Willie is not amused!
Posted on 06/11/2008 11:26:42 AM PDT by forkinsocket
The historian Hugh Trevor-Roper, who died in 2003, was often depicted as hostile to the Scots (or 'Scotch', as he insisted on calling them). Yet, as he would sometimes remark, he had a long association with Scotland and its people.
He was brought up in Northumberland, only 20 miles or so from the border. As a boy he had been cared for by a Scots nanny, before attending a preparatory school in Dunbar.
After an interval, he married a Scots wife, and together they bought a home near Melrose, where he lived during the university vacations for almost 30 years. He devoted a portion of his working life to studying and writing about Scottish history. In the mid-1970s he was active in the campaign against Scottish 'devolution'; his motive was not dislike of the Scots, but rather his belief in the benefits of the Union, to England and Scotland alike.
It may have been this cause, now lost, which focused his mind on Scottish history.
Trevor-Roper was repelled by Scottish nationalism's appeal to atavistic tribal loyalties. He knew that historical myth, however innocently concocted, could have unforeseen, even pernicious, consequence; the romantic fantasies of Goethe and Wagner had fired the imagination of the Nazis.
Trevor-Roper believed that 'the whole history of Scotland has been coloured by myth', and he took it upon himself to address some of these myths in this book, largely written in the 1970s, but set aside while still in draft. His former pupil, Jeremy Cater, has skilfully edited the text and has added a useful foreword.
The Invention of Scotland identifies three overlapping myths that have shaped the self-image of that proud nation.
The first is the political myth of the ancient Scottish constitution: that pre-medieval Scotland had been governed by a form of limited monarchy. Time after time this anachronistic notion has been torpedoed; but after a while it has always resurfaced. To this day, the Declaration of Arbroath is brandished by patriotic Scotsmen as their equivalent of the American Declaration of Independence, albeit written in the 14th century.
The second myth identified by Trevor-Roper is that of Ossian, the Celtic Homer. Now largely forgotten, Ossian's Fingal caused a Europe-wide sensation after it was published in 1762. An epic poem in six books, it was purportedly the work of a blind, third-century bard, translated from the original Gaelic by James Macpherson, a young Scottish schoolmaster.
By a happy coincidence Fingal proved perfectly in tune with the new cult of the sublime. Even more important, Ossian fed the Scots hunger for a literature they could call their own, for a Scots genius to stand alongside Shakespeare. The Scots literati took the bait greedily.
Even the great sceptic David Hume was initially convinced by the forgery, though he quickly regretted his embarrassing mistake, and declared to Boswell that he would not believe Fingal to be an ancient poem 'though 50 bare-arsed Highlanders should swear it'.
Trevor-Roper gives a full account of this extraordinary fraud, adding many valuable details and putting forward a new theory to explain what remains obscure about the story. 'The important question', he concludes, 'is not so much why Fingal came to be forged, but why the Scots continued so long to insist that it was genuine.'
The third myth is that of traditional Scots dress, which Trevor-Roper shows to have been got up, largely for commercial purposes, in the 19th century.
The kilt was devised by a Lancashire industrialist as a convenient form of dress for his Scottish employees; while the clan-based differentiation of the tartans was the invention of two brothers calling themselves the Sobieski Stuarts, who in 1842 published their Vestiarium Scoticum, an elaborate work of imagination which served as a pattern-book for tartan manufacturers.
The Sobieski Stuarts claimed to be the only legitimate grandsons of Bonnie Prince Charlie (as well as the great-great grandsons of John Sobieski, King of Poland): demanding, and obtaining, the deference due to those of royal birth.
These two 'engaging charlatans', as Trevor-Roper affectionately describes them, had been born John and Charles Allen, in Egham, Surrey.
A chapter entitled 'The Coming of the Kilt' traces what Trevor-Roper calls 'the Highland takeover of Scotland'. In the 19th century 'the apparatus of Celtic tribalism' would be assumed by the Scots aristocracy, 'those whose ancestors regarded Highland dress as the badge of barbarism, and shuddered at the squeal of the bagpipe'. The apotheosis of this tendency would come when George IV paraded in Edinburgh wearing a kilt of 'Stuart tartan': disguising himself, snorted Macaulay, 'in what, before the Union, was considered by nine Scotchmen out of 10 as the dress of a thief'.
This witty, ironic and elegantly written book will delight any reader with an open mind. Historians of Scotland may complain that the book takes no account of scholarship published since Trevor-Roper laid the manuscript aside, more than 25 years ago; but those who do are missing the point. In essence this is not a book about Scotland, but about the persistence of myth.
Trevor-Roper reminds us of the important truth that 'even the greatest historians are led into error because their general convictions have acquired for them the character of a precedent truth, with which individual facts must necessarily conform'. Sadly, Trevor-Roper himself would fall victim to a forger as enterprising as any of the characters he gleefully describes here.
ping
How true!
The kilt not invented until the 19th century? Somebody should have told Mel Gibson. William Wallace and all his braveheart lads are in kilts. The Irish too.
I remember reading that after the Battle of Culloden in the early 1700’s the Georges instituted ferocious laws against the Scots, including bans on traditional dress and clan tartans.
I suggest that England ALSO has its “legends” that have become part of English tradition, e.g. Robin Hood, “King” Arthur, Horatio Hornblower, Willikin, etc. etc.
The Scots have been more sinned against than sinners in Anglo-Scottish relationships going back to the time of Edward I and before.
But I guess as Americans we are fortunate Englishmen like this “gentleman” made things so rough for the Scots and later Scots-Irish. It helped create some of our most productive and patriotic immigrants in the 1700s.
He shouldn’t have done it anyway, because he was a lowlander and his language, custom and dress would have had more in common with a northumbrian englishman than a scottish highlander....
Trevor-Roper (or his editor, or his publicist) is being deliberately deceptive or at least exaggerating. The underlying facts are not news and have been known to everybody for years. "Ossian" was exposed as a fraud almost immediately, and nobody seriously contended for its authenticity. The Scots got stroppy about it (and still do) when it was used as a launching pad for general abuse of Scotland (something of which dear Dr. Johnson, much as I admire him, was far too fond).
The "kilt" as we know it today indeed probably was invented in the 18th century (although there are recorded examples of similar garments back into the 17th century - probably earlier attempts to modify the original garment that didn't catch on.) But the original of the kilt, the "belted plaid," was worn by Highlanders as far back as we have records. It basically looks like a kilt and shoulder plaid all in one piece, with the pleats not permanently sewn in -- it was just a big rectangle of cloth. You gathered it together over your belt, crossed the ends over the front, fastened your belt, and stood up (breathing heavily). The extra fabric hung down in the back like a tail, or could be used as a cloak or raincoat. The whole thing was thrown off to go into battle, so you had a bunch of screaming lunatics in their shirt-tails waving large basket-hilt broadswords around, which would unnerve almost anybody.
As for tartans, the "tartan for every clan and sept" nonsense was invented by the Victorians, who loved to pigeonhole stuff. And it wasn't an ironclad rule, folks wore what they liked. But there are a number of tartans associated with particular districts (and thus particular clans, mostly) that predate 1745 - as well as the Black Watch or military pattern.
I'm finding myself dreaming in heavy Scots accents and in those dreams fretting about Colonial Scots' concerns and tribulations.
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Supposedly kilts go back at least as far as the 16th century.
The myth is probably that they are ancient and go back to the earliest days.
Also, it had been Highland garb, and it's not clear whether Lowlanders wore kilts before the 19th century revival.
And those distinctive patterns for different families probably were also more or less the invention of 19th century commercial interests, or at least they systematized what had been sketchy and uncertain.
You can see the same process going on even today.
"Irish county" tartan patterns have been "discovered" or created in our own lifetime.
I have never figured out how the Scots and the Irish got started with kilts. I have been to both countries and it was cold even in July.
Roper missed the point of the Declaration of Arbroath.
No one believes that 14th century Scotland had democracy in the modern sense, however the point is that the rights of Scots re the monarchy as enshrined in that famous document were a huge political bomb in medieval Europe. AND the notion of being King of Scots (ie a monarch being guardian of a people, not a land) was also a huge step forward.
The modern kilt is a modern version of the Celtic all body shawl.
And the notion that up until now, the myth of the modern kilt is not known is bunkum. Bit late, that Roper fellow...
It is well known to the average man in the street in Scotland and throughout Britain, that it is a myth, the whole George IV parading in 1822 in a kilt and the ‘invention’ of the tartan and shortbread idea of Scotland is well known and has been the subject of many a book and TV documentary over the last 40 years...
1—Not BUT highland Scots, and even then only some clans.
The myth of 1715 and 1745-46 being ‘Scotland vs England’ is a sadly pervasive one.When of course it was simply Charlie’s Highlanders/French/Irish Catholic allies against all the rest (Lowland and Highland Scots, English, Welsh, Ulster Irish Protestants...)
2—Agreed. An obvious fact pompous twits like Heffer (who is a journalist btw, NOT a historian) and Roper ignore...
ALL nations have their myths.
3—Agreed.
English aggression against Scotland was historically far more prevalant, from early days (1018) to its final days (1640’s). And Scots and English aggression took different forms, goals and agendas.
Thanks for the info. Hollywood had to put their spin on the William Wallace era I guess.
Here is a summery of the most ancient sample of "the cloth" taken from Mummies from the Tarim Basin,woven of Europen sheeps wool as tested, who almost all had the celtic blood marker, "Type O".
They had travelled from Europe to Urumchi.
"As to the mysteries initially posed by Caucasian mummies, the author deduces from a wonderful cat's cradle of evidence that in the steppes north of the Black Sea two groups of the Indo-European population split off, one going west and the other east. This took place not earlier than 4000 B.C., by which time the wild, but edible, hairy sheep had been inbred to become the doubly useful woolly sheep. Because of this dual diaspora the plaid twill clothing on some of the Caucasian mummies bears an uncanny resemblance to its contemporary central European counterpart, which was later carried west to the British Isles."
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1026/is_2_156/ai_55487308
http://www.vnnforum.com/showthread.php?t=55916
http://books.google.com/books?id=gZ6ODFrQkOgC&pg=PA63&lpg=PA63&dq=Lou+Lan+Type+O+blood&source=web&ots=bTKFetMGq3&sig=YktfIEsHKYTN8nrkRas39Ly0k7I&hl=en#PPP1,M1
Thanks sionnsar.
Eminent Historian Debunks Scottish History As Largely Fabrication
The Times Online | 5-18-2008 | Stuart MacDonald
Posted on 05/19/2008 4:05:09 PM PDT by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2018335/posts
Highland Bagpipe Is A Recent Invention For Nostalgic Scotish Emigres, Expert Claims
The Telegraph (UK) | 4-19-1008 | Patrick Sawer
Posted on 04/19/2008 7:19:17 AM PDT by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2003956/posts
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