CHAPTER V.

REIGN OF HUGH II.--THE IRISH COLONY IN SCOTLAND OBTAINS
ITS INDEPENDENCE.

Twenty-seven years is a long reign, and the years of
King-Hugh II. were marked with striking events. One
religious and one political occurrence, however, threw
all others into the shade--the conversion of the Highlands
and Islands of Scotland (then called Alba or Albyn by
the Gael, and Caledonia by the Latins), and the formal
recognition, after an exciting controversy, of the
independence of the Milesian colony in Scotland. These
events follow each other in the order of time, and stand
partly in the relation of cause and effect.

The first authentic Irish immigration into Scotland seems
to have taken place about the year of our Lord 258. The
pioneers crossed over from Antrim to Argyle, where the
strait is less than twenty-five miles wide. Other
adventurers followed at intervals, but it is a fact to
be deplored, that no passages in our own, and in all
other histories, have been so carelessly kept as the
records of emigration. The movements of rude masses of
men, the first founders of states and cities, are generally
lost in obscurity, or misrepresented by patriotic zeal.