#english_history 

# Early Middle Ages
## Geographic differences
North-west Scotland was rather mountainous, and due to that the northern Scots lived much like the other [[The Celts in Britain|Celts]]: in small family groups. It also had a lot of islands, one of which is [[Iona]].
South-east of the **"Highland Line"**, Scotland was low-lying and similar to England, so its society was more easily influenced by the changes taking place in England.
Due to Scotland's quirks it was difficult to rule even from its capital, Edinburgh, allowing clan chiefs and nobles to throw off the rule of the king.

## Population
Scotland was populated by four separate groups of people: the Picts, the Scots, the Britons and the Angles:
![[Pasted image 20220621150234.png]]

### The Picts
They lived mostly in the north and northeast. 
They spoke Celtic and Pictish and probably were the earliest inhabitants of the land. They were different from the other Celts as they inherited their rights, names and property from *their mothers*.

### The Scots
The Scots were Celtic settlers who had started to move into the western Highlands from Ireland in the 4th century CE. In **843** the Pictish and Scottish kingdoms were united under a Scottish king, **Kenneth MacAlpin** (Cinaed mac Ailpin).

### The Britons
The Britons inhabited the Lowlands and had been part of the Romano-British world. Their kingdom's name was Strathclyde. They had probably given up their tribal way of life by the 6th entury.

### The Angles
They were [[Saxon Invaders|Anglo-Saxons]] from Northumbria who had pushed northwards into the Scottish Lowlands. They were [[Government and society of the Saxons#^55e23e|different]] from the Celts.

### Unity between the 3
Picts, Scots and Britons were united due to several reasons:
1. Celtic culture, language and background (cooperative animal keeping, common landholding). The idea of common landholding remained strong until the tribes of Scotland, **"clans"**, collapsed in the 18th century. ^0d5c1d
2. Christianity (first mission - ~ 400 CE). In 563, [[Iona|Columba]], known as "Dove of the Church", came from Ireland and brought all of them to Christianity. By the time of the [[Christianity after the Saxon invasion#^a2960c|Synod of Whitby]], they shared this one religion.

## Vikings
Just as in [[The Celtic kingdoms of Wales|Wales]] and [[The Celtic kingdoms of Ireland|Ireland]], Vikings increased the speed of political change. In order to resist them, Scots and Picts fought together against the enemy raiders and settlers. When they could not root them out, they had to use diplomacy. Soon the local Viking earls found it easier to accept the king of Scots as their overlord, rather than the more distant king of Norway.

## The English threat
In **934** the Scots were seriously defeated by a Wessex army, so they decided to seek the friendship of the English. They hoped that if they were reasonably peaceful the Sassenachs, as they called the Saxons, would leave them alone. 

## The English conquest

^50181f

Unlike the Irish and the Welsh territories, by the 13th century the King of Scots controlled the majority of Scotland. 
Hence, only the English king with a strong army could hope to defeat the Scots.
Edward had already shown interest in annexing Scotland: in **1286** he had arranged for his own son to marry Margaret, the heir to the Scottish throne, but she had died in a shipwreck.
The Scottish kings were closely connected with England, owning much to marriages and vassal-lord relationships.
In **1290** there were a succession crisis to the Scottish throne, with 13 possible heirs vying over the power, with the most likely to succeed being John de Balliol and Robert Bruce, both Norman-Scottish kinghts, who invited Edward I to settle the matter. 
He told both men to do homage to him, invaded Scotland and put John de Balliol on the throne.
The dude's four years as king were not prosperous:
Edward levied taxes for the English army, infuriating the Scots and causing a rebellion. 
Edward then again invaded Scotland in **1296** and stole the sacred **Stone of Destiny** from Scone Abbey, on which, so the legend said, all Scottish kings must sit, believeing that without the Stone, Scots would accept him as their king. They didn't.
This created a popular resistance movement led by William Wallace, a knight, who was defeated and executed by Edward in 1297. Wallace's cause was took up by Robert Bruce. Just as Edward I was going to defeat his army, he died on the way north in **1307**. When his son Edward II invaded Scotland in 1314, he met his Waterloo by Bruce's army, halting the English advance for but a while. ^69d06e


# Late Middle Ages
The Scots did not escape [[The century of plagues in Medieval England|the Black Death]].
They also paid heavily for the Auld Alliance with France, for the English repeatedly invaded the Scottish Lowlands, from which most of the Scots king's affluence came. England also renewed its claim to overlordship of Scotland, and Edward IV's army occupied Edinburgh in **1482**.

## Struggle with nobles
Support for France played down the establishment of a strong state at home. Because of that, several kings died early:
- James I, murdered in 1437
- James II, died in an accident in 1460
- James III, murdered in 1488

The deaths of congeries of kings left the nobles at an apropos position to increase their power.
As in England, the nobles kept private armies. This system fitted well with the Celtic tribal loyalties of the Highlands. These tribes, "clans", were incredibly puissant, and so were their chiefs, who were almost independent.
The most powerful of the Highland clans by the 15th century was **Clan Donald**.


## National awakening
From the 1399 the Scots demanded that a parliament should meet once a year.
As in England, towns grew in importance, mainly because of the wool trade (thx to the Flemish weavers).

Scottish alliance with the French brought, however, some benefits:
1. Employment for the Scotsmen
2. Educational improvements

As such, 3 universities were founded in Scotland: St. Andrews, **1412**; Glasgow, **1451**; Aberdeen, **1495**.

By the end of the 15th century neither the English nor the Scottish believed in the English king's claim to be overlord of Scotland.

## The Tudors
The Scottish monarchs tried to introduce the same kind of centralised monarchy that the Tudors had so successfully developed in England, but it was much harder cause the economy was weaker and Scottish society more lawless. However, kings and queens James IV, James V, Mary queen of Scots, James VI made important steps forward.

Knowing how weak they were, the Scottish kings usually avoided war with England. They made a peace treaty with Henry VII, the first with an English king since 1328, and James IV married Henry's daughter Margaret. But Henry VIII wanted Scotland to accept his authority, so in **1513** his army beat the pants off the Scots at Flodden, where James and many nobles were killed.

The battle increased the disagreement between the those who sought peace with England and those who wished to remain loyal to the Auld Alliance. The rumours of an incoming Catholic invasion excarebated it. But Henry VIII sent another army into Scotland to make the Scottish James V accept his authority. James' army was defeated and he died shortly. Henry hoped to marry his son Edward to the baby Queen of Scots, Mary. An agreement was reached in **1543**.

Ordinary Scots were most unhappy at the idea of being ruled by England, so their Parliament turned down the marriage agreeement and sent Mary to France, where she married the French king's son in **1558**.

## Mary Queen of Scots and the Scottish Reformation
Mary wwas troubled by bad luck and wrong decisions. She returned to Scotland as both queen and widow in **1561**. She was Catholic, but the people were mostly Protestant.

Unlike the English, the Scots did not give the monarch authority over the new Protestant Scottish "Kirk". This was possible because Mary at the time of the Reformation was absent and was unable to impede. The new Kirk was a far more democratic organisation, because it had no bishops and was governed by a **General Assembly**. It taught the importance of personal belief and the study of the bible -> education is important -> Scots were really educated.

Mary was not liked by the Kirk, but she perspicuously explained that she wouldn't try to bring back Catholicism.
Mary soon married again, to Lord Darnley, a Scottish Catholic. Soon she allowed herself to agree to his murder and married the murderer, James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell. Scottish society was shocked. By her behaviour Mary destroyed her chance of inheriting the English throne. She found herself at war with her Scottish opponents, and escaped to England in **1568**, where [[Protestant-Catholic struggle in England|she was held prisoner until her execution]].

# Stuarts & The Glorious Revolution
Although the Stuarts were Scots themselves, they still often faced Scottish rebellions:
![[The Stuarts#^f0c3db]]

The Scottish did not accept the English removal of James peacefully, and many rebelled.

While Scotland was legally free to choose its own king there was a danger that his might be used to put a Stuart back on the throne, and might renew its Auld Alliance with France. On the other hand, Scotland needed to removed the limits on lucrative trade with England. So in **1707** the union of Scotland and England was completed by Act of Parliament, creating Great Britain.

# Hanoverians
After the [[Politics and Finance of the 18th century#^198a81|Jacobite revolt of 1715]], the Stuarts tried to win the crown in **1745**, when James II's grandson, Prince Charles Edward Stuart aka "Bonny Prince Charlie" landed on the west coast of Scotland. He tried to suborn the Highland clans into joining him, but most didn't. Although at first he went great guns, beat the pants off the English in Edinburgh and was advancing towards England, he lost his steam and in **1746** was defeated at **Culloden**.

The English army behaved with cruelty. The fear of the Highland danger was so great that a law was passed forbidding Highlanders to wear their traditional skirt, the kilt, to use the bagpipe, etc. ^814ea0