The Making of Scotland and Its History

This work presents the history of Scotland. The kingdom of Scotland, so far as it could be said to exist at the time of the Norman conquest of England, was of very recent origin and of constantly fluctuating dimensions. It is true that in the earlier half of the ninth century, Kenneth MacAlpin, King of the Scots of Dalriada, overcame the Picts by the help of the Danes, and, in 844, became the first monarch over all Alban, or, as it subsequently came to be called, Scotia... If we could see in a magic mirror the country now called Scotland as it was when the Romans under Agricola (81 A.D.) crossed the Border, we should recognise little but the familiar hills and mountains. The rivers, in the plains, overflowed their present banks; dense forests of oak and pine, haunted by great red deer, elks, and boars, covered land that has long been arable. There were lakes and lagoons where for centuries there have been fields of corn. On the oldest sites of our towns were groups of huts made of clay and wattle, and dominated, perhaps, by the large stockaded house of the tribal prince. In the lochs, natural islands, or artificial islets made of piles (crannogs), afforded standing-ground and protection to villages, if indeed these lake-dwellings are earlier in Scotland than the age of war that followed the withdrawal of the Romans.