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Ireland and the Making of Britain
between a white planter and a quadroon girl would now
be regarded in Virginia." 1
During
almost the two centuries which followed the
Conqueror, there is very little that can be called English
history. Those centuries are almost as much a blank
as the two centuries following the arrival of the Saxons
in England. History in England in that period was sim-
ply the history of the French conquerors.
French, not English, moreover, was the language to
which Irish first gave place in the Scottish court.
Most of the Gaelic nobility were probably bilingual,
understanding, if not speaking, French, as well as their
ancestral Gaelic. French was in use in David's court
(1124-53) as it certainly was also in that of Alexander
III (1249-86). An English chronicler, Walter of Coven-
try, referring to the events of the year 1212, says that the
more recent kings of i.
Scotland, e., William and his
immediate predecessors, profess to be Frenchmen in race,
manners, language, and culture, and that they admit only
Frenchmen to their friendship and service. 8
At a later
period French died out as the language of the court, being
replaced by the speech of the Lothians.
There is no record of English writing in Scotland before
John B arbour, who died in 1395, and Andrew Wyntoun,
who died after 1420, wrote their compositions. Since
then English has gradually displaced Gaelic, tho even
to-day the old Irish tongue is in full vigor over a large
part of Scotland. Nor is there the slightest
evidence that
the defeated English entered Scotland at this time in any
considerable numbers. Such English as lived in the coun-
try lived there merely as hinds and slaves, as Symeon of
Durham testifies, and being absolutely ignorant and unlet-
i History of England, I, 15.
SMemoriale, II. 206.
322