-GAELS

Having announced their arrival by sacking the Holy Isle of Lindisfarne in 793, the Vikings went on to ravage the Hebrides. Iona, initially sacked in 795, faced further predatory raids in 802 and 806 that persuaded the majority of monks to remove to Kells in Ireland by 807. Not only for the clergy, but for all the laity, the incursions of the Vikings were greeted with shock and awe. Viking pillaging and skirmishes with the indigenous peoples around the coasts of Scotland and into the firths of Clyde, Moray, Tay and Fife lasted until the 1030s. The Vikings were not irresistible, however, particularly where troops on horseback could be rushed to head off an invasion.

Nevertheless, the Viking terror persisted due to technologically advanced shipping, ruthless human trafficking and intensely ferocious raiding. The Vikings perfected the development of sailing ships. Clinker built with overlapping planks and with reinforced keels to carry sails that could tack against the wind, Viking ships were resilient and powerful enough to cross open and dangerous waters and shallow enough to be rowed up rivers and carried over headlands. Longships for warriors were complemented by broader bottomed boats for carrying merchandise, slaves and other marketable commodities. Human trafficking by Vikings involved taking hostages either for ransom or for selling on as slaves, usually to Arab traders in the Mediterranean. Carvings on slate by Celtic monks on Inchmarnock, an island to the west of Bute, provides graphic evidence of Viking incursions but not the manner in which the vanguard of their warriors frequently went berserk. Their consumption of vast quantities of alcohol, spiced with bog myrtle and supplemented by hallucinogenic or ‘magic’ mushrooms, induced a trance in which they seemed impervious to pain.

Like the Scots who had raided Roman Britain from Ireland prior to settling in Dalriada, the Vikings had initially arrived as pirates. But they operated and, indeed, disrupted on a far grander scale. As evident from the accumulation and use of coinage in commodity exchange, they were much more engaged as commercial traders than the Gaels, the Britons or the Picts. Their most dense area of settlement in Scotland was in the Northern Isles where they displaced the Picts. That this was not accomplished peaceably was evident from their sacking of St Ninians Isle in Shetland and their imposition of their longhouses over as well as alongside Pictish settlements and churches at Sumburgh (Jarlshof) on the Shetland Mainland and in Orkney at Langskaill in Westray and on the Brough of Birsay. Hordes of silver jewellery and coins mark the expansion of Viking activity from the Northern Isles to Caithness and on to Easter Ross, Tayside and the Lothians on the eastern seaboard and from the Hebrides to Argyll on into the Clyde estuary and on to the Isle of Man on the western seaboard. These hordes suggest insecurity of settlement as well as impressive Viking trading networks. The Vikings in association with the Gaels displaced the Picts in the Small Isles, Skye and the Outer Hebrides and the Britons in Galloway and Man. Jewellery, weaponry and domestic utensils found in pre-Christian or pagan graves (as far west as St Kilda) testify not only to the impressive material wealth accumulated by the Vikings from the late eighth to the early tenth century, but also to their intermingling with the indigenous local peoples, especially the Gaels on the western seaboard. Their sophisticated and highly decorative art work in metal, leather and stone featured gripping or interlocking animals that readily melded in with contemporaneous Celtic design.

In contrast to Orkney, there have been relatively few silver hoards and Viking graves found in Shetland. On the one hand, this testifies to the security of Viking settlement, but on the other to limited commercial opportunities. This latter point is particularly important in relation to the phases of permanent settlement evident from place names in Shetland. Primary settlements tended to be coastal with ready access to a beach or sheltered harbour with extensive fertile land for arable and pastoral farming. Secondary settlements developed from the primary sites in less accessible coastal areas or inland in what had originally been hill-grazing land. They had good arable land and extensive grazings for livestock but their access to beaches or sheltered harbours for fishing was restricted. The tertiary settlements were on marginal land and subsequently reverted back to shielings for the summer grazing of animals. When established as permanent settlements they were not agricul-turally viable in their own right. Alternative work and subsistence were provided through the quarrying of soapstone. However, the most feasible reason for extensive tertiary settlement was for the location of labour for the primary and secondary settlements, particularly if these latter settlements were worked for a warrior class frequently absent on raids or trading with menaces.

The Vikings were not just merchants of menace. They were global adventurers. The Vikings from Scandinavia were by no means a coherent ethnic group nor did they necessarily have distinctive Norwegian, Danish or Swedish spheres of influence. Initial raids probably emanated from the Northern Isles of Orkney and Shetland which, like the Faroes, had come under Viking control in the course of the eighth century. Colonising the Northern Isles at the expense of the Picts was undoubtedly linked to seasonal and eventually permanent migration from Norway, as was settlement in the Western Isles, the Isle of Man and Ireland that followed on from a marked increase in raiding during the 830s. After their seizure of Dublin in 841, the Vikings forged a kingdom that stretched from Ireland to the eastern seaboard of England, which came under sustained pressure in 865 from Danes who came to centre their operations on York. This Viking kingdom of Dublin–York was not readily governed from either Norway or Denmark nor indeed was the subkingdom of Man and the Western Isles that later emerged in the eleventh century. The Northern Isles remained under a jarl or earl of Orkney appointed by and beholden to the kings of Norway.

Although Caithness, Argyll and the Western Isles were acquired in the course of the tenth century, the Vikings had no clear design to take over Scotland. By late eleventh century, the kings of Norway exercised a more assertive presence on Viking settlements in Scotland and Ireland. The autonomy of the Viking kingdom of Dublin–York was terminated by Norwegian action to the west no less than by Danish and Anglo-Saxon exertions to the east. Resurgent Irish warlords also posed a renewed threat as did the internal tensions that led to the creation of separate dependent kingdoms based on Man and the Western Isles and on Galloway. These dependent kingdoms were taking on a more distinct Norse-Gaelic identity in which Gaelic not Norse was becoming the language of the elite as well as the common people. In part, this Gaelic emphasis was actually assisted by the spread of Christianity from the centre of Scandinavian pilgrimage at Trondheim (Nidaros), which revitalised the Celtic Church Vikings in Man and the Western Isles. In marked contrast, the Northern Isles remained securely Norse. The diocese of the Isles, like that of Orkney, came under the spiritual direction of Nidaros and, indeed, remained so until the late fifteenth century.

The engagement of the Norse-Gael with the kingdom of Dublin–York as with Scandinavia had also led to the first significant out movement of peoples from Scotland as active colonisers, not just slaves, to Iceland in the late ninth century and, subsequently, in the seizure and settlement of the Cotentin peninsula which was wrested from the Celtic kingdom of Brittany by the outset of the tenth. The Cotentin peninsula and the territories around Rouen on the Atlantic coast of France duly became the duchy of Normandy, held nominally of the French Crown, from where the Norman Conquest of England was launched in 1066. In the interim, resurgent Irish warlords offered regular seasonal employment to the Norse-Gaels as mercenaries exacting booty and tributes – employment which ensured the persistence of a warrior class among the Norse-Gaels no less than the Vikings of the Northern Isles and perpetuated the use of the galley or birlinn throughout the Middle Ages.

A UNITED KINGDOM?

Viking association tended to enhance rather than diminish the territorial ambitions of the kings of Alba. The royal house of Fortriu was all but wiped out by the Vikings in 839. The resultant succession crisis...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Shaping a Mongrel Nation, 832–1214
• 2 Wars of Independence, 1214–1424
• 3 Renaissance and Reformation, 1424–1625
• 4 Covenanters and Jacobites, 1625–1753
• 5 Enlightenment and Enterprise, 1753–1884
• 6 Unionists, Civic Patriots and Nationalists, 1884–1999
• 7 1999–2018: The Road to Independence?
• Select Bibliography
• Appendix: Scottish Kindreds
• Index