The Central Lowlands

The Central Lowlands include the valleys of the rivers Tay, Clyde and Forth and contain the main centres of population and industry as well as fertile farmlands. In recent times, this region has had many of the same difficulties as the industrial north of England, although the North Sea oil industry has helped to keep unemployment down.

The Southern Uplands

Just north of the border with England are the Southern Uplands,an area of small towns, quite far apart from each other, whose economy depends to a large extent on sheep farming. It’s a largely agricultural and pastoral area.

Two of Britain’s great rivers, the Clyde and the Tweed, rise within a mile of each other in the Southern Uplands of Scotland.

From the history of Scotland

Celtic tribes called the Picts penetrated into the mountains on the North; some Picts as well as tribes of Scots crossed over to Ireland and settled there. Later the Scots returned to the larger island and settled in the North beside the Picts. They came in such large numbers that in time the name of Scotland was given to that country. The Romans had left two centuries earlier. Caledoniawas the Roman name for Scotland.

The Middle Ages

The Middle Ages was a time of wars across the borders in Scotland and Wales, and violence in England with barons struggling against the king and against each other. When Edward I came to the throne in 1272 the Scots didn’t have king, but there was a crowd of men who claimed it. Of these the best known were John Balliol and Robert Bruce, both of Norman blood who held lands in England and Scotland. Edward selected John Balliol as ruler of Scotland but treated him as a puppet king. The barons rebelled and in 1296. Edward invaded Scotland and captured Balliol. For ten years after this Scotland was without a king. Edward tried to rule it himself. He brought away the Scottish crown jewells and with them a relic whose loss was deeply felt. At Scone there was a piece of rock, (‘Stone of Scone’, ‘Stone of Destiny’),on which the Scottish king stood when he was crowned. Edward placed it on a throne in Westminster Abbey.

Edward didn’t treat the Scots harshly, but Southern rule was hated by them. William Wallaceled an army against the English forces of King Edward I and defeated them at Stirling Bridge in 1297. Wallace made himself a ruler of Scotland. The following year Wallace was defeated by Edward I, and was later captured and hanged in 1305. The plaque stands in a wall of St Bartholomew’s Hospital near the site of Wallace’s execution at Smithfield. Scottish patriots and other interested people frequently visit the site and flowers often appear there.

With Robert Bruce as their leader the Scots fought one battle after another against the English, but were defeated every time. At last Robert Bruce had to hide in a cave. He was losing all hope. One day he was thinking of his battles when he saw a spider. The spider was making a web. Bruce destroyed the web. The spider began to make a new web. Bruce thought, “I was defeated six times and I am ready to stop fighting. Will the spider stop making his web if I destroy it six times?” Six times did Bruce destroy the spider’s web. The spider started a seventh web and finished it. Then Bruce decided to try and free his country again. He gathered a new army and within months of William Wallace’s death, Robert Bruce became the great champion of Scotland. The battle of Bannockburnin 1314 was a humiliating defeat for the English and a triumph for Robert Bruce. After eight years of war with England, he finally became the undisputed King of Scotland. For a long time the Tudors were trying to join Scotland to England. In their attempts to preserve the independence of Scotland, the Scottish kings couldn’t get much support from their nobility, because Scottish nobility was not united: some of them wanted closer friendship with England, and others wanted to remain loyal to the old alliance with France. Knowing how weak they were, the Scottish kings usually tried to avoid war with England. They made a peace treaty with Henry VII, and James IV, king of Scotland, married Henry VII’s daughter Margaret. But it didn’t help. Henry VIII, the son of Henry VII, made two wars on Scotland. In 1513 the Scots invaded England to aid France. At Flodden Field, in Northumberland, the Scots faced an English army half its size but led by an experienced general, Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey. English cannon, arrows and tactics won the day. The Scots lost King John IV and 10 000 men. King James V, whose army was also badly defeated during the second war, died soon after the war.

Scotland was a separate kingdom with powerful local lairds, until 1603, when its King James VI,the son of Mary Queen of Scots became King James I of England. This was because Mary’s cousin Elizabeth I of England had left no heir when she died. James took the name of King of Great Britain, and on his flag he had the crosses of the saints of England and of Scotland. This was the first ‘Union Jack’.From then the two countries were finally united, but ironically, under a royal dynasty which came from Scotland. The two countries had the same monarch, though the Act of Union was not passed until 1707. This Act incorporated Scotland with England in the United Kingdom, but the Scots kept their own legal system, religion and administration. The Protestant Church replaced the Catholic Church as the ruling church in Scotland.

The political independence which Scotland won under Robert the Bruce was soon to be paralleled by the establishment of an independent Scottish Church. The drama of Reformation in Scotland culminated in the confrontation between the reformer John Knoxand Mary Queen of Scots. Behind Knox lay a life of struggle against the authority of Rome. That authority obscured the source of truth – the Gude Buik, the Bible, which should be open to all men. Of all rites, the Mass, which to Mary united the living and the dead in God, was to him the most detestable. Knowledge of the Bible, Knox recognized, could be acquired only by reading. Therefore, he argued, there should be a school in every parish, and the implementing of this proposal led to a more literate population than any other in Europe, to a wide dissemination of knowledge and to democratic universities.

However, many of the people who lived in the Highlands and Western Isles did not welcome this change. They still supported the grandson of the Catholic James II, who had been exiled in 1688. His name was Prince Charles Edward Stewartand he was known as Bonnie Prince Charlie because he was young and handsome. He spent twenty years in Rome preparing to win back the Crown of Great Britain for himself, and then returned to Scotland. The Highlanders were very proud that he still spoke Gaelic and wore the traditional tartan kilt.

In 1745 Charlie landed in the Western Isles. On the 17th of September his father was proclaimed king of Scotland and England. Four days later the Jacobites defeated the English army. With his army of Highlanders he entered Edinburgh. On the 1st of November Charlie led his men as far south as Derby in England. However not as many Jacobite supporters joined them in England as they had hoped. Moreover, when the Highland army was on the way to London, the Highlanders felt unhappy at being so far from home. Bonnie Prince decided to retreat and he moved back to Scotland.

By April 1746, however, the Duke of Cumberland had built up a huge army of 9 000 Protestant soldiers from England and Europe. On the 16 th of April they met Charlie’s army of 5 000 tired and hungry men in the wind and the rain at Culloden,near Inverness.There was a terrible and bloody battle and the Jacobites were defeated.

Bonnie Prince escaped to the Isle of Skye dressed as a woman. Charlie wandered in exile in the Scottish Highlands and in Europe. There was a reward of £30 000 for his capture but the Highlanders, though poor, never betrayed the man they loved so much.

After the rebellion of 1745, the Highlanders were forbidden to carry weapons, to speak their own language, Gaelic, or wear their own dress even the playing of bagpipes. Much of their land was sold by the British government.

Date: 2016-03-03; view: 1811