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Scotland

 

Following the most recent Ice Age, the climate warmed dramatically, with temperatures reaching their peak about 6000 years ago. Settlement in what is now Scotland became possible. The miraculously preserved village of Skara Brae, and the other Neolithic remains making up the Orkney World Heritage Site offer a unique insight into stone age life.

Early Scottish history was closely related to Ireland. In the first half of the first millennium Irish migrants crossed the northern straits and set up a colony consisting of three settlements on Islay, Lorn and Kintyre. This area was known as Argyle, which means the "Eastern Irish". The native Picts were eventually assimilated by the Irish, though this happened more in a gradual cultural way than through fighting. The Pictish habit of marrying their daughters to prominent foreigners helped unite the royal families of the two groups. See the section on the Stone of Destiny for more details.

In the seventeenth century, the tide flowed the other way, with Scottish settlers heading for Ireland. At this time the Crown authorities were nervous about possible Irish support for the Spanish, since both countries were catholic. Protestant settlers, many of them Scottish, were sent to Ulster, the most Irish and catholic part of the country. Unlike the Irish migration to Scotland which led naturally, and it seems largely peacefully, to a united country, the consequences of the migration of protestant Scots to catholic Ireland remain today.

In many ways the story of Britain has in large part been the story of the relationship of England and Scotland. This relationship has taken many twists and turns over the centuries, and many of the historic sites important to Scotland are related to it. Many English kings have attempted to subdue Scotland, most notably perhaps Edward the First who in 1296 took the great Scottish symbol of state, the Stone of Destiny to Westminster. Ironically when Scotland did become part of a wider Britain it was not a rampaging English king who was responsible, but instead a rather gentle and thoughtful Scottish king, James Stuart. In 1603 Elizabeth the First died childless, and without a direct heir to the English throne, the succession was offered to King James the Sixth of Scotland, who became King James the First of England. James wished to heal religious and political divisions, but as with his policy for the toleration of catholics, James's attempt to bring England and Scotland together was also only partially successful. James faced opposition from troublesome nationalistic elements in both England and Scotland. His proposal to merge the kingdoms and churches, and remove all discrepancies in legislation has never been achieved. Nevertheless both kingdoms now had one sovereign.

This is the time when Scotland and England moved towards something that could be called Britain. James proposed the name Great Britain for the combined kingdom. This name had been used a few times since the medieval period, to differentiate Great Britain from the little Britain of Brittany where so many Celtic Britons had fled to during the years of Anglo Saxon invasion in the fifth century. In 1606 James ordered that all ships of England and Scotland should fly a common flag, the design of which he had recently approved. It was a combination of the cross of St George and the cross of St Andrew. Officially known as the Great Union it was soon known as the Union Jack, although quite why is not certain. It may derive from Jacques, the French form of James.

In the years that followed James's reign, Scotland's most famous struggles for independence actually took the form of efforts to support the Stuart line. When James the Second was deposed by Parliament in 1688 Scotland supported the deposed king. The battles of Killiecrankie and Culloden were both fought in the name of the Stuarts and of Scotland, which is rather ironic when James Stuart worked so hard to bring Scotland together with England. The irony of this becomes even sharper when it is recalled that these "Jacobite" struggles are usually presented as a struggle between the English and the Scots, when in fact they were also a struggle between the Highlanders and the Lowlanders of Scotland, who were traditional enemies. A large proportion of the English armies were Lowland Scots. There were even numbers of Highland Scots fighting for the government. The Clan Munro, the Clan Ross, the Clan Gunn, and the Clan Grant, amongst others, all fought for the government against the Highlanders at Culloden. The lines of nationalism are never clear. This is as true of Scotland as it is of Britain as a whole. James Stuart didn't have much time for such things. He just wanted people to get on.

Not long after Culloden one of Scotland's great figures, Adam Smith started teaching at Edinburgh University. Smith pioneered the study of English Literature, and is sometimes criticised for not supporting Scottish culture. In reality Adam Smith made his great contribution by seeing Scotland, and all other countires as part of a wider world. He believed in independent nations, supporting American independence in 1776, for example. This independence was not so much valuable in itself, but in the way it allowed free trade to replace the monopolies of empires. Adam Smith supported the identity of Scotland, and other national identities, only so that they could exist peacefully and prosperously, trading with the rest of the world. In many ways global trade was to have its birth place in Glasgow, a great eighteenth century trading city, and centre for ship building. This is the city where Smith studied as a young man, Glasgow's vibrancy and success persuading Smith of the value of trade. In support of local industry maths and science were being taught at Glasgow University long before they appeared at Oxford and Cambridge, where the dons felt they were above such things.

Many of the historical sites of Scotland will focus on past battles and national identity. But as usual, their true history will reveal the lack of firm identities. A Scottish king was the first British king, and if you to go Scotland, to Edinburgh Castle where James was born, you are in a sense going to the place where Britain began. You are also going to where it might peacefully end as regionalism gains strength. And like some strange counterpoint in music, this regionalism occurs at a time when Europe as a whole is moving towards centralisation.