Battle of Culloden 279 years ago

[Troglodyte]

Tell that to the curators of the Culloden Museum, or the Edinburgh Castle Museum, or, even (and TRULY critical) target who needs to be forced to hear AND believe it, our current American president, whose quest to become "King" seems to have MORE chance of becoming a disastrous reality than did Charles Edward Stuart's.

But, more on topic, my first visit to the museum at the Edinburgh Castle, about 2 decades ago, occurred just a few days after a visit to another memorial, at Verdun. There, the message was FAR more dramatic, compelling, and honest, to wit: let us REMEMBER the travesty of the "Great War" forever, so we're never so stupid as to repeat it. Of course, that message was forgotten barely a decade later.

What I took away from the Edinburgh Castle museum visit could be distilled down to "yeah, we know them English have decimated us time and time again, but just give us ONE more chance against their tanks and nukes and jets with our Claymores, Dirks, and Sgian Dubhs, and we'll slaughter 'em all."

OK, that's a bit over the top, but the typical tourist could be forgiven for acquiring that misunderstanding from the exhibits

Poor English... They get blamed for everything.

Until Robert the Bruce did his thing, England and Scotland had lived for several centuries in relative peace, despite the English having lost considerable swathes of land to Scotland during the domestic difficulties in England that was the Norman conquest.

It is often argued that everything south of the Forth-Clyde line ought really to be England, as it was part of the old pre-Norman Anglo-Saxon region of Northumbria that was cut in two by the Scots' imposed border. That the English allowed the Scots to keep the territory in exchange for peace gives a good indication of how the English felt (and still feel) about the Scots.

Proud Edward and his army did manage to make some redress in the 1200s, but Scotland chose to follow the English-born (he was a Essex lad, according to scholars) Anglo-Norman Robert the Bruce, and that gave us 300 years of continual warfare. England never recovered its lost lands, and the border has remained static ever since.

Everything that happened in Scottish domestic policy prior to 1603 (and prior to the Union in 1707) was carried out by Scots under the rule of their own Stewart monarchy - so the internecine sqabbling of the clans and the Scottish monarchy, their genocidal activities and proscription of specific clans (think Macgregor), and massacres like those of Glencoe were a Scot-on-Scot action.

The English (mostly because the Monarch resided in London after 1603) are generally, and conveniently, seen as the perpetrators of the Glencoe massacre and the later Clearances, but the English had no part in either. Orders for the Glencoe killings were signed by a Stewart dynasty monarch, and the Clearances were carried out by the Highland proprietors (clan chiefs) and their willing Lowland Scot (most seem to have been from the Borders) agents.

Outrage at both was openly expressed in England, with enquiries into Glencoe being called for by the English, which was resisted by Scots, and the English demanding the Clearances be halted. A good indication of how the Scots viewed the English around 1600 is expressed in the Basilikon Doron - James VI's how-to-be-a-king guide to his son, Charles, (who messed things up like few kings have ever done) - makes special mention of the English sense for fair-play and natural justice. Not the Scots' nationalistic view, in other words.

There has been no English (ie Anglo-Saxon) king since 1066, and the English have been subject to minority rule for the best part of 1,000 years - ruled by French, Welsh, Scots and German monarchs since that date. It seems to add insult to injury by blaming them for Scots' mistreatment of each other also.

But blaming others for your own faults and wrong-doing has always soothed injured pride and eased the conscience, so cultivating the English bugbear image will always serve Scotland's needs. Heigh-ho...