Ros was born in Edinburgh from a mother of the Macdonald clan, (and to this day tends to favour Scotland in rugby matches!) – and my middle name is Ogilvy. Oo’er, I hope there are no Campbells out there, as they have a long history with both our clans. Or if there are, then it’s high time to raise a glass and reconcile!

History is usually presented from the viewpoint of the winners, and that losers tend to dissimulate – or resent . . . When I was at school in France, the official teaching in history lessons was that the battle of Waterloo was a minor skirmish with no clear winner. Woo!

We, the English, have not treated the ‘home countries’ well. Whether looking across the windswept moors of Culloden, or at the territories left empty by the clearings in Sutherland, or exploring the borderlands where centuries of raiding and warfare ravaged the past, it is easy to see why the ‘past’ isn’t not just something to commemorate in Scotland but something that is deeply felt and which feels actively present.

One way and another, I came across more than a few snippets of history in the course of my journey, including one occasion when a passerby in the park in Hawick, hearing my English accent, proceeded to give me an thought-provoking impromptu history lesson.

He explained that while the English usually cheer when Scottish, Welsh and Irish teams fare well in football in tournaments, this opposite is not reciprocated. That I knew full well. In Tim’s first senior school in Scalloway, people were so passionate in wanting England to lose that the whole class used to come clad in the colours of whatever team they were playing against. Someone explained this helpfully to me: ‘We (Welsh, Scottish and Irish remember, the English never remember.’

The names and references he tossed out in passing made me want to look up details of things such as the Battle of Dunbar, and to face up to the things that the God-fearing, psalm-reading Oliver Cromwell had done to the Scots, as well as in his much better-known massacres in Ireland.* See the excursus at the end of this piece: the Scottish influence in the Irish troubles.

I thought that some of you would find it interesting for me to highlight a few ‘lowlights’ our relationship with our northern neighbour, to whom we owe so much in the shape of Celtic missionaries who had come south in the sixth century to Lindisfarne. No two ways about it, this cannot be anything but a history recital, but I hope you will find it helpful to know more about matters that are rarely if ever taught in most of schools south of the border. (And Braveheart is by no means a historically accurate film)! So this brief overview will hopefully fill in a few gaps!

When seven-year-old Queen Margaret of Scotland, died, Edward 1st was invited to arbitrate among competing claimants to the throne. He selected John Balliol, but only so long as he was prepared to acknowledge Edward as the overlord of Scotland.

When Balliol resisted English dominance, Edward invaded Scotland, sacked Berwick-upon-Tweed, defeated the Scottish army at Dunbar, forced Balliol to abdicate, and stripped Scotland of its royal regalia – including the Stone of Scone. By reason of the harsh, uncompromising rule he exercised in this campaign between 1290 and 1292 he earned the nickname ‘The Hammer of the Scots’ – but all he did in practice was to unify Scottish resistance.

When Robert the Bruce murdered his rival John Comyn, he crowned himself King of Scots, in 1306, and renewed the war. Ill and aged, Edward launched one final expedition north to crush him, but he died at Burgh by Sands near Carlisle in July 1307 before reaching Scotland – while Robert the Bruce went on to win a great victory at Bannockburn in 1314.

Edward succeeded in ‘formalising’ the role of Parliament, but his Scottish and Welsh excursions cost him and the nation dearly. By contrast, his conquest of Wales was total, and resulted in permanently redrawing the map of Britain, as he circled the country with immensely powerful stone castles.

Amongst his successors, Edward IV and Henry VII had unsettled relations with their northern neighbour, with Scotland often siding with France against England. The cautious Henry VII would much preferred to have avoided physical entanglements, but when the Scottish king, James IV, sided with the Yorkist pretender Perkin Warbeck, he had no choice but to order punitive raids – which climaxed in James recognising that Warbeck was a liability, and signing a landmark Treaty of Perpetual Peace in 1502 – which included the marriage between the Scottish king and Henry’s daughter Margaret Tudor.

Unfortunately, this peace proved to be rather less than perpetual, as a result of the disturbed and disturbing actions of Henry VII’s mercurial son. Thus began a most unpleasant chapter in Anglo-Scottish history known as The Rough Wooing, (1543-1551) during which Henry VIII brutally destroyed the monasteries in the border country.

Whereas in England he dissolved the monasteries through ‘legal’ (though very sad) means, in Scotland he unleashed his army to resort to extreme violence north of the border to try to break their spirit, in reprisal for the Scottish Parliament’s refusal to do his bidding in accepting a marriage alliance between his infant son, Edward, and the equally young and tragically-fated Mary, Queen of Scots.

Jedburgh Abbey was repeatedly torched and left a roofless ruin, while Kelso Abbey, despite being heavily fortified by Scottish forces, was bombarded and the forces slaughtered. Melrose Abbey, too, was brutally sacked, and the tombs of Scottish kings desecrated, while Dryburgh Abbey was burned to the ground, leaving its monastic community devastated.

Mary Queen of Scots herself would endure nineteen years of imprisonment in England, before being beheaded for treason by her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I. Remarkably, her turbulent life, which had involved three marriages and a forced abdication, led to a lasting legacy that ultimately united the Scottish and English crowns through her son, James VI of Scotland who became James the First of England.

A century or so later, Oliver Cromwell would impose great repression on Scotland, when his deeply religious, psalm-singing Protestant forces met a similar force in mortal combat. Gemini AI summarises the unpleasant details thus:

‘Oliver Cromwell’s interaction with Scotland was defined by military invasion, political subjugation, and religious suppression between 1650 and 1660. While Cromwell viewed fellow Protestant Scots differently from Irish Catholics – whom he subjected to ruthless massacres* – his campaign and subsequent occupation left deep scars on Scotland through economic destruction, military force, forced transportations, and the dissolution of Scottish sovereignty.

‘After Parliament executed King Charles I in 1649, the Scottish Presbyterian Covenanters declared his son, Charles II, to be the lawful King of Great Britain, because they believed in a constitutional monarchy bound by the Solemn League and Covenant.

‘Cromwell viewed this alliance as treason against God’s providence. In a letter to the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland in August 1650, Cromwell wrote: “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.”

‘As Cromwell advanced toward Edinburgh, Scottish forces under David Leslie stripped the Lothians of food and livestock to starve the English army. Cromwell retaliated by foraging heavily and seizing naval ports.

‘Radical Scottish ministers, seeking religious purity, foolishly purged over 3,000 experienced soldiers and officers from General Leslie’s defending army for “godlessness.” They then made a fatal tactical mistake on the battlefield, abandoning their strong defensive position. Realising the mistake they were making, and shouting “Let God arise, let His enemies be scattered!” the English army shattered the Scottish forces in under two hours.’

While Cromwell pursued Charles II into England, his commander General George Monck besieged Dundee. When that town refused to surrender, Monck’s forces stormed it, resulting in the killing of hundreds of residents and soldiers, followed by days of looting.

Scottish soldiers were badly treated after major battles. Following the Battle of Dunbar in 1650, around 5,000 Scottish prisoners were despatched on a ‘Death March’ south to Durham Cathedral. Over 1,000 died on the march from starvation, dysentery, and execution for attempting to escape. Thousands died after being imprisoned in Durham Cathedral without food or heat.

Those who survived were shipped to English colonies in the Caribbean (Barbados) and North America (Massachusetts and Virginia) as indentured labourers. Most did not return.

‘Following his total military victory, Cromwell forcibly abolished the Scottish Parliament and integrated Scotland into the English Commonwealth. Scotland was granted a small fraction of representation in the Parliament at Westminster, but governance was left firmly in English hands.

‘In 1653, Cromwell’s soldiers forcibly broke up the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in Edinburgh, and banned it from meeting again in his bid to curb the political power of Presbyterian ministers and to promote Independent congregations.’ (Somewhat as Charles II would later persecute Nonconformist groups, and imposing obedience to the Church of England).

Building massive stone fortresses in key locations such as Leith, Inverness, Ayr, Dundee, and Perth to garrison English troops, and to suppress potential Highland loyalist uprisings, the cost of maintaining this English army of occupation was levied directly onto the Scottish population through unprecedented levels of taxation, causing widespread economic hardship.

Following Cromwell’s death and the Commonwealth collapsing, Charles II was restored, and Scottish independence and its parliament briefly restored. This was lost however in the ensuing scrabble in England, during the so-called Glorious Revolution of 1688. (It was actually a takeover from Holland) The Catholic King, James II, was forced into exile, and the Act of Union in 1707 led to the loss of Scottish independence and its Parliament, thereby sparking the Jacobite risings, (Jacobus is Latin for James) which eventually focused around the ill-fated Bonnie Prince Charlie (Charles Edward Stuart, the “Young Pretender”).

‘The Jacobite army was brutally crushed by government forces near Inverness in the Battle of Culloden in 1746, ending the Stuart cause forever, and leading to the brutal suppression of Highland culture.’

The Duke of Cumberland (Prince William) meanwhile inflicted immense atrocities on the Highlands as he carried out a ‘scorched earth’ policy in 1746. The military parties he sent out to hunt down Jacobites were utterly bloodthirsty. When you read of the atrocities they perpetuated against women and children as well as men, it is no wonder that Cumberland came to be known as ‘The Butcher,’ ordering his troops to execute wounded Jacobites on the battlefield and to hunt down non-combatant observers.

‘Soldiers destroyed homes, seized tens of thousands of livestock – effectively starving entire communities, and executing suspects without trial. This military action was accompanied by swingeing legislation. Acts like the Heritable Jurisdictions Act 1746 stripped clan chiefs of their traditional authority, while the Dress Act 1746 outlawed tartans and kilts in an attempt to suppress Highland identity.

‘Political allies in London may have praised him as “Sweet William” for securing the victory for the Crown, but his methods shocked many contemporaries. Tory opponents as well as Scottish foes labelled him rather as “Butcher Cumberland” – or Stinking Billy.

Large numbers of prisoners were again carted off after Parliament passed the Treason Act 1746, a special statute that allowed individuals accused of high treason in Scotland to be tried in English courts outside the jurisdiction where the alleged crimes occurred. This was partly because Scottish prisons were full, but still more, one suspects, because the government in London feared that Scottish juries would be too lenient towards local Jacobite prisoners.

Most were transported by sea, packed onto overcrowded prison transport ships and naval vessels bound for London. Conditions aboard these floating hulks were notoriously atrocious, with many prisoners dying of typhus, scurvy, and starvation before ever reaching port. Other captured troops and suspected rebels were marched south under military escort, ironed together in long columns. Once in England, prisoners were distributed across several castles, gaols, and makeshift prisons, all the way from Carlisle and York to London and Tilbury Fort.

Although some were released under the General Pardon of 1747, banished, or acquitted due to lack of evidence, others were held in terrible conditions to stand trial, many dying the terrible death of a traitor, being hung, drawn and quartered in towns such as Carlisle. Nearly a thousand men, women and young children were again transported to the Caribbean and North America to be sold into servitude, where most perished from tropical diseases and harsh treatment.

The Clearances

We are by no means at the ned of this tale of woe, but have reached the part that most of you are most likely to be familiar with.

We often heard when we were in Shetland that the dread order to carry out ‘Clearances’ was proclaimed from pulpits. These occurred for over a century between 1740 and 1850, when the British government, intent on completing its work of breaking up the traditional Gaelic clan system, gave the order for individual aristocratic landowners, estate owners, and estate managers (factors) to ‘clear’ the small tenant farmers (crofters) off the land. With large-scale, Cheviot-sheep farming and, later, deer forests bringing much greater profits, clan chiefs evolved from tribal leaders and protectors into commercial, rent-seeking landlords. Many showed great brutality in clearing the crofters off their lands, and forcing them to emigrate to Canada, the United States and Australia.

Praise God for the Crofters’ Holdings (Scotland) Act which was finally passed by the British Parliament in 1886, granting crofters security of tenure, fair rents, and the right to pass their leases to descendants, thereby ending arbitrary landlord evictions.

Truly, the past is ever living . . . may the Lord bless Scotland, and help the people we have hurt to have the grace to forgive us our many deep wrongs.

*Excursus: The Scottish Influence in the Irish Troubles

When James the 6th of Scotland became James the First of England in 1603, as the result of Elizabeth having no children, he did not want the border reivers hassling his new English subjects in the northern regions of what he desperately hoped would become a united kingdom. Accordingly, he cunningly deported the worst of them to Northern Ireland.

But these battle-hardened fighters and cattle rustlers caused a great deal of trouble by raiding local properties and taking them over from the Irish, as well as clashing with Crown officials. This created deep sectarian and ethnic, grievances between the displaced Catholic Irish and the incoming Protestant Scottish/English settlers, issues that echo and rankle shrilly to this day.

In 1641 the Irish rose in revolt, and much blood was shed in Ulster. Eight years later Cromwell arrived in force to put the revolt down, and to avenge the death of these English settlers – as well as to ensure that Ireland could not be used as a launch pad for Catholic nations to invade England.).

He was equally determined to root out what he perceived to be the destructive heresy of Catholicism. Another factor was his firm intention to exploit Ireland financially in order to cover the debts he had incurred funding his New Model army.

Landing in the newly captured port of Dublin with his new Model army of Protestant Parliamentarians in September 1649), he made his way to Drogheda, twenty-eight miles to the north. When the garrison there refused to surrender, Cromwell ordered that ‘no quarter be given.’ No fewer than 2–3,000 soldiers, priests, and civilians were slaughtered, and Catholic clergy were executed on sight.

The following month saw a similar massacre taking place at Wexford, when Parliamentarian troops breached the walls while negotiations were still ongoing, killing up to 2,000 soldiers and civilians in the marketplace. No wonder that such massacres and such treachery have locked Ireland into its violent past.

Cromwell proceeded to systematically confiscate millions of acres of Catholic-owned land right across Ireland. Native Irish landowners were ordered to move west of the River Shannon (“To Hell or to Connacht”), leaving the fertile lands of Ulster and Leinster to Parliamentarian soldiers and Protestant settlers. In other words, Cromwell exacerbated the existing problems greatly.

In all these things, the Lord has seen every action, and every person affected – just as He sees every descendant from these troubled times. The Lord can forgive those who repent if they seek him in earnest; but whilst nothing can negate the damage these historic sins have caused, we can still pray that the Lord will hear our repentance as English people, and yet move by the power of His mighty and merciful Spirit across our bruised and battered nations.

Cromwell’s incursions created famine and forced displacement that caused hundreds of thousands of Irish Catholic deaths, and gave rise to deep-seated historical trauma. Letters from the campaign reveal that Cromwell genuinely believed he was executing divine justice and doing God’s work by punishing the Irish.

Confident Catholic hopes that anticipated nothing less than a total restoration of their lands following his downfall (they had previously owned 60%) were soon dashed because Charles II was politically dependent on former parliamentarian officers who had secured his return. They ended up with only 20% Whilst harsh Cromwellian persecution eased as a result of Charles II practising informal religious toleration, Catholicism remained legally restricted, and barred from sending any delegates to the House of Commons. Despite these political strains, Ireland’s domestic economy recovered remarkably well for a season from the devastation of the 1640s, with trade expanding and port towns thriving – until the next round of troubles began.

Photo by Garvit Nama on Unsplash