Lords of the Isles involved in treacherous intrigues with the kings of
England, but just in the same way as we see the Earls of Douglas
engaged in traitorous schemes against the Scottish kings. In both cases
alike we are dealing with the revolt of a powerful vassal against a weak
king. Such an incident is sufficiently frequent in the annals of
Scotland to render it unnecessary to call in racial considerations to
afford an explanation. One of the most notable of these intrigues
occurred in the year 1408, when Donald of the Isles, who chanced to be
engaged in a personal quarrel about the heritage which he claimed in
right of his Lowland relatives, made a treacherous agreement with Henry
IV; and the quarrel ended in the battle of Harlaw in 1411. The real
importance of Harlaw is that it ended in the defeat of a Scotsman who,
like some other Scotsmen in the South, was acting in the English
interest; any further significance that it may possess arises from the
consideration that it is the last of a series of efforts directed
against the predominance, not of the English race, but of Saxon speech
and civilization. It was just because Highlanders and Lowlanders did
represent a common nationality that the battle was fought, and the blood
spilt on the field of Harlaw was not shed in any racial struggle, but in
the cause of the real English conquest of Scotland, the conquest of
civilization and of speech.

Our argument derives considerable support from the references to the
Highlands of Scotland which we find in mediæval literature. Racial
distinctions were not always understood in the Middle Ages; but readers
of Giraldus Cambrensis are familiar with the strong racial feeling that
existed between the English and the Welsh, and between the English and
the Irish. If the Lowlanders of Scotland felt towards the Highlanders as
Mr. Hill Burton asserts that they did feel, we should expect to find
references to the difference between Celts and Saxons. But, on the