The Spirit of Scotland. Presentation theme.

James II fell by the bursting of his own cannon, and the prophecy that a

dead man would win Roxburgh Castle came true. In 1513 on the field of

Flodden the fighting was so desperate that the king of Scots, heading the

charge, broke the enemy centre to within a spear-length of the English

commander - only to perish and lose the day with the flower of his

chivalry. One of the final chapters in the Three Hundred Years\' War is

known as \"Rough Wooing\", when Henry VIII of England forcibly attempted to

procure the infant Mary Queen of Scots as bride for his son — all in vain.

The outcome of this deadly struggle (for survival of a nation was at

stake) seems nothing less than a miracle, given the overwhelming odds.

Possessing at least five times more manpower and wealth, England also

employed mercenary units from overseas, and even some trusty Scottish

barons with their resources. Her armies virtually always had sound

advantages in experience, discipline, armament and sheer strength. Yet for

all the utmost exertions of successive English kings and generals, for the

immense loss of gold and blood, they only managed to acquire the border

town of Berwick-upon-Tweed (it changed hands fourteen times) and the Isle

of Man. The only source of Scotland\'s endurance lay in the spirit of her

defenders and her integrity. Patriotic heroes like Wallace and Bruce did

inspire, but even when these were exiled or confined the leaderless Scots

still fought, as they declared, \"for the Lion\", the heraldic symbol of

their realm. Knight and cleric, tradesman and peasant, Highlander and

Lowlander embraced the common cause.

And the ultimate irony was that the crown of England shortly fell to the

Scottish royal house of Stewart.

Reformation

No part of Europe could stay away from the powerful social and spiritual

currents of approaching change. In the later Middle Ages ever louder calls

were heard against the hallowed order of the church. Martin Luther\'s

theses of 1517 announced a deep and lasting religious divide which is

still there.

Scotland\'s two archbishops (St. Andrews and Glasgow), eleven bishops and

several dozen abbots and priors may not have been opulent by higher

continental standards, but for a country with rather limited resources

they were endowed extremely well. For centuries the crown and secular

lords lavished the church, which took a fiercely patriotic stance in the

wars of independence, with estates, privileges and donations. As a result

it amassed, allegedly, over half of national wealth. The prelates often

acted as principal advisors to the government in supreme offices of state

and held sway in the cultural and moral sphere.

On the other hand, the corruption and venality of those expected to be

models of virtue were increasingly deplored and condemned, not least by

clergymen themselves. While a king\'s bastard sons, teenagers and even

infants, were ordained bishops and abbots to enjoy vast ecclesiastical

revenues, some parishes could not afford to repair their dilapidated

churches, and some priests did not know enough Latin to celebrate mass.

The clergy met with growing indignation of the faithful as well as envy

and greed of the gentry, yearning for its riches.

The choice lay between Catholic France and Protestant England. For a long

while the position of the former party, led by Cardinal Beaton and Marie

de Guise, mother and regent to young Mary, queen of Scots, looked

impregnable. The age-old alliance with France was sealed by the legal

introduction of a single Franco-Scottish citizenship and the wedding, in

1558, of the queen of Scots and the Dauphin who soon became king of

France. The English, for their part, toiled hard to arouse and exploit the

Protestant movement, and changed tactics from crude force to diplomatic

pressure, intrigue and bribery. A sudden outburst determined the course of

history.

On 11 May, 1559 in St. John\'s Church at Perth a stern long-bearded priest

named John Knox, who had collaborated with Calvin at Geneva, preached a

sermon \"vehement against idolatry\". The inflamed mob set to desecrate the

altars and ravage religious houses all over the burgh. Within weeks the

scene recurred in many other places, and Protestant nobles styling

themselves Lords of the Congregation rose an armed rebellion with English

backing. In the midst of resolute measures against them the queen mother

died, and the Catholics lost her devoted leadership; their cause badly

lacked an exponent of Knox\'s calibre. The rebels concluded a treaty of

alliance with England and summoned the Reformation Parliament which

abolished papal supremacy, forbade the Latin mass and adopted \"The

Confession of Faith\", stating the Protestant doctrine.

The radical Calvinist approach meant that old hierarchy yielded to Kirk

(i.e. church) Sessions of elected elders and local Presbyteries, empowered

to ordain ministers. Catholics, of course, were not exterminated, but

became a minority restricted in civil and religious rights. The

Reformation had a profound, if contradictory, effect on Scottish life and

mentality. A new national system of education emerged with schools

provided in every parish. On the other hand, the development of secular

literature and fine arts, especially music and theatre, was stifled by

emphatic Calvinst demands for pious austerity. Most sculptured or painted

images and all stained glass windows were smashed by bigots.

It was this country, abruptly alienated from France and Rome in favour of

England, which the Catholic Mary, queen of Scots and dowager queen of

France, returned to govern in 1561. A widow at eighteen, famed for beauty

and charm, she also revealed admirable courage. For most of her short

reign she succeeded in keeping her contumacious nobles at bay, and pursued

the wise policy of religious toleration. All too soon, however, she gave

in to passions of the heart, which proved baneful. Both her subsequent

marriages — to Lord Darnley and, after his murder, to the Earl of

Bothwell, who was widely blamed for the deed, - were rash and disastrous.

General resentment and revolt followed, and Mary was forced to abdicate in

1567. She made her last fatal error by seeking refuge with her cousin

Elizabeth of England, whose very throne she claimed herself, since in the

eyes of Catholic Europe Elizabeth was illegitimate. For the remaining

nineteen years of her life Mary faded away in English custody and was

beheaded by orders of her cousin.

Mary\'s words \"In my end is my beginning\" came true. Her fate commands a

timeless fascination, and no woman in history surpasses her poetic and

artistic renown. The prophecy was also fulfilled in another sense. In 1603

Mary\'s son James VI, king of Scots, succeeded the murderess of his mother

to the English throne, and became James 1 of Great Britain.

The union of the crowns took shape. Naturally, the king and his court

removed to the luxuries of London, which, for Scotland, meant increasing

neglect, drain of talent and funds, and growth of English influences, but

in every respect she remained a country apart. On the whole, James showed

himself a skillful statesman, generally in control of his motley dominions

with little coercion or bloodhed.

Covenant and Revolution

In 1625 the ill-starred Charles I inherited the sceptre of his father. A

Scot by birth, if not by conviction, he promptly revealed autocratic

leanings and a firm belief in his divine rights. Charles\'s proud title,

\"Defender of the Faith\", inevitably raised the vital question - which one?

His English subjects were mostly Episcopalian, the Irish adhered to

Catholicism, the majority of Scots were strict Presbyterians, with other

confessions also represented in each case. The king\'s decision to enforce

a version of Anglican liturgy in Scotland plunged the British Isles into

chaos, strife and revolution.

In 1638 a multitude of Scots of every rank, enraged by \"popish\"

innovations, signed the manifesto known as the National Covenant. It

protested against the \"corruptions of the public government of the Kirk\"

as well as \"our poor country being made an English Province\", and pledged

to uphold \"the true religion\". Although the document promised to abide by

the king\'s authority, before long the Covenanters came to grips with the

Royalists. Needing money to deal with the insurrection, Charles turned to

his London parliament, which openly defied him. All parties (far from

unanimous within themselves) were now entangled in armed conflict and

tried to play off one of their adversaries against the other. At first the

English parliament, hard pressed by the king\'s supporters, appealed for

Scottish aid, and the Covenanters\' army helped to reverse the course of

events. Then the Marquis of Montrose rekindled Royalist hopes with a

string of triumphs in Scotland, but King Charles, beleaguered on all sides

in England, deemed it best to surrender to Scottish troops there. Covenant

generals appear to have sold Charles to their allies in return for arrears

due for invading England. At once they repented this vile and foolish act

and intervened again, this time on behalf of the captive sovereign, but it

was too late. In January 1649 Charles ascended the scaffold in London.

In Scotland the execution horrified even his most implacable opponents,

and his son Charles was immediately proclaimed king. National feeling

assumed a familiar anti-English tone. But all the forces raised and

battles given were lost to the formidable might of General Cromwell, who

headed the English Republic and its newly-reformed army. Despite a

stubborn and protracted resistance, in the 1 650s Scotland, for the first

time ever, was annexed by a foreign power, \"as when the poor bird is

embodied into the hawk that hath eaten it up\". However, the rightful king,

the Scottish parliament and thousands of exiles never recognized

Cromwell\'s Commonwealth, and English occupation of Scotland lasted for

just a few years. In 1660 Charles II returned to punish the rebels and

restore all government institutions. Apart from the resolute suppression

of extreme Covenanters, his long reign was fairly uneventful, especially

by comparison with the troubled times before and after it.

In the person of his brother, James II (VII of Scotland), Britain acquired

a Catholic monarch, something which has long been forgotten. James\'s

earnest and understandable efforts to secure religious toleration and

equality for those who professed his faith resulted in wide Protestant

opposition. After just three years in power, faced with the armed

intrusion of his own son-in-law, the Dutch prince William of Orange, James

lost heart and fled to France. The Scottish estates followed English

example by declaring that he forfeited the crown, which they bestowed on

William and his wife Mary.

King over the Water

The so-called \"Glorious Revolution\" of 1688-9 was little more than a

Protestant coup, bringing few laurels to its perpetrators. It gave birth

to a wide and deep-rooted movement in support of the exiled Stuart

dynasty, known as Jacobitism (from the Latin Jacobus, meaning James).

No sooner had William of Orange been proclaimed king than John Graham,

Viscount Dundee, mustered the clansmen loyal to the Stuarts and marched

against William\'s troops. In the country divided between the two claimants

it was no longer Scot versus Englishman, but usually Scot versus Scot. In

the mountain pass of Killiecrankie, as a wild Highland charge downhill put

the enemy to flight, Dundee received a mortal wound and expired in the

very moment of victory. Without his vigorous command the first Jacobite

attempt petered out.

The London government counterattacked, and its measures hardly endeared it

to the subjects. In February, 1692, on the pretext that the elderly

chieftain of the Glencoe MacDonalds gave the oath of loyalty a few days

later than ordered, a company of Campbells billeted and entertained by

them, fell on their hosts and slaughtered them. It was not so much the

scale of the massacre (38 people perished) as the flagrant breach of

hospitality that appalled everyone. King William and his senior officials,

who issued express instructions to the killers, managed to wash their

hands.

William died childless and was succeeded by his sister-in-law, Anne

Stuart. Since none of her many children survived, the English parliament

offered the crown to the Protestant Electors of Hanover in Germany to the

detriment of the rightful heir, James Francis Stuart, and 57 other

European princes with a better claim to the crowns of Britain. It was now

vital for English authorities to ensure that \"the backdoor be shut against

the attempts of the Pretender\", i.e. to exclude any possibility of Stuart

restoration in Scotland. Clearly, this could be attained only by disposing

of Scottish independence.

\"What foreign arms could never quell, by civil rage

and rancour fell\". In 1707 with the help of the pro-English (or \"Court\")

party, by combined means of intimidation and promises of financial and

trading benefits, the Scottish parliament was persuaded to accept the

Treaty of Union and abolish itself. \"There\'s ane end of ane auld sang (old

song)!\", came a nostalgic comment from the Scottish chancellor as he

signed the document. Thereby the realm of Scots ceased to exist (as did

the realm of England) to be incorporated in a United Kingdom of Great

Britain with a single ruler, parliament, citizenship, currency and flag.

Under the terms of the Union Scotland retained her Presbyterian Kirk, her

legal system and some other privileges, but her representatives in the

joint legislature in London were hopelessly outnumbered by over ten to

one. The vast majority of Scots had no say in the transaction, which from

the very outset became widely resented, even by several of its signers.

Jacobite feelings flared up all over the British Isles, and Stuart agents

shuttled from one European capital to another. Their slogan appeared on

sword blades: \"Scotland - No Union - Long live King James VIII!\"

James himself, saluted by many as \"King over the Water\", approached the

coast of Scotland in 1708 with a French squadron, only to withdraw before

the English fleet. Success seemed certain seven years later, after the

coronation in London of George of Hanover, who could not speak a word of

English and was generally mocked as a usurper and \"a wee German lairdie

(petty German baron)\". In 1715 the greatest Jacobite rising began

throughout Scotland and in northern England. An army far in excess of

Hanoverian troops was recruited, while important Scottish burghs,

including Aberdeen, Dundee and Perth, gladly opened their gates to the

insurgents. But they were plagued by the indecision of their leader, Lord

Mar, as well as sheer bad luck. Besides, many Scots preferred to sit on

the fence or rise for King George; old rivalries often induced some clans

to oppose a cause for the simple reason that others have joined it. After

much waste of time the one major battle of Sheriffmuir ended in stalemate,

and James Stuart, the titular sovereign, arrived from France too late to

regain his kingdom. A small-scale Jacobite campaign of 1719 also failed

notwithstanding Spanish assistance, but another opportunity still lay

ahead.

In July, 1745 a French frigate landed on the Scottish islet of Eriskay a

handsome young man of noble mien with only seven companions. Charles

Edward Stuart, affectionately called by his followers \"Bonnie Prince

Charlie\", boldly affirmed his father\'s right to the throne despite the

doubts of local chieftains. In a matter of weeks he raised the Jacobite

banner at Glenfinnan, assembled several thousand men, captured Perth and

entered Edinburgh, where he had James VIII and III proclaimed king again.

Having routed General Cope, the Hanoverian commander, at Prestonpans,

Charles found himself master of Scotland.

He craved for more. In November, at the head of his Highlanders, he

crossed the English border. Carlisle surrendered, as did Preston,

Manchester and Derby. The elated Charles stood a mere hundred miles from

London, where panic was such that George II and his dignitaries considered

evacuation. At this moment, however, his staff insisted on returning to

Scotland, a decision still hotly debated by historians. True, the expected

reinforcements of English Jacobites or French descents did not come, and

three English corps, each one bigger than his own, opposed the Prince. But

these were out-manoeuvred, and the whole course of the campaign showed

that the best chance of success lay in audacity, which took the Scots so

far.

Although Charles won another encounter with the Hanoverians at Falkirk, he

was finally cornered, and on 16 April, 1746 the last battle fought on

British soil, at Culloden, sealed the fate of Scotland. On flat ground,

with little cavalry and no artillery, the Jacobites could not prevail

against well-drilled government troops, a good number of which were

Scottish, too. Hundreds of braves fell on the spot, the wounded were

mercilessly butchered and prisoners shot, hanged or sent to American

plantations. The victors employed every possible measure to humble the

spirit and eradicate the customs of the Gaelic Highlands. Even tartan

garment and bagpipes were banned for a long spell.

This was the end of one of the most marvellous adventures in European

history. Prince Charles survived Culloden, and despite the enormous sum of

-L-30,000 on his head, not one of the people who could well blame him for

their ruin thought of getting the reward during half a year of his

wanderings in the Highlands. His cause died with him in France, but in one

respect it did triumph — dozens of Jacobite ballads are fondly sung in

Scotland today, but nobody would recall a single Hanoverian one.

The Scottish Enlightenment and Beyond

The Jacobite period and its aftermath was not all bloodshed and intrigue.

An efficient school system and four universities in a nation of just over

a million people ensured one of the highest literacy rates and levels of

education in the world. In the Middle Ages Scotland already produced

several scholars of renown, such as \"The Subtle Doctor\" John Duns Scotus,

recently beatified by the Vatican, or John Napier who discovered

logarithms. And then, from the early eighteenth century into the

nineteenth unfolded the incredibly creative trends of the Scottish

Enlightenment. David Hume, one of the pillars of modem philosophy,

observed in 1757: \"It is admirable how many men of genius this country

produces at present... At a time when we have lost our princes, our

parliaments, our independent government, even the presence of our chief

nobility... is it not strange, that in these circumstances we should

really be the people most distinguished for Literature in Europe?\" It

sounds as a vaunt, but there is something to sustain it.

The term \"Literature\" carried a much wider, encyclopedic sense then,

comprising all recorded knowledge or learning, and, indeed, a bright

constellation of Scots excelled in various branches of science and art. No

rigid dogmas were held by all of them, but many shared a profound interest

for practical improvements and social benefits of their enquiries,

stressing the links between different forms of human activity and studying

the principles which underlay them.

Apart from Hume himself, the leading philosophers of the age, whose

influence stretched from America to Russia, were Adam Smith, the father of

political economy, Thomas Reid, head of the \"common sense\" school, and

Adam Ferguson, a pioneer of sociology. Other scientists included the

eminent historian William Robertson; William Cullen, who established

chemistry in its own right; Joseph Black, the investigator of latent and

specific heat; James Hutton, whose \"Theory of the Earth\" gave birth to

modern geology; and the famous medical dynasties of Hunter and Monro.

Learned societies and journals blossomed, and, as a natural offshoot, the

\"Encyclopaedia Britannica\" started in Edinburgh in 1768.

Practice went alongside theory. James Watt revolutionized industry with

his steam engine; William Symington devised the first practical steamboat

(\"Charlotte Dundas\", 1802); Charles Mackintosh patented the water-proofing

process; James Neilson introduced the hot blast for smelting iron; Robert

Brown first recognized the cell nucleus and Brownian motion; John MacAdam

perfected the method of road-construction and Thomas Telford, nicknamed

\"Colossus of Roads\", became the leading civil engineer of his time. Later

on Scots made decisive contributions to the development of electricity,

magnetism, thermodynamics and, eventually, telephone, television and

radar. .

In another sphere, that of travel, the names of African explorers James

Bruce, Mungo Park and David Livingstone would be familiar to geographers.

Alexander Mackenzie traversed North America for the first time, and a

succession of dauntless polar travellers followed. Captain James Cook

himself was a Scot on his father\'s side. All of them left valuable and

fascinating accounts of their discoveries.

In visual arts Scottish achievements are rather less spectacular, but some

figures cannot be overlooked. In architecture Robert Adam and Charles

Cameron are unsurpassed by any eighteenth-century master; the former built

in Britain, the latter in Russia, but both concealed exquisite and

fanciful decorations behind imposing classical facades. Allan Ramsay and

Henry Raeburn led the way in British portrait painting. Subsequently many

gifted Scots took part in various artistic movements, notably the Celtic

Revival, while Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868- 1928) emerged as one of

the prophets of European Art Nouveau.

Three literatures in one

Scottish literature is a remarkable phenomenon if only because it makes

use of three languages: Scotish, Gaelic and English, let alone a good

number of medieval writings in Latin. The first, a Germanic tongue

deriving from old Anglo-Saxon, absorbed many Norse, Gaelic, French and

Dutch elements, and by the fourteenth century markedly diverged from its

southern neighbour. The notion (officially enforced after the Union of

1707) that it is just a sort of \"bad\" or corrupt English is simply

incorrect. Scotish has as long a pedigree as English, and in many of its

forms is closer to the common ancestor. It enjoyed a national and

government status until King James VI with his court departed for London

in 1603, and expressed itself in an outstanding literary tradition,

especially poetry. Scotish came of age by the 1370s, when John Barbour

composed \"The Bruce\", an epic poem, historical chronicle, biography of

King Robert I and chivalous romance all in one. Mention must be made of

other celebrated medieval \"makars\" (authors): King James I, Blind Harry,

Robert Henryson, William Dunbar, Gavin Douglas (translator of Virgil\'s

\"Aeneid\" into Scots), David Lindsay and Alexander Mongomerie.

After a certain lull came the wonderful eighteenth-century resurgence of

Scots in the verse of the prolific native school crowned by Robert Burns.

No one could aspire to the fame of national poet with more justice, not so

much because of his humble origin and farmer\'s toil, but because he was

and is dear to any compatriot, whether a penny less tramp or a mighty

lord. He was equally skillful in English and Scotish, though always

preferred the latter. Many of his poems spring from folk ballads, and to

this day are sung all over the world. He expressed the very soul of

Scotland with such sincerity and depth that their names are inseparable.

Burns is well-known and loved in many lands outside Scotland, but perhaps

nowhere as much as in Russia. Ivan Turgenev admired him as \"a clear

fountain of poetry\".

Owing to its rich legacy, expressive powers and modern works in every

genre, Scotish is now firmly back on British literary scene. In the

recent translation of the New Testament, with typical Caledonian humour,

only one character is speaking English - the devil.

Gaelic tradition in Scotland dates back to first centuries A.D. It shares

with Scots the thankless fate of a native language encroached upon by an

aggressive foreign idiom, and often artficially suppressed, but their

history is as different as Celtic speech is from Germanic. Scottish

Gaelic, naturally, owes much to its sources in Ireland, although by

the sixteenth century the two dialects could be told apart. Oral

communication of lore has always been paramount in the Highlands and

Western Isles even to the present, and hereditary dynasties of bards and

story-tellers thrived at the courts of MacDonald, Campbell or MacLeod

chiefs. One such amazing line, the MacMhuirichs, lasted over eighteen

generations. In time many legends, chronicles, genealogies, etc. were

written down and printed. Another crucial mark of Gaelic literature is

its inextricable link with music and singing, and some of the loftiest

songs appeared in the Jacobite period. Government \"pacification\" of

the Highlands after 1746, eviction of local landholders and their

exodus abroad caused a dramatic decline of Gaelic culture. Today less than

100,000 people can read and write Gaelic, although of late there are some

encouraging signs of recovery.

Ironically, nothing drew more attention to Gaelic heritage than the

English texts of James Macpherson, published in the early 1760s as

translations of the ancient Celtic bard Ossian, son of Fingal. Macpherson,

himself a Gael, toured the Highlands and collected tales and verse there,

although he used the material rather freely and invented much of it. His

success, however, was tremendous. Ossianic poems appeared in all major

European countries, inviting a host of imitations and comparisons with

Homer and Dante.

English-language works of Scottish origin made a late appearance, but

appealed to a wide audience, and several authors proved in no way inferior

to their English colleagues. James Thomson wrote the highly acclaimed

sentimental poem \"The Seasons\" as well as the anthem \"Rule, Britannia\";

Tobias Smollett produced a string of brilliantly grotesque novels

including \"The Adventures of Roderick Random\" and \"The Expedition of

Humphry Clinker\", while James Boswell\'s \"Life of Samuel Johnson\" became

one of the most celebrated biographies ever penned in English.

But arguably the greatest Scottish writer, both in terms of versatility

and impact at home and abroad, is Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832). Fostered

by native lore, he gathered and issued old ballads in his \"Minstrelsy of

the Scottish Border\", composed sublime poetry of his own (\"Lay of the Last

Minstrel\", \"Lady of the Lake\") and wrote numerous dramatic, historical and

antiquarian works. He is best remembered as one of the titans of the

Romantic movement, who almost single-handedly established the form of

historical novel and, according to some, the short story as well. Much of

the action in Scott\'s verse and prose (\"Waverley\", \"Old Mortality\", \"Rob

Roy\", \"Heart of Midlothian\", \"Redgauntlet\", etc.) is set in Scotland, and

he relied on his perfect knowledge of the Scotish tongue to portray his

colourful characters by colloquial means.

Other examples of native literary talent range from the eccentric but

awesome nineteenth-century sage Thomas Carlyle through Robert Louis

Stevenson (who also has many fine poems in Scots) to James Barrie and Alan

Milne, whose serious essays were overshadowed by the youthful glory of

Peter Pan and Winnie the Pooh.

Trotting the Globe

An old joke, \"Rats, lice and Scots: you find them the whole world over\",

is well founded in fact. Strong Scottish detachments fought on the French

side in the Hundred Years\' War (an astonishing figure of over 15,000 men

about the year 1420). In the mid-sixteenth century Scots made up almost

14% of the population of the Danish port Elsinore, while by 1650 their

community in Poland is said to have numbered 30,000. Few corners of Europe

were not frequented by Scots, for whom the continent soon became too

narrow.

Predictably, they played an outstanding part in the making and running of

the British Empire and the states that succeeded it in America, Africa,

India, Australia and other parts. \"Every line of strength in American

history is colored with Scottish blood\" was the remark of President

Woodrow Wilson. But their reach extended far beyond the English-speaking

world. \"Go into whatever country you will, you will always find Scotsmen.

They penetrate into every climate, you meet them in all the various

departments of travellers, soldiers, merchants, adventurers, domestics...

If any dangerous and difficult enterprise has been undertaken, any

uncommon proofs given of patience or activity, any new countries visited

and improved, a Scotsman has borne some share in the performance\" - no

self-applied boast, but a comment from an English witness.

In the early nineteenth century Lord Cochrane commanded the navies of

Chile and Brazil. Somewhat later Thomas Blake Glover from Fraserburgh

helped to reform Japan along Western lines, and became the first alien to

be decorated by the mikado. In Russia the Scottish record includes the

earliest waterworks in the Moscow Kremlin, first observatory and first

steamship, among other industrial, military and scientific innovations,

while Gordons, Braces, Greigs, Barclays and Lermontovs (whose forebears

came from Dairsie in Fife) have done honour to their ancestral land and

their adopted country. Volumes can be (and have already been) dedicated to

the theme of Scottish impact abroad. Scots integrated with incredible ease

into almost any environment, but even if they left home with nothing but

an edition of Burns, they could never forget where they came from.

\"Scotland forever!\" was the battle cry of Scottish regiments serving

overseas -and the thought of many a peaceful settler on distant shores.

Conclusion

In the end I\'d like to show the main obvious differences between the

Englishman and the Scot? The Scotsman is more self-conscious about his

nationality (and knows as a general rule, much more about his national

history) than the Englishman; he is much less self-conscious about his

social class, about the school and university he went to.

He is more stiff and reserved at a first meeting than the Englishman but

also, when he feels he has made a friend, more frank in the expression of

opinion and in the display both of anger and sentiment. He is more

argumentative, and less tactful than the Englishman; he has often a

heartier or a noisier sense of fun but perhaps a less subtle sense of

humour. His sense of the family is more extended and tenacious than is

common among modern Englishmen, and usually he keeps in touch with uncles,

aunts, and cousins scattered not only over Scotland itself but in London

and in the Dominions, particularly Canada and Australia. The quality of

life which Scotsmen miss abroad and for which they seek each other out, is

certain homeliness. Few Scots ever lose their narative accent. Accent and

manner are, for Scots abroad, badges of mutual recognition, and draw

exiled Scots everywhere together for old school, old university and for

the celebration of Burns\'s Night. The Scotsman\'s idea of a good time is

one had by men together while the women are safely at home looking after

the children. And thus the public house, for instance, in Scotland is not

as in England a family institution, but rather (as in Ireland) a place

where men get away from their families.

References

Digest, - №1/1996.

English, - издательский дом «Первое сентября» №№1, 8, 17/1995, №12/1999

Kirill\'s and Mephody\'s big encyclopedia (computer encyclopedia).

VisitScotland Magazine-guidebook - 2004

Who is Who in Britain, - Москва, «Просвещение», 2000

www.royal.gov.co.uk

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