Ossian Collection > Romance of the Highlands

8 THE ROMANCE OF THE HIGHLANDS.
Argyleshire, and grew so formidable as to be able to
overthrow the ancient inhabitants in many sanguinary
battles. The Picts lost their identity completely, either
becoming absorbed in the Scots, or vanishing as did the
lost tribes of Israel. Nothing could be more absurd. A
people who had defied the Romans would certainly not
collapse like this, and be wiped out in some nameless
engagements. It was impossible that a handful of Irish
Scots could conquer Caledonia.
The truth of the matter appears to be that the Irish
Scots who came from Scotia (i.e., Ireland) in the third
century returned to their own land. Another colony
of them came over in the sixth century and settled in what
is now Argyleshire, and remained there. The corrupt
Irish Gaelic of that district was noted so late as in the
Highland Society's Report on Ossian's poems.
The Scots and the Picts were united under Kenneth
MacAlpia, King, or more probably Maormor of the
Scots in A.D. 843. His claim to the sovereignty was
undisputed, and he succeeded without trouble. There-
after the whole nation became known as Scotland, not
from any conquest by the Scots, but purely through the
King and the dynasty.
When Malcolm Canmore succeeded to the throne in
A.D. 1057, he caused the seat of Government to be removed
from Dunstaffnage to Scone. The Stone of Destiny,
on which the Kings had always been crowned, was
carried thither, and all the stores of learning preserved
by the early Christians in lona were carried south, only
to be seized and destroyed later by Edward I.
Society becomes sooner established in an open
country, and changes began in the Lowlands when
Canmore was King. In 1066 William the Conqueror
won the great battle of Hastings, and rather than submit
to his rule the English King, with many of the nobles