A Marriage of Inconvenience: Scotland and England

Many people think Britain is a very old country. In fact, it is barely older than the USA -- younger if we insist on its current name, the United Kingdom.

Britain became an official country in 1707, when England and Scotland united to create The Kingdom of Great Britain. In 1801, Ireland was added to the Union and it was renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (now Northern Ireland).

The road to the union of Scotland and England began a century before, in 1603. Elizabeth I died childless, as Virgin Queens tend to do. She also painted herself with white poison and had poor personal hygiene. That may be another reason for her lack of an heir. But she did live to be 69.

Her cousin King JamesVI of Scotland inherited the throne of England, where he was crowned as James I. History books generally refer to him as James I, because England is much more important than Scotland, you see. 

James was not only the first Scottish monarch of England. He was also the first to rule the entire British Isles. He styled himself "King of Great Britain and Ireland" although no such kingdom existed. James proposed a formal union between Scotland and England, but the idea was unpopular in both countries. Rather. 

It took another century to achieve James's idea of union. In 1707, his great granddaughter, Queen Anne, became the first monarch of the Kingdom of Great Britain. The flag of the new country was that designed by James, which combined the English cross of St. George with the Scottish cross of St. Andrew. 

The parliaments of both countries passed the necessary legislation, the Act of Union, which abolished the Scottish parliament in Edinburgh. Scotland received 45 MPs and 16 representative lords in the Westminster Parliament. 

Scotland also kept its own legal system of civil law, which differed (and differs) in many ways from English common law. Scotland retained (and retains) its own established or state church. The Presbyterian Church of Scotland, unlike the Episcopal Church of England, had no bishops, and there were some major doctrinal differences as well. 

The Union was a tough sell, especially in Scotland, because of the loss of its parliament. It was obvious then as now that English representatives would always dominate over the much smaller number of Scottish ones. 

English negotiators sweetened the deal with a number economic goodies. The Scottish economy was in dire shape after the collapse of the Darien Scheme in the 1690s. Financial help from the English Exchequer and free trade with the English colonies was a deal maker for the Scots. That and a bit of well-directed bribery. 

It took several decades for the new union to find grudging acceptance on both sides of the border. They had after all been enemies for centuries and had fought many a bloody battle. 

Scots who opposed the Act of Union complained that their leaders had sold off their parliament for English gold. Many of the English were appalled by the prospect of their country being invaded by lean and hungry Scots greedy to take over their jobs, money, women, and empire. 

Alas, Scots in great number did pour into England. As much as possible, the English sent them away to serve as soldiers, sailors, and administrators of the Empire. Oh, and Doctors, or McDoctors.

During the 18th century, English writings and images often portrayed Scots as impoverished, uncouth, dirty barbarians. In "A Scots Pastoral" (1763), the poet Charles Churchill characterized Scotland as a land of famine where "half-starved spiders preyed on half-starved flies." Samuel Johnson called Scotland a "vile country." (He later changed his opinion somewhat after a visit there.)

The cartoons below indicate how some of the English viewed their new fellow citizens, the "North Britons." They usually portrayed them as savage Highlanders and referred to them as "Sawney." 

The name "Sawney" came from the legend of Sawney Bean, a robber who allegedly lived in a cave and ate his victims. The English represented themselves in the character of John Bull, a sturdy, honest beef eater. You get the picture: thieving cannibal v. hard working farmer.

In 1714, a change of dynasty threatened to kill the infant state of Great Britain in its cradle. Queen Anne had at least 17 pregnancies, but only five of them resulted in live births. Of those, four died before the age of two. One child survived infancy, but he died aged 11. Anne turned out to be the last of the Stuarts to rule the two kingdoms. 

Anne had lots of relatives with claims to the throne, most notably her younger half-brother James, "The Old Pretender." The problem was that he and all of Anne's close relatives were Catholic. After the reign of Bloody Mary, that was a BIG problem in England. 

In 1702 the English parliament barred Catholics from inheriting the throne. It passed an act settling the crown on Anne's nearest Protestant relative, who was German. The Scots parliament initially refused to go along, but accepted it as part of the agreement that produced the Act of Union in 1707. 

A lot of people in Britain were upset by the Act of Settlement, which they viewed as a violation of hereditary right. But it was most disliked in Scotland, especially in the Highlands. 

When Anne died in 1714, George, Elector of Hanover, became king, the first Hanoverian monarch. During the next thirty years, Scotland was the scene of several Jacobite risings on behalf of the exiled Catholic Stuarts. 

The last and most dangerous of these revolts, in 1745, saw the last battle fought on British soil, at Culloden, near Inverness. A Hanoverian army of mainly Lowland Scots and English soldiers crushed a Jacobite force of hungry, exhausted, outnumbered Highland clansmen. It was more of a massacre than a battle. 

The romance surrounding the '45 and its leader, "Bonnie Prince Charlie" seems inexplicable today. Prince Charles Edward Stuart escaped from the battlefield disguised as a woman. This was a sound ploy in the Highlands, where transvestism was widespread. He then fled to the Continent, to spend the rest of his life beating his wife, gambling, and drinking himself to death. 

In the aftermath of Culloden, Parliament passed laws designed to destroy Highland clan culture. Laws proscribed the wearing of the tartan and undermined the clan system. In the 19th century a reimagined Scottish culture emerged, which we are still suffering from today. I blame the Romantic movement and Queen Victoria. 

Ironically, the new/old Scottish culture was essentially sanitized Highland culture without Highlanders: tartan, kilts, bagpipes, whisky, Highland games, and haggis.  The most famous writers about the Highlands were Lowlanders: Burns, Scott, and Stevenson. 

Queen Victoria also lent a hand. Vicky loved Scotland, and I do mean LOVED. None of the Hanoverian kings had gone near Scotland, except for George IV in the 1820s, when he exposed his massively obese self in a kilt at the request of Sir Walter Scott. It must have used a lot of tartan. 

In the 1850s Victoria bought the Balmoral Estate and built the current castle. She started the tradition of the Royal Family holidaying in the Highlands in August and September. I'm not sure the family has ever forgiven her. 

Lots of English and Lowland tourists followed the royals, as they do, wearing tartan and pretending to be Rob Roy or Braveheart -- who BTW Mel, didn't wear a kilt or paint his face blue. 

The new romantic Highland culture was both ironic and tragic. Tragic because it came into existence largely in the absence of Highlanders themselves. Most of them left in the 19th century, some by choice, but many by force. Greedy landlords drove them off their farms to make room for sheep and wealthy tourists, hunters, and fishermen. 

The Highland Clearances were part of a great Scottish Diaspora. Scots left their homeland in droves, like the Scottish cattle going south to feed the rich folk of London. Scots emigrated to the Lowlands, England, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and other parts of the globe.  

Today there are fewer people in the Highlands than in 1800. It is the most sparsely populated region in Europe. The population of Scotland itself remains small for a country its size. 

In 1707 the population of England was about 5 times that of Scotland. Today, it is more than 10 times larger, 67 million to 5.5 million. Much of England's demographic growth came from immigrants, and many of them were Scots. 

One of the things that helped cement the Union, and maintain the UK until recently, was the British Empire. Note: British, not English. It was a shared venture of all the peoples of the British Isles. 

Scots were particularly active in imperial affairs, for good or ill. With the end of Empire, a sense of shared Britishness seems to have gone as well. Nowadays, most white people in the UK identify as English, Scots, or Welsh, not British. 

Since 1998, Scotland has had its own devolved parliament at Holyrood, in Edinburgh. It is currently dominated by Scottish nationalists committed to independence. Brexit has sharpened Scots' desire for independence, because they feel that the English have dragged them out of the EU against their will. It may be that Brexit is the final nail in the coffin for the UK as it exists today. Stay tuned.

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Tom Paine: The Patriot America Rejected

The triumph of Trump and his MAGA movement of faux patriots tells me it is time to look once again at the career of someone who was a true patriot and friend of mankind, who labored for human rights instead of against them: Thomas Paine.

Poor Tom Paine. Rejected by American Patriots he served so well for being too radical, nearly guillotined by French revolutionaries for being too conservative, he died poor and forgotten in an America he helped to create. Ironically, the country that reveres his memory most is the one he rebelled against: Great Britain.

Paine was born in Thetford, England January 29, 1737. He trained in the same trade as his Quaker father, as a maker of rope stays used on sailing ships (not corset stays as some detractors claimed). At various times he also worked as an excise officer and schoolteacher.

In 1768 he was appointed an excise officer in Lewes, in Sussex, a town with a strong republican tradition. He lived in the 15^th century Bull House.

Paine soon became involved in the town government of Lewes and often held forth on politics at the White Hart Inn, now Hotel. I stayed here on my trip to Lewes a few years ago.

During his years in Lewes, Paine became increasingly anti-monarchical and anti-aristocratic, sentiments he took to America in the autumn of 1774. He emigrated at the suggestion by Benjamin Franklin, then representing colonial interests in Britain. Paine arrived in Philadelphia to find the thirteen colonies on the verge of revolt against British rule. He quickly became involved in politics, and surged to fame with the publication of his immensely popular pamphlet Common Sense in January 1776.

In Common Sense, Paine argued that independence was just that. He avoided the formal, scholarly political discourse of the day, writing in an easy to read, punchy style that rendered politics intelligible to the average reader. The work converted many ordinary Americans to the idea of independence.

At the end of 1776, Paine published a pamphlet series The American Crisis, designed to inspire sacrifice in the struggle for independence. It opens with some of the most famous words ever written: “These are the times that try men’s souls.” Washington had it read aloud to his soldiers.

During the War for Independence, Paine served the revolutionary government in various capacities. It was a bumpy time for him, as he clashed with some of his fellow revolutionaries, accusing them, with some reason, of corruption.

Perhaps Paine’s most important contribution to the revolutionary cause was his mission to France in 1781, with John Laurens of South Carolina. The two men shared something besides their revolutionary fervor: they opposed slavery. Laurens was killed in one of the last battles of the war.

Paine and Laurens succeeded in gaining funds and a French commitment to send a fleet and army to America later that year. The arrival of the French during Washington’s Siege of Yorktown, Virginia played a crucial role in bringing about the surrender of British forces under Lord Cornwallis in October.

Peace talks began a few months after Yorktown, and a treaty recognizing American independence was finalized in 1783.

Paine returned to England in 1787 to pursue business projects. He soon became involved in the Revolution that began in France in 1789. In 1791, he wrote a long defense of the French Revolution, The Rights of Man. It sold over a million copies, to the horror of British conservatives. 

James Gillray's cartoon, below, attacks Paine as he tightens violently Britannia's corset, a reference to his supposed occupation as a corset staymaker.

A second volume of The Rights of Man, in 1792, argued for a comprehensive program of universal, free education and social security. The book helped inspire radical movements, as well as major government efforts to suppress them and the book's author.

Paine went to France to avoid arrest, and became involved in the radical phase of the revolution. He was elected to the National Convention. When Louis XVI was tried for treason in 1792, Paine, who opposed capital punishment, voted against execution. 

Paine's plea to spare the king, although unsuccessful, angered radical Jacobins who soon came to power and began the Reign of Terror. They arrested Paine. He spent ten months in prison and narrowly avoided being guillotined. After his release, he criticized President Washington and other American leaders for not helping him.

In the late 1790s, Paine supported Napoleon, but turned against him when his authoritarian aims became clear. At the invitation of President Jefferson, Paine returned to the United States by 1803. 

Paine's welcome was not warm, partly because of his scathing criticisms of Washington and other American leaders. His opposition to slavery also alienated many people. And another work he wrote in installments during these years, The Age of Reason, attacked Christianity. 

The Age of Reason sold well, but it outraged many people, especially in the new United States, where a great evangelical revival was underway. Paine died impoverished and nearly friendless in New York in 1809. Only six people came to his funeral. Two of them black freedmen. A widely reprinted obituary stated that he “did some good, but much harm.”

In 1819 William Cobbett, a British radical, took Paine’s remains back to England for a proper burial. (image)

The burial apparently never happened and the ultimate disposal of Paine’s remains is unknown. 

During the 19^th century, Paine and his works helped inspire progressive movements in Britain and America. He is remembered fondly in the town of Lewes, Sussex. There is even a Rights of Man pub. Drop in for a pint or two when in town and toast the memory of Tom Paine, a true friend to mankind.

Lewes, Sussex

Sawney Bean, Iconic Scotsman, Renowned Philosopher, Cannibal

OK, I made up the philosopher bit just to get your attention. But the rest is absolutely true. England has Robin Hood and King Arthur. Scotland has the Loch Ness Monster and Sawney Bean. No one doubts that the Monster of the dark, deep loch exists. Many historians doubt that Bean existed, but then historians love to question our most cherished beliefs. 

The fact is we have pictures of Bean, so that should settle the matter. Have you ever seen such a clear picture of the Loch Ness Monster as the ones of Bean above and below? I'm sure you haven't. (Images courtesy of FOX news)

If he did exist, Bean lived precisely sometime between the 13th and the 16th century, and exactly somewhere in a cave in Scotland. What is known for absolute certainty is that Bean was the leader of a clan of 48 people who lived by kidnapping people, robbing them of their clothes and other material possessions, and then having them for supper. Not as guests. Bean was a Cannibal and that och aye, rhymes with Hannibal. 

We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Bean's vicious gang ate over 1000 people and was routed by an army of 400 led by King James I of Scotland, and then executed but not eaten. Some versions say it was King James I of England who beat the Beans. As every schoolboy knows, he was King James VI of Scotland first, before Queen Elizabeth, not the present Elizabeth, but the first one, died without any issue (a kid). (Image: King James, number uncertain.)

As far as we know, that King James, whatever his true number, did not actually eat Queen Elizabeth to gain the throne, but history records that he did enjoy eating English food. After decades of haggis, neeps, and kippers, it's hardly surprising. Stories rapidly circulated that he was particularly fond of bangers and mash, which is actually a euphemism for (censored). 

But I digress. This article is about Mr. Bean. No, not that Mr. Bean. The source of the Sawney Bean story, it appears, is something called The Newgate Calendar, a London publication that related the stories of famous criminals. This has led some thin-skinned Scots to claim that the English made up the story of Sawney to denigrate Scots. (See SNP)

I do not believe this for a minute. My reasoning is that most of the criminals chronicled in the Newgate Calendar were English. If Bean didn't exist, he must have been invented by the Scottish Tourist Board. (Image of Thistle)

What we can properly accuse the English of is appropriating Bean as an icon of Scottish barbarity. In the 18th century, many English folk were troubled to find that by some devious plot, Scotland had craftily managed to unite with England in something called Great Britain.

This union would have been great indeed if all the Scots had left to fight against the French and Indians. But perversely, only some of them did. Others discovered the High Road to London, the Scotsman's favorite prospect. Hordes of starving kilted bagpipers descended upon the capital. Naturally, the good people of England and Nigel Farage did not like this, as the following image reveals:

The biggest problem with these Scots, it seems, was that they lacked proper toilet habits. This complaint was lodged with abundant clarity in a popular cartoon called Sawney in the Boghouse, which I post below, courtesy of Acme Toilet Cleaners.

Needless to say, this sort of thing did not contribute to amicable relations between the North Britons and their southern brethren, as this English cartoon  of 1792 shows. 

Fortunately, relations have improved immensely since then. Other good news: lots of people are making money of the Bean story these days. I hope to be one of them.

History as She is Learned: Some of my Students' Greatest Hits

"Visits to Bedlam Lunatic Hospital by prominent socialites and political figures (such as the Prince of Whales) increased the popularity of these visits throughout the general public."

(Image: George, Prince of Wales, by James Gillray)

"The Haitian Revolutionaries defeated the French due to gorilla warfare."

“Thomas Wolsey was born a pheasant and grew up to be a cardinal.”

"The Flagellants flatulated themselves for religion, believing the plaque was the work of God."

"Voltaire argued that forcing people to believe in a particular religion produced hippocrates."

"The Battle of the Nile provided the impotence for Great Britain to exercise a greater hold on their colonies".

"If not for his role in finding Livingstone, Henry Stanley would not have sat on Parliament."

See if you can find Stanley in this picture.

THE END (is near).