THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



531 



Photograph by William Reid 



A YOUNG SCOT 



In the race name "Scotchman" this kilt-clad boy possesses a priceless heritage, for it is 

 synonymous with sterling qualities of heart and character. "The Scotch in general are thrifty, 

 cautious, and frugal. But no people are more just, more generous, more quick to imperil life 

 or property or position at the call of duty." 



ous, and powerful, while the bands of sea- 

 rovers were small, not united, and in the utmost 

 peril. Only by terrorism or extermination 

 could they overcome the Britons. Green states 

 that "when the conquest of the bulk of Britain 

 was complete," one hundred and twenty-eight 

 years after Hengist and Horsa landed at Ebbs- 

 fleet, "not a Briton remained as subject or 

 slave" in the conquered territory. 



According to the Saxon chronicler, in 800, 

 Egbert, the first king of the country for the 

 first time united, decreed it should henceforth 

 be called Anglia, or England. Then followed 

 two hundred and fifty years, filled by ever 

 fresh invasions and by the illustrious names of 

 Alfred the Saxon and Canute the Dane. 



At last, on the field of Hastings all those 

 racial elements were in presence on which the 

 future of England depended : the English peo- 

 ple with its character forged by six centuries 

 of incessant and desperate struggle; and the 



Normans, no less strenuous and valiant, but 

 tempered into finer steel by two centuries of 

 residence in France. For hours after the battle 

 was lost the English fought on around their 

 dead king, and for years from retreats in the 

 forests and hills they broke forth in fierce, 

 hopeless rebellion. 



Not until the Hundred Years' War with 

 France were the English people and the Nor- 

 man conquerors welded into one and the 

 Norman-French replaced by English as the 

 language of law and the court. 



Crowds of later immigrants, like the fugi- 

 tives from the Netherlands and the Huguenots 

 from France, were to increase England's in- 

 dustrial strength, but not to impair or modify 

 her racial stock or character. It was the 

 forces that clashed at Hastings which, after 

 generations of stress and struggle, culminated 

 in the greatness of the modern Englishman. 



