122 Rcz'iczi's of Books than Celt — reaching southward to add the plains of Lothian to its do- minion is, in the course of three generations, conquered in a silent, bloodless struggle which is completed under St. Margaret, by the assimi- lation of the Scottish Church to Rome. Henceforth the Scottish king- dom will grow north and south from Lothian, striving on the one hand with centripetal England, on the other with centrifugal Pictland. A new factor is added, in the twelfth century, to the problem of na- tional development. Norman adventurers — the terms are almost con- vertible — balked in their hope of feudal independence by the vigorous statecraft of the Conqueror and his sons, passed the Border, bringing Norman feudalism into infant Scotland. These Normans and their polit- ical ideals found a ready welcome at the hands of David I. and Scotland presently became as feudal as the France of Philip L Meanwhile the English government was consolidated and the at- tempt of Scotland to grow southward at the expense of England failed. But to the north and west Celts and Scandinavians had eventually to give way before the feudal monarchy of the Lowlands. On a much smaller scale, though without the stimulus of a local throne, much the same process was going on in the marches of Wales where, on terms of high feudal independence, Norman barons were al- lowed to hold what they could wrest from the hostile Welsh. Regarded from this point of view the history of Scotland up to the death of the Maid of Norway appears rather as a series of unrestrained Norman ag- gressions resulting in a loose complex of fiefs than, in any true sense, a national history ; and this point of view was not unknown to the thirteenth century, for John Hastings, formulating his claim to the Scottish throne — or rather to a share of it — denied that the land was a kingdom, comparing it rather to the great franchises of the Welsh and Scottish Borders. The War of Independence, of course, evoked a Scottish national con- sciousness. But the nation which realized itself under so great tribula- tions was cast in a feudal mould, a community in which the notion of con- tract as the principle of national cohesion was still strong. From this point of view accordingly the drama — say rather the trag- edy — of the growth of the Scottish nation will be criticized in a manner differing materially from that followed by Mr. Lang. Care will be taken to guard against too early an introduction of the notions of patriotism on the one hand and treachery on the other. The turbulent barons who rise against their king are not always fighting for "one national idea, Inde- pendence "(p. 269) ; nor when, like Douglas (pp. 263, 364), they de- sert him, is the idea of a dissolution of contract wholly absent. So much, then, for the point of view. Mr. Lang's story is pains- taking but somewhat languid ; he needs a battle to rouse him. His ac- counts of the Battle of the Standard, of Bannockburn and of Flodden Field are clear and spirited, but they shine by contrast with the listless narrative in which they are set. The constitutional history of Scotland remains to be written. To the achievement of this desirable end Mr. Lang's work is in no sense a
