Note 118 — Chapter IV · Kenneth the Second—971–995.

Innes, Ap. 4. Sim. Dun. Hist. Dun., l. 3, c. 5, 6—Do. De obs. Dun. p. 81, de Gestis 1018. On comparing the passages of Simeon it is impossible to doubt that the cession of Lothian by Eadulf Cudel was the result of the battle of Carham, though there is an evident reluctance in the English chronicler to allude to the defeat and its consequences. The men of the Lothians, according to Wallingford, retained their laws and customs unaltered, and though the authority is questionable, the fact is probably true, for Lothian law became eventually the basis of Scottish law. Conquest indeed in these times did not alter the laws and customs of the conquered, unless where they come into contact and into opposition with those of the conquerors, and the men of the Lothians remained under the Scottish kings in much the same position as the men of Kent under the kings of Mercia and Wessex, probably exchanging the condition of a harassed for that of a favoured frontier province.