The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

I70 THE HIGHLANDERS [part i
postmodum diebus evolutis, clero consulente, cum suis
optimatibus ad concordiam revocatus est.''^
It appears, then, that a portion of the earls were considered
as representing the greater part of the nation ; and we thus trace,
as late as the twelfth century, the existence of a constitutional
body, whose origin is lost in the earliest dawn of Pictish history,
while the incorporation and preservation of the Northern Picts,
as a distinct portion of the nation, afterwards termed the Scots,
becomes undoubted.
»
^ Fordun, b. Tiii., c. 4. This Tiew then I did not perceive that the
of the conspiracy in 1160 suggested institution of the seven provinces had
itself to me on seeing a notice of Sir F. survived the establishment of the
Palgrave's singular discovery, as until Scoto-Saxon monarchy.