LOTHIAN. This name was formerly applied to a consider ably larger extent of country than the three counties of Linlithgow, Edinburgh and Haddington. Roxburghshire and Berwickshire at all events were included in it, probably also the upper part of Tweeddale (at least Selkirk). It would thus embrace the eastern part of the Lowlands from the Forth to the Cheviots, i.e., all the English part of Scotland in the i i th century. This region formed from the 7th century onward part of the kingdoms of Bernicia and Northumbria. It cannot have come into English hands before the last decades of the previous century ; for in the Historia Brittonum the Bernician king Theodoric, whose traditional date is 572-579, is said to have been engaged in war with four Welsh kings. One of these was Rhydderch Hen who, as we know from Adamnan, reigned at Dumbarton, while another named Urien is said to have besieged Theodoric in Lindisfarne. If this statement is to be believed it is hardly likely that the Eng lish had by this time obtained a firm footing beyond the Tweed. Most probably the greater part of Lothian was conquered by the Northumbrian king Aethelfrith, who, according to Bede, rav aged the territory of the Britons more often than any other Eng lish king, in some places reducing the natives to dependence, in others exterminating them.
In the time of Oswio the English element became predominant in northern Britain. His supremacy was acknowledged both by the Welsh in the western Lowlands and by the Scots in Argyllshire. On the death of the Pictish king Talorgan, the son of his brother Eanfrith, he seems to have obtained the sovereignty over a considerable part of that nation also. Early in Egfrith's reign an attempt at revolt on the part of the Picts proved un successful. We hear at this time also of the establishment of an English bishopric at Abercorn, which, however, only lasted for a few years. By the disastrous overthrow of Egfrith in 685 the Picts, Scots and some of the Britons also recovered their independence. Yet we find a succession of English bishops at Whithorn from 73o to the 9th century, from which it may be inferred that the south-west coast had already by this time become English. The Northumbrian dominions were again en larged by Eadberht, who in 75o is said to have annexed Kyle, the central part of Ayrshire, with other districts. In conjunction with Oengus mac Fergus, king of the Picts, he also reduced the whole of the Britons to submission in 756. But this subjugation was not lasting, and the British kingdom, though now reduced to the basin of the Clyde, whence its inhabitants are known as Strathclyde Britons, continued to exist for nearly three centuries.
After Eadberht's time we hear little of events in the northern part of Northumbria, and there is some reason for suspecting that English influence in the south-west began to decline before long, as our list of bishops of Whithorn ceases early in the 9th century; the evidence on this point, however, is not so decisive as is commonly stated. About 844 an important revolution took place among the Picts. The throne was acquired by Ken neth mac Alpin, a prince of Scottish family, who soon became formidable to the Northumbrians. He is said to have invaded "Saxonia" six times, and to have burnt Dunbar and Melrose. After the disastrous battle at York in 867 the Northumbrians were weakened by the loss of the southern part of their territories, and between 883 and 889 the whole country as far as Lindisfarne was ravaged by the Scots. During the next fifty years the in fluence of the Scottish kingdom seems to have increased in the south, and in 945 the English king Edmund gave Cumberland, i.e., apparently the British kingdom of Strathclyde, to Malcolm I., king of the Scots, in consideration of his alliance with him. Malcolm's successor Indulph (954-962) succeeded in capturing Edinburgh, which thenceforth remained in possession of the Scots. His successors made repeated attempts to extend their territory southwards. and certain late chroniclers state that Ken neth II. in 971-975 obtained a grant of the whole of Lothian from Edgar. Whatever truth this story may contain, the cession of the province was finally effected by Malcolm II. by force of arms. At his first attempt in ioo6 he seems to have suffered a great defeat from Uhtred, the son of earl Waltheof. Twelve years later, however, he succeeded in conjunction with Eugenius, king of Strathclyde, in annihilating the Northumbrian army at Carham on the Tweed, and Eadulf Cudel, the brother and suc cessor of Uhtred, ceded all his territory to the north of that river as the price of peace. Henceforth in spite of an invasion by Aldred, the son of Uhtred, during the reign of Duncan, Lothian remained permanently in possession of the Scottish kings.
(See SCOTLAND.) AUTHORITIES.-Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica (ed. C. Plummer, Ox ford, 1896) ; Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (ed. Earle and Plummer, Oxford, 1899) ; Simeon of Durham (Rolls Series, ed. T. Arnold, 1882) ; W. F. Skene, Chronicle of Picts and Scots (Edinburgh, 1867), and Celtic Scotland (Edinburgh, 1876-80) ; and J. Rhys, Celtic Britain (London).