The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

40 THE HIGHLANDERS [parti
must have been descended either from the Scottish or the Pictish
Hnc. But the name of Scotland appears never to have been
applied to North Britain before that date, but rather to have
subsequently extended itself gradually over the whole country,
and to have at last superseded the more ancient appellation
of Albion or Albania. It is consequently to be inferred
that the later kings were of the Scottish race, and that
the Scots had obtained a preponderance over the Picts ;
besides this inference, which results naturally from the argument,
the whole authorities for the early history of Scotland
concur in establishing the fact, that Kenneth, the first
monarch who ruled over the whole country, was of the
Scottish race.
Third.—When we consider that the name of Scotland did
not spread rapidly over the country, but that it was many
centuries before that appellation comprehended the whole of
Scotland, and also that the first four or five kings of the line
of Kenneth are termed by the Irish annalists kings of the Picts,
and not of the Scots, or of Scotland, we must infer that the
effects produced by the conquest did not extend to the whole of
the Picts, but that a very considerable part of them must have
remained altogether unaffected by the invasion, and that the
name of Scotland must have spread over the country, rather
from the fact of its kings being derived from that race, and
of their political pre-eminence, than from an actual subjugation
of all the Pictish tribes, as feigned by the Scottish historians ;
a theory the absurdity of which it is impossible not to perceive,
if we look at the state of Scotland in 731, and the very great
superiority of the Picts over the Scots in power, extent of
territor)', and in numbers.
Fourth.— If we find, subsequent to the year 843, or the date
of the supposed conquest, any part of the Pictish nation appear-
ing as a body, under a peculiar national name, and apparently
distinguished by that name from the rest of Scotland, it is
manifest that that tribe could have formed no part of the
Scottish conquest, and must have retained their territory and
their independence, notwithstanding the subjugation of the rest
of the countr)^ But we find from the Irish annalists, that as
late as the year 865, the northern Picts appear as a distinct