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Scotland, to political observers of the middle of the 16th century, seemed destined by nature to form one homogeneous kingdom with England. The outward frontiers of both were the sea; no difficult physical barriers divided the two territories; the majority of Scots spoke an intelligible form of English, differing from northern English more in spelling and pronunciation than in idiom and vocabulary; and after the Reformation the State religion in both countries was Protestant. Yet, in spite of these causes making for union, and in spite of the manifest advantages of union, it was by a mere dynastic accident that, in the defect of nearer heirs to the English throne, the crowns of both kingdoms were worn by James VI. (1603), while more than a century of unrest and war had to elapse before the union of England and Scotland into one kingdom in 1707. Even later there broke forth civil wars that, apart from dynastic sentiment, had no political aim except “to break the Union.” Thus for seven hundred years the division of the isle of Britain was a constant cause of weakness and public distress. Nothing did more to bring the two peoples together than religion, after the Reformation, yet, by an unhappy turn of affairs, and mainly thanks to one man, John Knox, few causes were more potent than religious differences in delaying that complete union which nature herself seemed to desire.

The historical causes which kept the nations separate were mainly racial, though, from a very early period, the majority of

the people of Scotland were, if not purely English by blood, anglicized in language and, to a great extent, in institutions. All questions of race are dim, for such a thing as a European people of pure unmixed blood is probably unknown in experience. In 78-82 Agricola, carrying the Eagles of Rome beyond the line of the historical border, encountered tribes and confederations of tribes which, probably, spoke, some in Gaelic, some in Brythonic varieties of the Celtic language. That the language had been imposed, in a remote age, by Celtic-speaking invaders, on a prior non-Celtic-speaking population, is probable enough, but is not demonstrated. There exist in Scotland a few inscriptions on stones, in Ogam, which yield no sense in any known Indo-European language. There are also traces of the persistence of descent in the female line, especially in the case of the Pictish royal family, but such survivals of savage institutions, or such a modification of male descent for the purpose of ensuring the purity of the royal blood, yield no firm ground for a decision as to whether the Picts were “Aryans” or “non-Aryans.”

It is unnecessary here to discuss the Pictish problem (see ). That their rivals, the Scots, were a Gaelic-speaking people is certain. That the Picts were Teutons (Pinkerton) is no longer believed. That they were non-Aryan, the theory of