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The battle was bloody and indecisive; but the invader was obliged to retire in consequence of the loss he sustained, and afterwards was compelled to make submission to the Regent, and renounce his pretensions to Ross; so that all the advantages of the field were gained by the Saxons. The battle of Harlaw was fought 24th July 1411.
"Steamer," repeated Cabot as he obeyed this order and let the schooner fall off to leeward. "I never thought of such a thing as a steamer away up here. Do you mean that she is a frigate?" "No," laughed White. "There are other steamers besides frigates even in these waters, and that is one of them. She is the 'Harlaw, from Flower Cove, near the northern end of the island, and bound for Halifax.
The battle of Harlaw was part of the struggle with England. Donald of the Isles was the enemy of Scottish independence, and his success would mean English supremacy. He had taken up the rôle of "the Disinherited" of the preceding century, just as the Earl of March had done some years before.
It is interesting to note that, while the battle which has given significance to the record of the dispute was fought for the Lowland town of Aberdeen in a Lowland part of Aberdeenshire, the very name of the town is Celtic, and the district in which the battlefield of Harlaw is situated abounds to this day in Celtic place-names, and, not many miles away, the Gaelic tongue may still be heard at Braemar or at Tomintoul.
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.
Andrews again summoned the preachers, Willock, Douglas, Harlaw, Methuen, and Friar John Christison to a "day of law" at St. Andrews, on February 2, 1559. The system of overawing justice by such gatherings was usual, as we have already seen; Knox, Bothwell, Lethington, and the Lord James Stewart all profited by the practice on various occasions.
The Congregation, the Protestants, on the other hand, were preparing openly to defend themselves and their adherents from persecution, an honest, manly, and laudable endeavour, so long as they did not persecute other Christians. Their preachers such as Harlaw, Methuen, and Douglas were publicly active.
These illustrations may serve to show how Scottish historians really did look upon the battle of Harlaw, and how little do they share Mr. Burton's horror of the Celts. When we turn to descriptions of Scotland we find no further proof of the correctness of the orthodox theory.
Locke that the Regent outlawed "the assisters" of the preachers. Dr. M'Crie publishes an extract from the "Justiciary Records" of May 10, in which Methuen, Christison, Harlaw, and Willock, and no others, are put to the horn, or outlawed, in absence, for breach of the Regent's proclamations, and for causing "tumults and seditions."
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.
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