The Scots, in these circumstances, could have committed no more deplorable error than stamp out a valor which might on a future day do them good service on the battlefield. Already the piratical fleets of the Norseman were beginning to be seen on their coasts. The hour was near when a foe, which their fathers had not known, fierce as the vultures of the land from which he came, was to invade their country. The deed would have been as impolitic as it would have been cruel. If the Scots of that day were guilty of cringe so enormous, they had sat for three centuries to little purpose, verily, at the feet of Columba and his successors. “The extermination of the Picts,” says Fordun, “was total and final not only were their kings and leaders destroyed, but their race and generation and even their language failed.” F372 This is too ready and obvious solution of the problem to be the true one. Some historians have been able to find no solution of this mystery, save in the supposition that they were swept from off face of their country by the unsparing and unpitying sword of the victorious Scot. It is true, no doubt, that from about this time the Picts disappear, or nearly so, from the page of history. We refuse to credit the legends which say that battle was succeeded by massacre, and that the glory of victory was dimmed and the fame of the victors tarnished by the utter and cruel extermination of the vanquished people. Scotland had made a great stride forward, and it was a happy omen of the future career of the united people that in making this new start they put the helm into the hands of that race in whose hearts glowed the faith of Columba. Not Pictish blood alone, nor Scottish blood alone, but the two streams commingled, were to form the one blood which was to inspire the valor and fight the battles of the future. The award of battle had decreed that the cider should serve the younger, and to that award they bowed. Yet this ancient people were content to lose name and record in the annals of a race whose arrival in the mountains of Argyllshire dated only five centuries back. The Picts or Caledonians, if not the first, were among the first races that found their way to Caledonia after its plains and mountains had looked up from the waters of the flood. They were by much the earlier inhabitants of the country, and doubtless regarded the Scots as a new people. The Picts closed their distinctive historic career when they lost this battle. Battle had swept away one of the two thrones which had hitherto borne sway in Caledonia, and the one throne left standing was that of the prince whose progenitor, Aidan, Columba had made to sit on the Lia- Fail, or Stone of Destiny, and anointed as the first really independent sovereign of the Scots. Supremacy, which had been the object aimed at by the combatants till now, was abandoned for the more practical and wiser policy of union. F371 From that bloody field the Scots and Picts emerged one nation. Their king, Bred, fell in battle, and his armor, afterwards presented to Kenneth MacAlpin, was sent by him to be hung up at Icolmkill. Seven times the Picts assailed, and seven times were they driven back. The question at issue in these fierce conflicts was, To which of the two nationalities, the Scots or the Picts, shall the supremacy belong, and by consequence the right to govern the kingdom? The wars waged to determine this point ended in a supreme trial of strength on the banks of the Tay near Scone. This union was preceded and prepared by a series of great battles. They entertained this idea only when it came to be forced upon them by the stern lessons of the battlefield-a school in which it would seem the education of infant nations must begin. The idea of mixing their blood to form one nation, and uniting their arms to establish one central throne, and so taking pledges for the maintenance of peace at home, and the acquisition of influence abroad, however meritorious it seems to us, does not appear to have approved itself to the two races that inhabited the one country of Caledonia. 843 but even then it received no enthusiastic welcome from those to whom, as might have been foreseen, it brought great increase of power and prestige. The advent of this union was Long deferred: it was at last consummated in A. T HE middle of the ninth century saw the Scots and Picts united under the scepter of Kenneth, the son of Alpin. UNION OF THE SCOTS AND PICTS- REIGN OF KENNETH MACALPIN.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |