The high-water mark of Scott’s popularity as a poet was reached with “The Lady of the Lake.” In 1813 he published “Rokeby,” and in 1814 “The Lord of the Isles.” In the latter year “Waverley” appeared anonymously; and with this prose romance began Scott’s career as a novelist, which extended through fourteen years. In this period of time he wrote twenty-three novels, besides some other works of minor importance.
“The land of the lakes and the mountains, and of the brave men,” as the old Scots called their country, included the two great divisions, the Highlands and the Borders, which were so much wilder and more barbarous than the others, that they might be said to be altogether without law. Although nominally subject to the King of Scotland, yet they were so untamable that the enforcement of justice was almost as difficult as the subjugation of a foreign people.
The Highlands, rocky and mountainous parts of the country, comprised a large share of the north of Scotland. It was into these pathless wilds that the Romans drove the ancient Britons, and it was from these retreats that the fugitives afterward sallied forth to harass their conquerors.
The language of the Highlands, the Gaelic, was totally different from that of the Lowlands, which resembled English. The dress of the mountaineers also differed from that of the Lowlanders. They wore a plaid or mantle of frieze, or of a striped stuff called tartan, one end of which, being wrapped around the waist, formed a short petticoat, which descended to the knee, while the rest they folded around them like a sort of cloak. Their feet were covered with buskins made of rawhide; and the usual head covering was a cap called a “bonnet.” They went always armed. Their weapons were bows and arrows, large swords, poleaxes, and daggers for close fight. For defense they had a round wooden shield, or target, stuck full of nails, and their great men had shirts of mail composed of links of iron. The common men sometimes wore a jacket of leather, having plates of metal stitched into it, but usually had no armor.
The Highlanders were divided into clans or tribes. All members of a clan supposed themselves to be descended from the same common ancestor, whose name distinguished them from other clans. Thus, one tribe was called MacDonald, which signifies the sons of Donald; another MacGregor, the sons of Gregor; MacNeil, the sons of Neil; and so on. They yielded unquestioning obedience to their chief, even when their submission to his orders implied disloyalty to the King. Each tribe had its own special territory, any invasion of which was punished as severely as though the foe had been of another nationality. Macaulay says of the sentiment that actuated them, “Their intense attachment to their own tribe and to their own patriarch, though politically an evil, partook of the nature of virtue. The sentiment was misdirected and ill-regulated, but still it was heroic. There must be some elevation of soul in a man who loves the society of which he is a member, and the leader whom he follows, with a love stronger than the love of life. It was true that the Highlander had few scruples about shedding the blood of an enemy; but it was not less true that he had high notions of the duty of observing faith to allies, and hospitality to guests.”
The Highlanders were continually at war with the Lowlanders. They did not regard their plundering raids upon the richer grounds of the Lowlands as robbery, but as rightful recovery of possessions which had been wrongfully wrested from their ancestors. The Lowlanders, equal in courage and superior in discipline, could not be easily overcome, and thus there was almost constant war or discord between them.
Some of the more powerful Highland chiefs set themselves up as independent sovereigns, and even made alliances with the English in their own name. Macaulay says that “national enmities have always been fiercest among Borderers; and the enmity between the Highland Borderer and the Lowland Borderer along the whole frontier was the growth of ages, and was kept fresh by constant injuries.” The Borderers were also divided into clans, and their devotion to their chieftain was complete. From their proximity to England, and their frequent incursions into its territory, they added to the perplexities of Scottish rule, which were already great by reason of constant internal dissension.
The Highlanders fought always on foot: the Borderers were all horsemen. The Borderers spoke the same language as the Lowlanders, wore the same sort of dress, and carried the same arms. Being accustomed to fight against the English, they were also much better disciplined than the Highlanders; but, in point of obedience, they were not much different from the clans of the north.
Military officers, called “wardens,” were appointed along the Borders to keep these unruly people in order; but, as these wardens were generally chiefs of clans, they did not do much to mend the evil. The good Lord James of Douglas was intrusted with a great part of the charge of the Borders by Robert the Bruce. He was faithful to his trust, but the clan thus acquired power which was afterward dangerous to the country.