Scotland's Roman Eagle Changes Everything [17:24]

YouTube ^ | April 26, 2026 | WC21 (UK) Productions LTD

[SunkenCiv]

Well into Scotland this week and looking at Roman occupation, including one of the last physical signs of it, the truly remarkable Eagle Rock near Cramond. 

Now it normally raises some controversy in the comments whenever we acknowledge Roman control north of the wall, so we try to take a balanced view in this film: yes, parts of Scotland did fall for some periods - it's bonkers to deny that - but this site investigation shows how transitory it was. 

As well as the fantastic Eagle Rock, we explore the exposed remains of the Roman fort in Cramond - a place that played a key role in the campaigns of Severus - the last attempts to annex what we now call Scotland. Oh, and we've also got the tale of the Cramond Lioness too! 

"Sadly, because it is 2026 and we have morons, there is a dog poo bag rammed into a hole in a Roman wall." 

Scotland's Roman Eagle Changes Everything | 17:24 
WC21 (UK) Productions Ltd | 26.7K subscribers | 102,169 views | April 26, 2026

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TOPICS: History; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: caledonia; cramond; eaglerock; godsgravesglyphs; romanempire

[SunkenCiv]

YouTube transcript reformatted at textformatter.ai *may* follow.

[SunkenCiv]

[ek_hornbeck]

When spending time in the UK, I've always been struck by how many Brits (usually English, sometimes Scots and others) who have stereotypical "Roman noses" - like those you see on busts of Roman Emperors.

The Romans were southern Europeans and thus genetically distinct from Celts, Saxons, and Normans, but I haven't seen much on the genetic "signature" of Romans in the British isles.

[Bon of Babble]

...yes, parts of Scotland did fall for some periods

And looks like it will fall again:

"Net migration into Scotland increased significantly in recent years, rising from +22,200 in the year to mid-2021 to +61,600 in the year to mid-2023, the highest level in the past decade."

[Opinionated Blowhard]

Now it normally raises some controversy in the comments whenever we acknowledge Roman control north of the wall,

LOL. Gotta love the Scots. No foreign power ever controlled them. Ever. And if you dare suggest it ever happened at any time every in their history, well them's fightin words!! One of my favorite quotes (admittedly it may be fictional) is from the Roman attempt at occupation of what today is Scotland - "ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant." Roughly translated as the Romans make a desert and call it peace.

[econjack]

I remember as a kid hearing of Hadrian’s Wall and thinking of something like the Great Wall of China. When I finally made a trip to England, I took a side trip to see the wall. Instead of a massive wall of unscalable height, there was this puny 3’ pile of rocks that I could jump over. Turns out, the wall really wasn’t one of defense, but rather a line to tell the Scotts that the Romans didn’t want to mess around with them if you stay north of this line.

[montag813]

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Great vid. Thanks for posting. We were right there last August! But we only drove by on our way from Edinburgh to Fort William with a long stop at Stirling to visit the castle there.

[SunkenCiv]

Yeah, I get a kick out of that.

The Scots cowered in Ireland, wetting their kilts, for nearly 100 years after the Roman legions left Britain.

During the early Middle Ages, the Scots left Ireland and carved out what is now Scotland because there wasn’t much competition, and because they were careful not to tick off the Vikings who were all over the north and Ireland itself.

The Romans’ last big encursion north of the wall was to take care of the local ne’er-do-wells who’d made trouble for Rome’s allies and trading partners up there. Rome’s reach was always well beyond its borders.

That was in the 2nd c.

The impression on Roman commanders was that there wasn’t anything or anyone of much value in Caledonia. Had the conquest been wrapped up by Agricola, as he intended, history might have been marginally different. There’s evidence of a Roman presence in Ireland, in the form of perhaps a fortified trading post, north of Dublin, and perhaps there was a reconnaissance in force, a la Julius Caesar’s two landings in SE England.

Britain was nearly entirely quiet under Roman rule, and was a popular place to settle thanks to the easier winters (the Gulf stream). Summers not too hot, winters not too cold. Ruins of Roman-era villas all seem to have hypercausts for under-the-floor heating.

The Romans built a drainage and navigation canal (the Cardyke) late in the 1st or early in the 2nd century, and I think most of it is still there, doing its drainage job. It probably served Roman-era Britons well (midlands coal wound up in Roman contexts, iron metallurgy, that kind of thing), but after the legions left, the Angles probably found it a convenient method of settling in the middle of the island (the Kdm of Mercia was Angle). Whoops.

[SunkenCiv]

What a drama queen.

The Romans were so cowed by that terrible defeat [sic] that they wound up putting one of their four eventual capitals in Rheims Germany, clear-cut the forests of Jutland, and left behind a cemetery in what is now Copenhagen.

[SunkenCiv]

https://search.brave.com/search?q=photos+of+hadrians+wall

[SunkenCiv]

One of my classmates had maternal grandparents from England, and has just such a nose. I didn’t have any Italian DNA ID’ed when I had mine done, but had something like 30% Scandinavian, due to the big bad Vikings’ having settled, sacked, and raped their way through the Isles, Scotland, Ireland, and Britain. Oh, and German ancestry probably means some Scandinavian made it through.

[SunkenCiv]

Sounds great!

[Cronos]

“Gotta love the Scots. No foreign power ever controlled them. Ever. “

Well:

1. The Scotti were an Irish tribe who conquered the Picts (the aboriginal tribes of Scotland)

2. The Danes conquered parts of it

3. The Britons conquered part of it around Strathclyde.

4. The Normans conquered the lowlands (Robert the Bruce had Norman blood,)

5. The English conquered them under Edward I Longshanks

[Albion Wilde]

Just because I love it totally and have watched it dozens of times, I'm linking this video of contemporary Scottish folk music played on American TV 18 years ago:

The Wicked Tinkers with Craig Ferguson

[SunkenCiv]

Nice! When I hear the pipes I get the eerie feeling that my Scots ancestors have risen up behind me and are getting ready to march to war. I never turn around to check.

[Paal Gulli]

"Gotta love the Scots. No foreign power ever controlled them. Ever."

The Scots didn't yet exist during the Roman occupation of (parts of) Britain.

Also, the Scots willingly surrendered their sovereignty to the English in 1707, largely because they'd dumped a sizeable portion of their treasury into a disasterous real estate deal gone bad in Panama, and the English agreed to help cover their markers.

[Paal Gulli]

"Turns out, the wall really wasn’t one of defense, but rather a line to tell the Scotts that the Romans didn’t want to mess around with them if you stay north of this line."

There were no Scots when Hadrian built the wall.

[gleeaikin]

Those Somali thugs do get around, I wonder if it is the same clan as the one operating in Milwaukee. Somalia itself has bitter fighting between the various clans. Maybe they cooperate like Mafia when they hold different territory.

[econjack]

What were the people north of the wall called?