Posted on 03/20/2008 4:45:23 PM PDT by Aristotelian
Of all the claims in support of John McCain's bid for the White House, perhaps none is quite as grand as this. As he arrived in London today, the publishers of his new book insisted the Republican senator's family was descended from the Scottish king, Robert the Bruce.
For a veteran war hero staking his presidential campaign on military credentials, an ancestral link to a warrior who overcame the English to reclaim Scottish independence in 1314 has obvious appeal. But according to experts, the story may be no more than that.
Asked by the Guardian to investigate McCain's past, genealogists and medieval historians described the link to Robert the Bruce as "wonderful fiction" and "baloney".
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Britain (and Brits) does not mean England. Nor does UK/United Kingdom etc.
Scotland joined Great Britain (which was a phrase coined by a SCOT,btw, King James VI/I in 1604) in 1707. So before then Scotland was independent.
So there would have no ‘English’ hauling of Scots at that time. The last ‘English hauling’ would have been the Parliamentarian hauling of Scots Royalists to America as indentured slaves between 1651 and 1660, after the English Civil War.
Any hauling between 1660 and 1707 would have been Scots hauling their own to their minor American colonies, or Scots and English working together to despatch unwanted religious men and women to the colonies, as Scotland and England though independent, had the same monarchs, between 1603 and 1649 and 1660 and 1707(the Stuarts).
The Scots were quite happy to persecute their own, such as the Covenantors of the 1670’s and 1680’s, or recalcitrant Highland tribes (Glencoe anyone?)...
Hardly ‘English persecution’.
Given that Scotland was a part of Britain/UK/United Kingdom at the time, and has joined by choice in 1707, this is hardly English oppression on Scots.
So no would be the answer.Or at least many English, Irish (Cath & Prot) and Welsh could also claim.
I’d rather be related to William Wallace than Robert the Bruce. I don’t recall George Wallace claiming any relation to William.
I would, too. But, MacCain makes so many claims that if he one day appears at a press conference in late 18th century French finery, wearing a powdered wig and make-up and claiming to be the rightful heir to the throne of France, I won't even bat an eye.
English persecution ~ condoned and encouraged by the King himself, then the Queen. THe first decade of the 18th century was a humdinger. Thoughts of an independent Scotland were smothered ~
Remember that the 1715 and 1745 Jacobite rebellions were NOT supported by the Scots people en masse.
The 1715 rebellion barely started, and was supported only by a minority of Highlanders. And the more famous ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’ rebellion of 1745-1746 is probably the most distorted part of Scottish history.
Modern myth has it as a Scots vs English conflict, whereas the truth is completely the opposite.MORE Scots OPPOSED and fought against the Jacobite Highlanders that fought for Charlie.
At Culloden, there were more Scots troops on the Redcoat Govt side than in the Jacobite army (who were themselves partly composed of French and Catholic Irish Jacobites, as well as English and Welsh jacobites) and even then, only HALF the Highland clans supported Charlie!.
In central and lowland Scotland (inc my own region of Ayrshire), there was great hostility to the Jacobites and great support for the Govt forces. In Ayrshire alone, we hung six Jacobites...
So the idea that ‘the English’ smothered Scottish(Jacobite) independence is nonsense. Scotland JOINED the UK in 1707, unlike the conquered Welsh and Irish, and in 1715 and 1745-45, as I have stated, the majority of Scots OPPOSED the Jacobite attempts at rebellion, which btw would have meant them ruling the whole of Britain if they were successful
If you are referring to persecution of Scots in late 17th and early 18th century, then to suggest ‘English’ persecution is also nonsense.
The notorious persecutions of Scots in that time, both Lowland (the Covenanters of the 1670’s and 1680’s) and Highland (such as the McDonalds at Glencoe) were done by fellow Scots first and foremost...
If anything, you are half-right, it was Scottish persecution condoned by the English and encouraged by Kings (James VII/II and William III).Both of whom, btw, were Stuart kings of Scottish descent, James being Anglo-Scots and William being the husband of Queen Mary, another Anglo-Scots monarch.
The only ‘English persecution’ of the Scots between 1603 and 1707 as a nation would be the deliberate attempt to sabotage the Darian scheme, where Scotland famously attempted to set up a colony in Darien, Panama.
Sorry, mate, but I am a Scot who has a knowledge, fascination and passion for his nation’s history, and is a history graduate. I know my Scottish history, and your history is somewhat simplistic and skewed.
I DONT mean that personally, and I would be delighted to discuss Scottish history or any history with you here at FR.
They wee slow!
To believe in 1707 or 2008 that Scotland is best served by being a powerful and willing part of a powerful state (Britain)is hardly being a traitor.
The vast majority of Scots want Scotland to remain in the UK for the reasons given above, and you will find no more proud patriotic people than the Scots...
And neither were those who opposed the romantic, reductive tosh of Jacobitism in 1715 or 1745-46.Most of Scotland opposed Charlie and his father’s earlier attempt, as they did not wish a return to the chaos of the 1600’s, with a civil war and numerous conflicts and oppressions by the Catholic Stuart monarchs.
As one Scots historian has correctly said, “the sound of the last shot at Culloden was that of Scotland and the rest of Britain finally entering the modern age”.
And a’ the romantic nonsense aboot Charlie and a’ tha Jacobites willnae change that, ma friend...
That's gotta' have a reason ya' know.
Yes, we are a wee country.We cant hold the tens of millions of Scots-blooded people.
Whats your point?.
BTW, you can get a feel for the 1700-1702 problem by digging into the ever so popular genealogy records of UK prison barges sent to the American colonies.
Hard to find anyone but the Mac's and Mc's in there!
The Bruce was an ass anyway.
I'm one.
What of it?
The very next point is the “what of it” part.
Firstly, if you know Scots history, Scots have ALWAYS emigrated. LONG BEFORE even the time of Empire...
In medieval times, Scots traders and mercenaries emigrated to mainland Europe, both Cath & Prot,and to Ireland where they fought against the English, and became famous as the ‘Gallowglasses’ (or ‘redlegs’ in Irish Gaelic). The Scots have always been an emigrant people, due to the size of Scotland and their hard working, go getting ethos.
Secondly, I guess my question is why you see everything through a prism of ‘English stranglehold’ or ‘English oppression’. That frankly is the worst kind of Braveheartish view on Scottish history of the latter 17th and 18th centuries.
As I have pointed out, Scotland was never and has never been a part of England, so any influence, at least until after the Restortation in 1660, from 1603 onwards was limited, as both countries were independent and shared only a monarch (in fact Scotland and England fought two wars as late as 1638 and 1640).
And more importantly, the oppression of religious minorities and Highland clans in the 1670’s to early 1700’s, cannot be blamed on the English, as these were dark moments in Scottish history committed by Scotsmen. Undoubtedly condoned by the monarch in London (even then, the monarch lets not forget was a Stuart) and supported by English elites, but very much the work of Scots: Glencoe and the Campbells,the persecution of the Lowland Covenantors...
And if you know anything about Scottish history and that of the British Empire, you will see that to suggest Scotland and the Scots were marginalised in the 1700’s (or any time of the Empire) is nonsense.
In the 1700’s, it was the Scots intellectuals of Edinburgh and Glasgow who drove Britain and Western Enlightment on....Adam Smith,Frances Hutchison and others.It, not London was THE British city of that century. And Glasgow became ‘the second city of the Empire’, with its huge tobacco trade, which made the city rich, and by the 1800’s second only to London.
And it was Scots soldiers and generals who were winning the Empire, from Canada and America to India and the East. And it was Scots governors and administrators who were running the Empire, from America to India.
There is a proud saying in Scotland, which most English will admit, that ‘the Scots ran the Empire’. A saying with a huge amount of truth.
Thirdly, re prisoners.I am not sure whether you are looking at this only from the American end ie your own area, or UK records as a whole, but either way you are imo incorrect.
If you are merely dealing with your area of America, then you are looking at records for a—one area and b—a short time. Fine, a lot of those from 1700 to 1702 into your area may have been Scots, but all that states is that Scottish authorities were strict (which they were I can tell you) and they deported a lot of Scots.
Again, before 1707, the two nations were independent,but shared a monarch and as such only Scots courts had the authority to deport Scots to the then English American colonies, just as only English had the legal right to deport theirs to America. In 1707, with the union, power of deportation devolved to Westminster, who had jurisdiction over all Britain and Ireland. This the Scots agreed to (for ‘canny’ reasons no doubt: let Westminster foot any bills!...lol).
Remember, after the union of 1707, Scotland retained its legal and education systems and its church.
So any 1700-1702 Scottish deportations were purely Scots legislated and nothing to do with England, except England agreeing to these Scots deportations into ‘their’ colonies.
Other deportations to America in certain areas may show a preponderence of Catholic Irish, Welsh, (Protestant) Ulster Scots or, of course, English. Or a mix of all four.
‘Mc or Mac’, I might point out can easily mean Catholic Irish either in Ireland or living in Scotland or England or Ulster Scots just as much as it could mean Scots (and even then, was it Highland or Lowland or Border Scots, were they Jacobites, religious groups or just criminals?)
You and I know that the British Empire was never slow to send ANY British people to penal colonies and away from Britain, be it America or the most famous of all, Botany Bay...
If you are looking at the UK records as a whole, then I could counterargue that you are extrapolating some records as the whole (again, taking a narrow time and group deported as a whole).
Just looking at the prison barges. Someone was exceptionally busy rounding up the worst of the lot, eh!~
People being transported to exile are hardly in the same category as those who emigrate to the same place.
Any questions on Scots or British history, just ask.
I’ll be happy to answer.
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