This book points out that the English took a lot of credit that was due to many Scots.
This was a time of lattatudinism in England - that saving soul was not the role of magistrates. In Scotland witches were still being prosecuted as in Salem in 1692. In 1697 Thomas Aikenhead was hanged for blaspheme a century after John Knox had brought Calvinism which had triumphed over Popery and corruptors. This was a century of anarchy civil wars, religious persecution and repression and the Scottish Church battled to establish the Presbyterian faith
1701 James Steward brought about Habeas Corpus at a time of rainy summers and failed crops. 1697 to 1703 was a period of famine.
The Scots argued the societies like individuals developed and improved over time. Adam Smith, David Hume, Henry Brogjham or Sir Walter Scott. It was the Churches legacy that laid the way to bring Scotland into the modern world.
!) 1559 John Knox single handedly inspired the nobility to overthrow the Catholic Church and bring .the creed of John Calvin of Geneva. The church took over bringing Sunday observance laws and games were prohibited. In return the bible was opened for all to read mostly to the Lowlands. The congregation became the centre and they elected the elders or presbytery. So Scotland was a community united by its commitment to God by the time Knox died in 1572.
The monarchy did not like Knox but needed him his spiritual authority to legitimize them. James VI was tutored by the humanist George Buchanan that power was invested in the people not the king or nobles or clergy. 1779 he publish the Law of Government among the Scots.
1603 James 1 became King of England.
When Charles 1 tried to impose the Royal Prayer book on Scotland the Bishop of Edinburgh was forced to flee and a National Covenant was signed in Scotland. This was followed by the Bishops war and it led to the Civil War and the execution of Charles 1 in 1649. At the Battle of Preston, Oliver Cromwell won the civil war and managed to unite England Scotland and Ireland where most monarchies failed.
1696 Scottish Parliament. The Act for setting schools. Every parish had to set up schools to teach children to read the bible, so schools were free. The result of this was that Scotland had higher literacy than any other country. David Hume and Adam Smith wrote for a genuine reading public and even rural areas had a reading population. Papermaking became a big industry, with ink, printing and bookselling. Edinburgh, Glasgow and St Andrews offered university education cheaper than elsewhere and public auditing lectures became a big hobby and Scotland was ready for takeoff into the modern age. Only in 1880 did England catch up. By 1750 every big town had a lending library and not only on religious subjects.
Robert Burns was taught by his father to handle the plow but also made sure Robert studied Latin and French.
1667 to 1680 Scotland rules by Lord Lauderdale.
1688 William and Mary ruled Scotland was given religious freedom.
England was expanding her Empire and selling manufactured goods for imported grain.
1696 Bank of Scotland established
1660 Charles II restored.
The Darien Company was set up to create sea born Scottish trading but was a disaster and Scots investors lost a fortune. Scotland now understood that England would not allow them into the Atlantic trade and compete. Under the 1704 Aliens Act Scots could not leave property to their children in England. So in 1709 with he Act of Union of Scotland gave up political autonomy for economic growth and this launched Scotland from a third world country to a modern society in one generation. With law and order and laisses faire by 1725 Glasgow merchants in the Atlantic trade became big dealers in grain sugar and tobacco. Scotland's emergence came not from abroad but from its own institutions.
3 The Scottish Enlightenment is more important than the pre French Revolution writers. less glamorous but more important and it dealt with every academic discipline. It was lead by teachers and clergy. People like Hutchinson, Ferguson and Thomas Reed were both.
In 1610 James 1 put aside 6 counties of Ireland that became Protestant Ulster. English emigrant financed by London merchants set up a in what became Londonderry. In Glasgow because of the merchants the university there was less under the control of the Kirk and young Scotsmen shied away from theology which was very controversial and moved to math's and civil law.
20 000 years ago the ice age carved out the Highlands and Scandinavia to the geographical shape. Scotland showed four stages of society development. 1The northern island lived on a hunter gatherer culture. 2.North of the firth of forth never developed survived on the thin layer of impoverished soil, 3 the rural and 4 urban Lowlands where Calvinism took on,
For hundreds of years Gaelic had been the language of parliament, law government commerce and the kirk. Now the Scots became English speakers and cultural bearers, they never forgot their roots but acquired new ones. Hume and Robertson taught the English how to write philosophical history. Adam Smith the founding text of modern economics.
1758 Horace Walpole said the Scotland is the most accomplished nation in Europe.
1745 uprising could blot out all achieved. Bonny Prince Charley the clash between the tribal highland steeped in clan loyalty who represented the feudal not tribal past, bonds of landholding that kept clans together.
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Conclusion
By the 20C the Scottish Enlightenment waned and they days of it being Europe's innovator of ideas were over. Glasgow was the industrial.
One third of the nations total output in each industry. One fifth of the world shipping, Paisleys was the largest thread making company on earth.
Gladstone was part of the Scottish diaspora. The leading parliamentarians Lord Rosebery, Author Belfour, Campbell Bannerman. Asquith was married to a Scot and sat in a Scottish constituency. Ramsey Mc Donald was from the new Labour Party started by a Scot Keir Hurdie. The 5th Earl of Rosebury was educated in Eton and Oxford a married a Rothchild daughter. Balfour was a Cambridge Apostle member.
The disadvantage of such a big industrial city was that it did not bring every reward promised and the lower wages in Glasgow was its attraction for industrialists. Many volunteers for the Boer War did not pass the health requirements and more than half of Scots emigrants headed for the US,
Scotland had been the first fully literate nation. It produced writer like Walter Scott , Robert Louis Stevenson and Author Conan Doyle and James Barry. After 1823 onerous taxes were lifted and distilleries open and blended whiskey to the English taste. But the Victorian era rested in conformity whos emphasis blocked innovation. Field Marshal Robertson, Ian Hamilton and Douglas Haig formed the backbone of the arm and one in 4 officers was Scots in WW1 they daredevil types that resulted in the disastrous campaigns.
In WW2 Scottish factories turned out Spitfires and RR Merlin plane engines that won the war. The average working mans wages in 1958 was almost 3 time what is was in 1938. But with the falling empire Scotland situation deteriorated.
Ian Fleming had a Scottish grandfather and James Bond was based on Fitzroy McClean.
After Harold Macmillan's speech "You have never had it so good" a few years later the Clyde side and blast furnaces, coal and cotton mills decline's and between 1979 and 1983 Scotland lost 11% of her industrial output. Margaret Thatcher said there was "no alternative" but the nationalist called for devolution and independence.
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