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BREAKING UP KINGDOMS-THE SYSTEM OF RECORDS-VALUE
OF TO HISTORY-INFLUENCE ON POWER AND PROPERTY-HOW
ABUSED MALCOLM CONNECTED WITH THE REPRESENTATIVES
OF THE SAXON LINE-POLITICAL EFFECT OF THIS CONNECTION
-WAR WITH ENGLAND-DEATH OF MALCOLM AND HIS SON-
HIS WIFE, ST MARGARET HER INAUGURATION IN THE CALEN-
DAR-HER INFLUENCE ON SCOTLAND-KING ALEXANDER-
ALLIANCE WITH THE ENGLISH ROYAL FAMILY-TROUBLES IN
THE HIGHLANDS-DEATH OF KING ALEXANDER,

378-423

THE

HISTORY OF SCOTLAND.

CHAPTER I.

The Roman Period.

FIRST APPEARANCE OF SCOTLAND IN HISTORY-THE INVASION BY AGRICOLA-THE BATTLE OF THE GRAMPIANS-USELESS SEARCH AFTER MONS GRAMPIUS QUESTION IF THIS WAS THE REAL NAME OTHER DIFFICULTIES IN ROMAN TOPOGRAPHY-GUESSES AND FORGERIES THE NAME CALEDONIA-HADRIAN AND THE GREAT WALL-NATURE AND PURPOSES OF THE WALL-ANTONINE, LOLLIUS URBICUS, AND THE NORTHERN WALL-HISTORY OF ITS CONSTRUCTION-FEATS AND CHARACTER OF MARCELLUS ULPIUS -AUTHORITIES ON THE HISTORY OF THE ROMANS IN SCOTLAND -CHARACTER OF THE PEOPLE GIVEN BY THEM-LUPUS-MARCH

OF SEVERUS-CARAUSIUS-CONSTANTIUS-BEGINNING OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY-QUESTION HOW FAR SCOTLAND CHRISTIANISED UNDER THE ROMANS FALL OF THEIR POWERATTACKS ON THE EMPIRE BY THE NORTHERN TRIBES.

IT is in the year 80 of the Christian era that the territory in later times known as Scotland comes out of utter darkness, and is seen to join the current of authentic history. In that year Julius Agricola brought Roman troops north of the line which, hundreds of years afterwards, became the border dividing Scotland from England. The achievements of that

VOL. I.

A

general hold a greater place in history than they would have reached had they not been told by his son-in-law Tacitus, the most powerful of Roman historians. The light thus cast on Scotland for a time is more remarkable for its brightness than for its clearness. It was brief, but sufficient to show to Rome that there was work in a distant land for the imperial troops. Of their subsequent doings we have occasional glimpses in contemporary literature. These are feeble and fragmentary. By scrupulously collecting them, however, adjusting them to each other, and interpreting them through such other aids to history as may be found, it is possible to see in some measure the place which Scotland held in the eyes of the empire from the days of Agricola downwards. In this way, looking from without, we may in some measure trace a historical continuity until the time when we can take up the threads of an internal national history, and follow the destinies of the inhabitants of Scotland until they and their country became, by a long process of growth and articulation, consolidated into a sovereign European state.

Of such previous events as bear on the invasion of Scotland by Agricola, it need only be said that the various warlike operations of Julius Cæsar in the south had been invasion, and no more. The successful general, and his assistants in the creation of the empire, had other things to think of for many years to come. It was not till the reign of Claudius, and the invasion of Aulus Plautius in the year 43, that the actual process of the annexation of South Britain to the empire began. This was nearly completed, in a superficial way at least, in the summer of 78, when Agricola.

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