Perhaps in no part of Scotland was there—even in the fourteenth century—pure Anglo-Saxon blood. The Lothians and the south-eastern shires had been a portion of the old kingdom of Northumbria, in which, with the Angles as a normal population, there had been large Danish settlements; and numbers of Normans also settled therein, both before and after the Conquest; whilst the descendants of the old Britons had peopled the south-western shires, from the Solway to the Clyde. Thus whilst the generally spoken language of the two countries was essentially the same, the literature of England would be more purely Teutonic; that of Scotland would include Celtic elements; but these elements would assert themselves more in qualifying the style of the literature than in the use of Celtic words.
Thus, Scottish poetry generally shows a passionate love of Nature; its picturesque descriptions and vivid colourings reaching or bordering upon exaggeration. Its humour is broad, and of coarsish fibre. And then the sentiment of patriotism has ever been more pronounced in Scotland than in England. As a rule, English Nationalism was, after the Norman Conquest, even in the most disastrous times, safe and self-assertive. On the other hand, Scottish Nationalism was at one period, for a time, entirely lost; it was often in extreme danger, and was saved only by extreme efforts,—as we might say, “by the skin of the teeth.” Can we wonder then that fervid patriotism pervades,—becomes obtrusive even, in Scottish literature; and that this literature almost deifies the National heroes?
Thus, amongst the earlier efforts in Scottish poetry replete with this glowing patriotism, we have Archbishop Barbour’s poem, The Bruce; Blind Harry’s History of Sir William Wallace; and Andrew of Wyntoun’s Chronykil of Scotland. We mentioned as a poet James I., he wrote The Kings Quhair (i.e., book); it is in Chaucer’s seven-line stanza, and contains the best poetry published in Great Britain, between that of Chaucer and the Elizabethan period. From a full heart he tells the story of his love; a love which brightened his life, and shone true at his death, when his queen did her best to save him from the daggers of the conspirators. The King,—whilst a prisoner in Windsor Castle,—saw from his window his future queen, walking in an adjacent garden.
“Cast I down mine eyes again,
Where as I saw, walking under the tower,
Full secretly, now comen here to plain.
The fairest, or the freshest younge flower
That ever I saw, methought, before that hour,
For which, sudden abate—anon astart—
The blood of all my body to my heart.