Boston Public Library - Electric Scotland

THE TRUE SCOTLAND. T
Westmoreland. Since that time the boundary between the
kingdoms has experienced but little change."
THE TRUE SCOTLAND.
Again, Mr. Guppy says,—" But the broad fact we have to
deal with is this, that true Scotland, as indicated by the
names, begins at the Forth and the Clyde. South of these
limits, and extending across the English border as far as
Yorkshire and Lancashire, lies a '
middle land,' neither
purely English nor purely Scottish, and possessing its characteristic
names, of which the most frequent are those termi-
nating in son, and the names of the border tribes. In this
' middle land,' throng the Wilsons, the Thompsons and
Thomsons, the Johnsons and Johnstons, the Gibsons, the
Bells, the Grahams, the Elliots and Elliotts, the Turnbulls,
the Robsons, the Richardsons, the Blairs, the Crawfords, the
Dunlaps, the Douglases, the Armstrongs, the Findlays, and
many others. The explanation of the origin of this middle*
or neutral region between England and Scotland is to be
found in the histor}^ of the changes which have affected the
boundaries between these two nations."
Upon this matter Judge Nathaniel Holmes, of Cambridge,
Mass., says, —" Dr. Guppy does not notice that the earlier
history of the races shows that this region of Scotland was
occupied by the Anglo-Saxons and Danish invasions as far
north as the Forth and the Clyde, at about the same dates as
the north, east, and south-east parts of England were. This
history, beginning with the 10th centur}^ does indeed explain
much, but it is not all, nor quite enough. First, the Roman
dominion of the time of Agricola, in Britain, extended to
the Forth and the Clyde, or, at least, the conquest of Roman
armies ; and, second, the Anglo-Saxon and Danish invasions
and settlements in their time, about the 5th or 6th century,
occupied that region, as they did the north of England. This
fact, of course, and the succession of descent, may help to
explain the identity of names in some measure, as well as the
identity of race, with Anglo-Saxon England. But it is true
that surnames did not come much into use anywhere in
Great Britain till about the year A. D. 1000. It helps to
explain how it was that, prior to the 10th century, English
rule or English claim reached to the Forth and the Clyde.
The Lowland people are, of course, in the main, Anglo-
Saxon and Norman in race as well as in language. They
are not Celtic."