It entered parts of Wales, Cornwall, Cumbria and southern
Scotland, traditionally the strongholds of the Celtic languages.
After the Norman invasion of 1066, many nobles from England
fled north to Scotland, where they were made welcome, and
eventually the language (in a distinctive Scots variety) spread
throughout the Scottish lowlands. From the twelfth century,
Anglo-Norman knights were sent across the Irish Sea, and Ireland
gradually fell under English rule