music, English is effectively the sole language of Northern Ireland. The Good Friday Agreement specifically acknowledges the position both of Irish and of Ulster Scots in the Republic of Ireland and in Northern Ireland. Scotland Anglic speakers were actually established in Lothian by the 7th century, but remained confined there, and indeed contracted slightly to the advance of the Gaelic language. However, during the 12th and 13th centuries, Norman landowners and their retainers, were invited to settle by the king. It is probable that many of their retainers spoke a northern form of Middle English, although probably French was more common. Most of the evidence suggests that English spread into Scotland via the burgh, proto-urban institutions which were first established by King David I. Incoming burghers were mainly English (especially from Northumbria, and the Earldom of Huntingdon), Flemish and French. Although the military aristocracy employed French and Gaelic, these small urban communities appear to have been using English as something more than a lingua franca by the end of the 13th century. English appeared in Scotland for the first time in literary form in the mid-14th century, when its form unsurprisingly differed little from other northern English dialects. As a consequence of the outcome of the Wars of Independence though, the English of Lothian who lived under the King of Scots had to accept Scottish identity. The growth in prestige of English in the 14th century, and the complementary decline of French in Scotland, made English the prestige language of most of eastern Scotland. Thus, from the end of the 14th century, and certainly by the end of the 15th century, Scotland began to show a split into two cultural areasthe mainly English or Scots Lowlands, and the mainly Gaelic-speaking Highlands (which then could be thought to include Galloway and Carrick; see Galwegian Gaelic). This caused divisions in the country where the Lowlands remained, historically, more influenced by the English to the south: the Lowlands lay more open to attack by invading armies from the south and absorbed English influence through their proximity to and their trading relations with their southern neighbours. In 1603 the Scottish King James VI inherited the throne of England, and became James I of England. James moved to London and only returned once to Scotland. By the time of James VI's accession to the English throne the old Scottish Court and Parliament spoke Scots. Scots