On the 7th of August, 1914, three days after Britain declared war on Germany, the war minister, Lord Kitchener, began a mass recruiting campaign.
Lord Kitchener became the rudest man in the world on the 7th of August, 1914. He was seen constantly pointing at people and folks used to say that his eyes seemed to follow you as you walked past his image on the recruitment posters. Those famous posters, which have been plagiarised around the world, were a wee bit like the Mona Lisa, only Kitchener wisnae as pretty. His enrollment appeal called for men aged between eighteen and thirty to join the British Armed Forces to fight against the Germans, against whom Britain had declared war three days previously. At first, an average of thirty-three thousand men were joining up each day, but this was deemed insufficient, and three weeks later Kitchener raised the recruiting age to thirty-five. By the middle of September, over five hundred thousand men had volunteered their services and by the end of 1915, some two million men had joined the Armed Forces.
By the end of the Great War, a total of one hundred and forty-seven thousand, six hundred and nine Scots had been killed. That massive total represented a fifth of Britain's dead – from a country that made up only ten per cent of the population of Great Britain. Some of those one hundred and forty-seven thousand, six hundred and nine Scotsmen were football players, including the entire Heart of Midlothian first team squad, who joined en masse in 1914. Other clubs, including Celtic, Clyde, Dunfermline, Falkirk, Raith Rovers and Rangers, had players who signed up to fight in the First World War.
At the beginning of the 1914 football season, Hearts was Scotland's most successful team, having won eight games in succession. Nevertheless, every member of the first team joined a new battalion being raised in Edinburgh by Lieutenant Colonel Sir George McCrae. On the 26th of November, 1914, ‘The Times’ carried the story with the headline ‘Eleven Leading Players Enlisted’. The event captured the country’s imagination and McCrae’s Battalion, the 16th Royal Scots, was brought to full strength in record time. The example of the Tynecastle men was followed by around five hundred of their supporters and season ticket holders. Not to be outdone, one hundred and fifty followers of their Edinburgh rivals, Hibernian, also joined.
McCrae’s Battalion crossed the Channel to France in 1916 and, on the 1st of July, took part in the infamous opening day of the Battle of the Somme. The Battalion was selected to assault the most dangerous part of the enemy position, a fearsome network of barbed wire and entrenchments, bristling with machine-guns. In spite of this, it took every one of its objectives and penetrated the German lines to the greatest extent of any unit anywhere on the front that morning. In the process, McCrae’s lost three-quarters of its strength. Tragically, three Hearts players, Harry Wattie, Duncan Currie and Ernie Ellis, were killed. Another member of the team, twenty-two years old Paddy Crossan, was about to have his right leg amputated, but he pleaded with the German surgeon not to operate, telling him, “I need my legs; I'm a footballer.” His leg was saved, and Crossan survived the war only to die later as a result of his lungs having been destroyed by poison gas. By the end of the war, seven members of the Hearts team had been killed in action.
Jimmy Speirs played for Glasgow Rangers, Clyde, Bradford City and Leeds United. On the outbreak of the War, Speirs enlisted in the Queens Own Cameron Highlanders and went off to France. According to contemporary newspaper reports, Speirs ‘was wounded in the heavy fighting of Autumn 1916, but was not fortunate enough to be sent to a home hospital’. After convalescing, he quickly rejoined his regiment. He was awarded the Military Medal for bravery and promoted to the rank of sergeant. In August 1917, Speirs was at Passchendaele and a few weeks later was reported wounded and missing. According to the ‘Bradford Weekly Telegraph’, he had been “hit in the thigh during an advance and managed to crawl into a shell-hole.” He was never seen again.
Robert Torrance was a Scottish team mate of Jimmy Speirs’ at Bradford City and one of the finest wingers in the club’s history. From the outbreak of the war he had worked as a munitions worker, but during March 1917 he enlisted. No doubt because of his work with munitions, he became a gunner with ‘A’ battery, 62nd brigade, Royal Field Artillery. During the Germans’ final offensive of 1918, his battery was in the Somme sector west of Albert. He was badly wounded in an enemy barrage and taken to a field hospital, where he had an arm amputated. Fearing the worst, he gave some of his personal effects to a soldier about to return to Bradford on leave, and on the 24th of April 1918, Robert was killed when the hospital was shelled.
William Angus came from Carluke and played for Celtic before joining the 8th Battalion, Highland Light Infantry. In 1915, Angus volunteered to attempt to rescue a wounded officer, Lieutenant James Martin. At first, the mission was vetoed as being suicidal, however, when Angus suggested that it didn’t matter much whether death came now or later, he was eventually given permission. Angus crawled out to Martin through No Man's Land and tied a rope to him, before trying to carry him to safety. He came under heavy fire from the Germans and was hit, but he signalled to his trench to pull Martin to safety whilst he crawled off, drawing the enemy fire. Despite being hit again several times, he managed to drag himself back to the trenches. Angus lost his left eye and part of his right foot, and for his bravery became the first professional footballer to be awarded the Victoria Cross.
William Angus’ commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Gemmill, later wrote that, "No braver deed was ever done in the history of the British Army." His citation read, “For most conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty at Givenchy, on 12th June 1915, in voluntarily leaving his trench under very heavy fire and rescuing an officer who was lying within a few yards of the enemy position. Lance Corporal Angus had no chance of escaping the enemy’s fire when undertaking this very gallant action, and in effecting the rescue he sustained about forty wounds from bombs, some of them being very serious.”
Hearts has a permanent memorial to its war dead. It is situated in Edinburgh’s Haymarket and every Remembrance Sunday officials, players and supporters of the club gather to pay their respects to a team that inspired a nation at war.
Sunday, 7 August 2011
Saturday, 6 August 2011
Sir Alexander Fleming
Sir Alexander Fleming, the Nobel prize-winning biologist, bacteriologist and pharmacologist, was born on the 6th of August, 1881.
During his marvellous career, Sir Alexander Fleming was known for his research on bacteriology, immunology and chemotherapy. However, he is best known for his discoveries of the enzyme lysozyme, in 1921 (or 1923?), and, more importantly, in 1928, the life-saving antibiotic substance penicillin. For that latter discovery, Fleming shared the 1945 Nobel Prize with Howard Walter Florey and Ernst Boris Chain. In 1999, in recognition of his contribution to medical science, ‘Time Magazine’ named Fleming one of the ‘100 Most Important People of the 20th Century’. The influential magazine called penicillin “a discovery that would change the course of history”. It was surely an accurate reflection of its impact, half a Century earlier. Penicillin was to alter forever the treatment of bacterial infections and by the middle of the 20th Century, it had contributed to the growth of a huge, international, pharmaceutical industry, signifying the end for some of mankind's most ancient scourges, including syphilis, gangrene and tuberculosis.
Alexander Fleming was born on the 6th of August, 1881, at Lochfield Farm, a little north of Darvel in East Ayrshire. As a boy, he roamed the countryside and took an interest in the flora and fauna that surrounded his father’s farm. "We unconsciously learned a great deal from nature," he was to say later in his life. Alexander was educated at Loudoun Moor School, Darvel School, and then Kilmarnock Academy. After the death of his father, when Alexander was fourteen, he and four siblings moved to London, whilst his eldest brother took over the Fleming family’s farm. His brother, Tom, who was close in age to Alexander, started a medical practice in London and encouraged his younger brother to do the same. However, seemingly lacking funds, he had to suffer the disappointment and was employed for five years in a shipping office.
At the age of twenty, he inherited money from an uncle and in 1901, he was able to at last embark on realising his ambition. He enrolled as a student at St Mary's Hospital Medical School, in Paddington, which was part of London University, from where he graduated with distinction, in 1906. He was a brilliant student and excellent at research, and although he was planning to follow a career as a surgeon, his vocation seems to have emerged in a paper he published in 1906. That paper was on a field in which he would excel in the future – immunology. Somewhat by chance then, after graduating, he became an assistant bacteriologist to Sir Almroth Wright, a pioneer in vaccine therapy and immunology at the research department of St Mary's.
In World War One, Fleming served as a captain in the Army Medical Corps, spending much the time in Army hospitals in France, and was mentioned in dispatches. During that War, Fleming saw at first hand the limited effectiveness of the antiseptics then available to successfully treat infected wounds. He and Wright were involved in the inoculation of servicemen against typhoid and discovered that the antiseptics used to treat wounds were more harmful than beneficial as they destroyed the body’s natural defences. After the war, he returned to St Mary's to find a solution to the problem and began his research into anti-bacterial substances. Initially, he developed the use of anti-typhoid vaccines and discovered lysozyme, an enzyme found in body liquids (tears), which had a natural antibacterial effect. In 1928, a significant year for Fleming, he became Professor of Bacteriology at St Mary's.
That year of 1928, Fleming made his life saving discovery. While working on the influenza virus in his cluttered lab, on the 3rd (or the 28th ?) of September, he noticed that in a contaminated lab culture, a common mold, like you can find on stale bread, was growing. Although that wasn't surprising, what the mold was doing was startling. Surrounding the mold in the contaminated culture dishes, the colonies of staphylococci bacteria – the kind that cause boils and sore throats – had disappeared. Fleming thought that the mould could be producing something that was capable of destroying the bacteria. He was inspired to experiment further and found that this was indeed the case. He cultured the mould by growing it in broth and the substance it produced was later identified as ‘Penicillium notatum’, what we now call penicillin. Of his discovery, Fleming said, “One sometimes finds what one is not looking for." He published his first paper on this subject in 1929, in the British Journal of Experimental Pathology. Fleming belittled his part in the discovery, favouring chance, but despite his modesty, he was convinced that it would be able to save many lives.
The difficulties of developing the fragile substance commercially meant that it took fifteen years before penicillin, the world’s first antibiotic drug, could be produced in large quantities. For that, we have two other scientists to thank. At Oxford University in 1938, the Australian biochemist Howard Walter Florey and his colleague, Ernst Boris Chain, a refugee from Nazi Germany, read Fleming’s work and decided to replicate his experiments. These two Professors were able to isolate the bacteria-killing substance found in the mould and its efficacy was proven by Doctor Charles Fletcher.
A 1962 article in the Kilmarnock Standard, by Fleming's brother, Robert, recounted an early success attributed to penicillin. He wrote that he and Alec found the St Mary's patient, who by that time was sitting up in a chair, reading The Times of August 7th, 1942, in which the leading article was on the new, wonder drug. "I think this is the drug you used on me," said the patient.
The outbreak of the Second World War gave an impetus to the research as there was an obvious urgent need for drugs to deal with infected wounds and diseases. Florey got an American drugs company to mass produce penicillin and by D-Day, there was enough supply to treat all the bacterial infections that broke out among the troops. Penicillin became the ‘wonder drug’ and in 1945, Fleming, Chain and Florey were awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine. It became the most important weapon in the fight against diseases once considered deadly and is still used to treat all kinds of bacterial infections.
Alexander Fleming was elected Fellow of the Royal Society, in 1943, and knighted in 1944. Sir Alexander Fleming died of a heart attack in 1955 and his ashes were interred in St Paul's Cathedral.
During his marvellous career, Sir Alexander Fleming was known for his research on bacteriology, immunology and chemotherapy. However, he is best known for his discoveries of the enzyme lysozyme, in 1921 (or 1923?), and, more importantly, in 1928, the life-saving antibiotic substance penicillin. For that latter discovery, Fleming shared the 1945 Nobel Prize with Howard Walter Florey and Ernst Boris Chain. In 1999, in recognition of his contribution to medical science, ‘Time Magazine’ named Fleming one of the ‘100 Most Important People of the 20th Century’. The influential magazine called penicillin “a discovery that would change the course of history”. It was surely an accurate reflection of its impact, half a Century earlier. Penicillin was to alter forever the treatment of bacterial infections and by the middle of the 20th Century, it had contributed to the growth of a huge, international, pharmaceutical industry, signifying the end for some of mankind's most ancient scourges, including syphilis, gangrene and tuberculosis.
Alexander Fleming was born on the 6th of August, 1881, at Lochfield Farm, a little north of Darvel in East Ayrshire. As a boy, he roamed the countryside and took an interest in the flora and fauna that surrounded his father’s farm. "We unconsciously learned a great deal from nature," he was to say later in his life. Alexander was educated at Loudoun Moor School, Darvel School, and then Kilmarnock Academy. After the death of his father, when Alexander was fourteen, he and four siblings moved to London, whilst his eldest brother took over the Fleming family’s farm. His brother, Tom, who was close in age to Alexander, started a medical practice in London and encouraged his younger brother to do the same. However, seemingly lacking funds, he had to suffer the disappointment and was employed for five years in a shipping office.
At the age of twenty, he inherited money from an uncle and in 1901, he was able to at last embark on realising his ambition. He enrolled as a student at St Mary's Hospital Medical School, in Paddington, which was part of London University, from where he graduated with distinction, in 1906. He was a brilliant student and excellent at research, and although he was planning to follow a career as a surgeon, his vocation seems to have emerged in a paper he published in 1906. That paper was on a field in which he would excel in the future – immunology. Somewhat by chance then, after graduating, he became an assistant bacteriologist to Sir Almroth Wright, a pioneer in vaccine therapy and immunology at the research department of St Mary's.
In World War One, Fleming served as a captain in the Army Medical Corps, spending much the time in Army hospitals in France, and was mentioned in dispatches. During that War, Fleming saw at first hand the limited effectiveness of the antiseptics then available to successfully treat infected wounds. He and Wright were involved in the inoculation of servicemen against typhoid and discovered that the antiseptics used to treat wounds were more harmful than beneficial as they destroyed the body’s natural defences. After the war, he returned to St Mary's to find a solution to the problem and began his research into anti-bacterial substances. Initially, he developed the use of anti-typhoid vaccines and discovered lysozyme, an enzyme found in body liquids (tears), which had a natural antibacterial effect. In 1928, a significant year for Fleming, he became Professor of Bacteriology at St Mary's.
That year of 1928, Fleming made his life saving discovery. While working on the influenza virus in his cluttered lab, on the 3rd (or the 28th ?) of September, he noticed that in a contaminated lab culture, a common mold, like you can find on stale bread, was growing. Although that wasn't surprising, what the mold was doing was startling. Surrounding the mold in the contaminated culture dishes, the colonies of staphylococci bacteria – the kind that cause boils and sore throats – had disappeared. Fleming thought that the mould could be producing something that was capable of destroying the bacteria. He was inspired to experiment further and found that this was indeed the case. He cultured the mould by growing it in broth and the substance it produced was later identified as ‘Penicillium notatum’, what we now call penicillin. Of his discovery, Fleming said, “One sometimes finds what one is not looking for." He published his first paper on this subject in 1929, in the British Journal of Experimental Pathology. Fleming belittled his part in the discovery, favouring chance, but despite his modesty, he was convinced that it would be able to save many lives.
The difficulties of developing the fragile substance commercially meant that it took fifteen years before penicillin, the world’s first antibiotic drug, could be produced in large quantities. For that, we have two other scientists to thank. At Oxford University in 1938, the Australian biochemist Howard Walter Florey and his colleague, Ernst Boris Chain, a refugee from Nazi Germany, read Fleming’s work and decided to replicate his experiments. These two Professors were able to isolate the bacteria-killing substance found in the mould and its efficacy was proven by Doctor Charles Fletcher.
A 1962 article in the Kilmarnock Standard, by Fleming's brother, Robert, recounted an early success attributed to penicillin. He wrote that he and Alec found the St Mary's patient, who by that time was sitting up in a chair, reading The Times of August 7th, 1942, in which the leading article was on the new, wonder drug. "I think this is the drug you used on me," said the patient.
The outbreak of the Second World War gave an impetus to the research as there was an obvious urgent need for drugs to deal with infected wounds and diseases. Florey got an American drugs company to mass produce penicillin and by D-Day, there was enough supply to treat all the bacterial infections that broke out among the troops. Penicillin became the ‘wonder drug’ and in 1945, Fleming, Chain and Florey were awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine. It became the most important weapon in the fight against diseases once considered deadly and is still used to treat all kinds of bacterial infections.
Alexander Fleming was elected Fellow of the Royal Society, in 1943, and knighted in 1944. Sir Alexander Fleming died of a heart attack in 1955 and his ashes were interred in St Paul's Cathedral.
Friday, 5 August 2011
The Act of Security
The Act of Security was passed by the Scottish Parliament on the 5th of August, 1704.
The Act of Security was a brusque response by the independently minded Scottish Parliament of the early 18th Century to the English Parliament’s Bill of Rights and the Act of Settlement of 1701. Both pieces of English legislation were designed to ensure the succession of the English Throne didn’t go – heaven forbid – to a Roman Catholic. That piece of 1704 Scottish legislation, together with the Act anent Peace and War of 1703, was in effect a declaration of its independence and somewhat retaliatory for the offence caused by the English through not having the manners to consult with the Scots on the matter of the succession in the first place.
You see, at that time, the rule of both countries was still separate in one significant sense, despite the ‘Union of the Crowns’ having taken place around a hundred years previously. There was still to be a King (or Queen) of Scotland and a King (or Queen) of England, albeit since James VI & I, the Crowns had been worn by the same individual. Two separate countries, two separate Thrones, two separate Parliaments, one joined-up King (or mixed-up Queen) to rule them both and in the darkness bind them.
The Act of Security allowed the Three Estates of Scotland to choose whom it liked as successor to Queen Anne, quite independently from the choice of the English Parliament, if certain, reasonable, Scottish trade concessions were not granted. Of course, the English were mortally afraid that the Scots would unilaterally restore the bona-fide line of Stuarts (Stewarts) and in particular, the Catholic James VII & II, who had lately been, in effect, deposed by the ‘Glorious Revolution’, which led to the Protestant Dutchman, William of Orange, stepping up to the Thrones of England and Scotland. In 1704, William’s sister-in-law, Big Annie Stuart, was Queen and as she was showing no sign of producing a live heir, the English Parliament was getting a bit jumpy. In a tit-for-tat response, the English duly passed legislation known as the Alien Act of 1705. That placed the threat of economic sanctions on the Scots unless they closed the loophole created by their Act of Security. So for a while, insecurity reigned.
The Scots were graciously given a couple of options; either accept the Hanoverian succession or begin proceedings on a union of Parliaments in order to remove the potential for such dilemma to be occur. The economic sanctions threatened were such that Scottish imports to England would be banned and Scots living in England would be treated as foreigners with their rights withdrawn. Any land and property that they owned in England would be forfeited. Of course, this primarily affected the Lords and their Ladies, the Nobles, Magnates and landed Gentry; not the burghers and common people. However, from the economic viewpoint of Scotland as a country, it amounted to international blackmail. Poor Scotland was still reeling from the economic disaster of the Darien Scheme and with England threatening to cut trade and free movement between the two countries, it was caught between a rock and a hard place.
One outcome, if Scotland had gone its own way, would have been the creation of a fully independent Scotland with its own Royalty, rather than the hybrid nation it became as a result of the Union of the Crowns. England, of course, had the same hybrid status as long as the two countries shared the same King or Queen. In reality, England had more to lose and as it was fighting a war with France, it needed Scottish cannon fodder. England, through its Parliament, determined that full union of the two Parliaments and nations was essential, before Anne's death, in order to rule out, once and for all, any partition. The representatives of the English Parliament set about their purpose with a will and used a combination of exclusionary legislation i.e., the Alien Act of 1705, politics with a small ‘p’, and bribery with a large ‘B’ to achieve the desired result.
That end result was the Act of Union of 1707, which, by virtue of Article II, meant that the Act of Settlement effectively became part of Scots Law. And just to make sure, despite a separate Scottish succession being deemed void by the Act of Union, the new Parliament of Great Britain passed the Repeal of Certain Scotch Acts of 1707, which explicitly repealed both the Act of Security and the Act anent Peace and War.
The Act of Union contained twenty-five articles, which were mostly economic. Likely opposition from the Presbyterian Church of Scotland was negated by the promise that it would continue to be the official religion. In addition, it was agreed that the substantially different Scottish system of law would be preserved. The path to agreement was not easy as it was almost universally opposed by the common people of Scotland. Countless petitions and riots occurred, but were effectively ignored. On the other hand, many of the Scottish Nobility stood to benefit financially from, amongst other things, the relaxation of rules against trading with English (then to be British) colonies abroad. The treaty was passed by a large majority of 110 votes ‘for’ to 67 votes ‘against’, but only after the scandal of the bribery, which Robert Burns sums up nicely in his poem, ‘Such a Parcel of Rogues in a Nation’.
“What force or guile could not subdue
Thro' many warlike ages
Is wrought now by a coward few
For hireling traitor's wages.”
Many have argued that Scotland benefited greatly from the Union and there is no doubt Scots played a significant part in the subsequent establishment of the British Empire. However, things could have been very different and the financial crisis, which led the ruling classes to accept the proposal, was provoked by the actions of the English in the first place.
The Act of Security was a brusque response by the independently minded Scottish Parliament of the early 18th Century to the English Parliament’s Bill of Rights and the Act of Settlement of 1701. Both pieces of English legislation were designed to ensure the succession of the English Throne didn’t go – heaven forbid – to a Roman Catholic. That piece of 1704 Scottish legislation, together with the Act anent Peace and War of 1703, was in effect a declaration of its independence and somewhat retaliatory for the offence caused by the English through not having the manners to consult with the Scots on the matter of the succession in the first place.
You see, at that time, the rule of both countries was still separate in one significant sense, despite the ‘Union of the Crowns’ having taken place around a hundred years previously. There was still to be a King (or Queen) of Scotland and a King (or Queen) of England, albeit since James VI & I, the Crowns had been worn by the same individual. Two separate countries, two separate Thrones, two separate Parliaments, one joined-up King (or mixed-up Queen) to rule them both and in the darkness bind them.
The Act of Security allowed the Three Estates of Scotland to choose whom it liked as successor to Queen Anne, quite independently from the choice of the English Parliament, if certain, reasonable, Scottish trade concessions were not granted. Of course, the English were mortally afraid that the Scots would unilaterally restore the bona-fide line of Stuarts (Stewarts) and in particular, the Catholic James VII & II, who had lately been, in effect, deposed by the ‘Glorious Revolution’, which led to the Protestant Dutchman, William of Orange, stepping up to the Thrones of England and Scotland. In 1704, William’s sister-in-law, Big Annie Stuart, was Queen and as she was showing no sign of producing a live heir, the English Parliament was getting a bit jumpy. In a tit-for-tat response, the English duly passed legislation known as the Alien Act of 1705. That placed the threat of economic sanctions on the Scots unless they closed the loophole created by their Act of Security. So for a while, insecurity reigned.
The Scots were graciously given a couple of options; either accept the Hanoverian succession or begin proceedings on a union of Parliaments in order to remove the potential for such dilemma to be occur. The economic sanctions threatened were such that Scottish imports to England would be banned and Scots living in England would be treated as foreigners with their rights withdrawn. Any land and property that they owned in England would be forfeited. Of course, this primarily affected the Lords and their Ladies, the Nobles, Magnates and landed Gentry; not the burghers and common people. However, from the economic viewpoint of Scotland as a country, it amounted to international blackmail. Poor Scotland was still reeling from the economic disaster of the Darien Scheme and with England threatening to cut trade and free movement between the two countries, it was caught between a rock and a hard place.
One outcome, if Scotland had gone its own way, would have been the creation of a fully independent Scotland with its own Royalty, rather than the hybrid nation it became as a result of the Union of the Crowns. England, of course, had the same hybrid status as long as the two countries shared the same King or Queen. In reality, England had more to lose and as it was fighting a war with France, it needed Scottish cannon fodder. England, through its Parliament, determined that full union of the two Parliaments and nations was essential, before Anne's death, in order to rule out, once and for all, any partition. The representatives of the English Parliament set about their purpose with a will and used a combination of exclusionary legislation i.e., the Alien Act of 1705, politics with a small ‘p’, and bribery with a large ‘B’ to achieve the desired result.
That end result was the Act of Union of 1707, which, by virtue of Article II, meant that the Act of Settlement effectively became part of Scots Law. And just to make sure, despite a separate Scottish succession being deemed void by the Act of Union, the new Parliament of Great Britain passed the Repeal of Certain Scotch Acts of 1707, which explicitly repealed both the Act of Security and the Act anent Peace and War.
The Act of Union contained twenty-five articles, which were mostly economic. Likely opposition from the Presbyterian Church of Scotland was negated by the promise that it would continue to be the official religion. In addition, it was agreed that the substantially different Scottish system of law would be preserved. The path to agreement was not easy as it was almost universally opposed by the common people of Scotland. Countless petitions and riots occurred, but were effectively ignored. On the other hand, many of the Scottish Nobility stood to benefit financially from, amongst other things, the relaxation of rules against trading with English (then to be British) colonies abroad. The treaty was passed by a large majority of 110 votes ‘for’ to 67 votes ‘against’, but only after the scandal of the bribery, which Robert Burns sums up nicely in his poem, ‘Such a Parcel of Rogues in a Nation’.
“What force or guile could not subdue
Thro' many warlike ages
Is wrought now by a coward few
For hireling traitor's wages.”
Many have argued that Scotland benefited greatly from the Union and there is no doubt Scots played a significant part in the subsequent establishment of the British Empire. However, things could have been very different and the financial crisis, which led the ruling classes to accept the proposal, was provoked by the actions of the English in the first place.
Thursday, 4 August 2011
The ‘Black Parliament’ of Scone
The ‘Black Parliament’ of Scone took place on the 4th of August, 1320.
During the ‘Black Parliament’ of Scone, a group of conspirators, who had intended to kill Robert I (Robert the Bruce), were tried and sentenced. One of those found guilty was Sir Roger Mowbray, but in a bizarre medieval comédie, because he was already dead, his corpse was found guilty of treason and sentenced to be drawn, hanged and beheaded.
Those who were tried with puir Mowbray were representatives of some of Scotland’s noblest families. Many of those families had been involved in the ruling of the country before, during and after the time of Alexander III and to some large extent, had been an ever present threat to the emerging dynasty of Robert I. There is no extant contemporary record of the ‘Black Parliament’ and it is one of those Parliaments that have survived solely in the various ‘Chronicles’. Those records suggest that the object of the plot was to place Sir William Soulis on the Throne. However, modern analysis has strongly suggested that the real plan was to restore power to the Comyns, through an heir of John Baliol. Before the death of Alexander III, it was the Comyns and their kin who held the balance of power in Scotland and, at that time, the Bruces were a relatively minor force.
Parliaments were quite important for Robert the Bruce as they served to give his rule much needed legitimacy after the manner of his ascension, following as it did his excommunication for the murder of the ‘Red Comyn’ at Dumfries in 1306. A Parliament at St. Andrews in 1309 had resulted in the ‘Declaration of the Clergy’ and that was seen as particularly significant. It solemnly upheld Bruce’s right to the Throne in stirring language, “[he – the Bruce] by right of birth and by endowment with other cardinal virtues is fit to rule, and worthy of the name of king and the honour of the realm”.
That 1309 parliament lacked the presence of certain families who had been the mainstay of Alexander III’s reign and during the Interregnum. The ‘missing’ representation from the roll call of governance included the Comyns, unsurprisingly, and their cronies, Mowbray, Abernethy, Balliol, again unsurprisingly as the ‘Toom Tabard’ himsel’ didn’t die until 1313, the Earl of Atholl, d’Umphraville of Angus, David de Brechin and Adam Gordon. Those weren’t keen to sign Bruce’s guest book.
Nor were they too keen on contributing their signatures to the ‘Declaration of Arbroath’. That masterpiece of nationalistic rhetoric was intended to score points with the Pope in the ongoing war of propaganda against Edward II. Whilst Scotland had been winning the actual fighting war and raiding and pillaging across the Border, Edward continually refused to acknowledge Bruce’s Kingship and legitimacy. That meant that the Bruce’s legal tenure was a little fragile and those allied to Balliol were always a spectre in the wings.
As a sign of Bruce’s unease, at a Parliament in 1318, conspirators and spreaders of discontent were ordered to be imprisoned. Just fourteen months later, the Declaration of Arbroath was dispatched to the Pope. As a display of national unity and unequivocal support for Robert the Bruce, it seemed to be an overwhelming endorsement. However, in reality, many magnates and nobles were bullied or coerced into providing their seals for the document and a certain amount of antagonism seems to have been the result. That undercurrent of resentment no doubt helped to rekindle sympathies for the Comyn cause.
So it was in 1320 that Patrick, Earl of Dunbar, on his way to the Pope via France became aware of dangerous contacts between French supporters of Balliol and the pro-Balliol faction in Scotland. The King was warned of the plot and the result was the trials of the conspirators at the ‘Black Parliament’ of the 4th of August, 1320. Agnes Comyn, Countess of Strathearn turned King’s evidence and implicated those others brought to trial, for which betrayal she was rewarded with life imprisonment. She died in chains in the dungeon of Strathearn Castle.
The man whom the Chronicles later sought to pin the blame upon, Sir William Soules of Liddesdale, Governor of Berwick and Butler of Scotland, was arrested and brought to trial at the Parliament. He was also given a life sentence after confessing and was goaled in Dumbarton Castle. Soules’ mother was a Comyn and he was the son of a ‘Competitor’ in ‘the Great Cause’, which provided a reasonable link to his supposed motives in seeking the Crown. He wasn’t a realistic candidate by any means in 1320 and it is surely the case that the motive behind the whole affair lay squarely with restoring a Comyn to the Throne. After all, the Comyn claim had a tad more legitimacy, which explains why the Bruce went to all that trouble trying to win the propaganda war. The evidence of the Chronicles proves that he did.
The unfortunate Sir David de Brechin, a nephew of Bruce and whose mother was a Comyn, was found guilty of treason by virtue of being complicit in the plot and not having warned the King. He was executed with the severest penalty of Scottish Law, being drawn through the streets of Perth at a horse’s tail, hanged and beheaded. His brother, Thomas de Brechin, had his lands of Lumquhat in Fife forfeited, being perhaps also privy to the plot, but his fate is unknown.
Brechin’s was a notable execution, quite apart from his relationship to both Bruce and the Comyns. He was seen as a ‘Flower of Chivalry’, having acquitted himself well in battle against the Saracens, but his loyalty was suspect. He changed sides regularly and even fought on the English side at Bannockburn. Perhaps significantly, instead of sending his own seal, he got his wife to send hers for attachment to the Arbroath Declaration. Nevertheless, it is because of the manner of Brechin’s death that this affair was christened the ‘Black Parliament’.
The corpse of Sir Roger de Mowbray, who held the office of Standard Bearer of Scotland, and who had died in skirmishes before the trial, was brought to Parliament in a litter, found guilty and sentenced to be drawn, hung and beheaded. He had nothing to say in his defence. The Bruce’s clemency prevented his mutilation and he was allowed a decent burial. His lands of Barnbougle and Dalmeny in the county of Linlithgow, Inverkeithing in Fife, Cessford and Eckford in Roxburghshire, Methven in Perthshire, Kellie in Forfarshire and Kirk Michael in the county of Dumfries were forfeited to the Crown.
Of the other major figures in the conspiracy, Ingram d’Umphraville, heir to Angus, was also goaled. He later escaped to England, accompanied by Soules it would seem as both are recorded as having died in England sometime during 1321-2. At least three minor figures were condemned to death and executed. Those were Sir John Logie, whose lands were of Logie and Strath Gartney in Strathearn and Mentieth respectively, Sir Gilbert de Malherbe and a squire named Richard Brown. A handful of those involved were pardoned, namely Sir Patrick Graham, Sir Walter de Barclay, Sherriff of Aberdeen, Sir Eustace Maxwell of Caerlaverock, Eustace de Rattray and Hamelin de Troup. In all, at least ten of the forty-four Barons named as witnesses to the Declaration of Arbroath had been accused of plotting regicide, just a few weeks later. So much for national unity.
Incidentally, the Sir William Soules (de Soulis) mentioned here is not the evil Lord William of legend, made famous by Sir Walter Scott in a grisly tale of vengeance. Quite apart from a mythical wizard and his familiar, Robin Redcap, the association is unlikely. The story has it that for the wicked murder of Alexander Armstrong, the 2nd Laird of Mangerton, a Lord Soules of Hermitage Castle was encased in a sheet of lead and “beiled in his ain bru”. Another source has the 2nd Armstrong Lord born in Mangerton Castle in 1320 and dying in 1398, albeit killed by a de Soulis. That being the case, the legend is out by a generation. A more likely culprit for the source of the legend is Sir Ranulf de Soules of Liddel, who was born around 1150 and murdered by his servants in 1207 or 1208. That makes it a generation or three in the opposite direction. In any case, the dubious event is commemorated by the factual Milnholm Cross. Curiously though, to this day, no grass has grown on the place at Nine Stane Rigg where the cauldron is said to have been placed.
During the ‘Black Parliament’ of Scone, a group of conspirators, who had intended to kill Robert I (Robert the Bruce), were tried and sentenced. One of those found guilty was Sir Roger Mowbray, but in a bizarre medieval comédie, because he was already dead, his corpse was found guilty of treason and sentenced to be drawn, hanged and beheaded.
Those who were tried with puir Mowbray were representatives of some of Scotland’s noblest families. Many of those families had been involved in the ruling of the country before, during and after the time of Alexander III and to some large extent, had been an ever present threat to the emerging dynasty of Robert I. There is no extant contemporary record of the ‘Black Parliament’ and it is one of those Parliaments that have survived solely in the various ‘Chronicles’. Those records suggest that the object of the plot was to place Sir William Soulis on the Throne. However, modern analysis has strongly suggested that the real plan was to restore power to the Comyns, through an heir of John Baliol. Before the death of Alexander III, it was the Comyns and their kin who held the balance of power in Scotland and, at that time, the Bruces were a relatively minor force.
Parliaments were quite important for Robert the Bruce as they served to give his rule much needed legitimacy after the manner of his ascension, following as it did his excommunication for the murder of the ‘Red Comyn’ at Dumfries in 1306. A Parliament at St. Andrews in 1309 had resulted in the ‘Declaration of the Clergy’ and that was seen as particularly significant. It solemnly upheld Bruce’s right to the Throne in stirring language, “[he – the Bruce] by right of birth and by endowment with other cardinal virtues is fit to rule, and worthy of the name of king and the honour of the realm”.
That 1309 parliament lacked the presence of certain families who had been the mainstay of Alexander III’s reign and during the Interregnum. The ‘missing’ representation from the roll call of governance included the Comyns, unsurprisingly, and their cronies, Mowbray, Abernethy, Balliol, again unsurprisingly as the ‘Toom Tabard’ himsel’ didn’t die until 1313, the Earl of Atholl, d’Umphraville of Angus, David de Brechin and Adam Gordon. Those weren’t keen to sign Bruce’s guest book.
Nor were they too keen on contributing their signatures to the ‘Declaration of Arbroath’. That masterpiece of nationalistic rhetoric was intended to score points with the Pope in the ongoing war of propaganda against Edward II. Whilst Scotland had been winning the actual fighting war and raiding and pillaging across the Border, Edward continually refused to acknowledge Bruce’s Kingship and legitimacy. That meant that the Bruce’s legal tenure was a little fragile and those allied to Balliol were always a spectre in the wings.
As a sign of Bruce’s unease, at a Parliament in 1318, conspirators and spreaders of discontent were ordered to be imprisoned. Just fourteen months later, the Declaration of Arbroath was dispatched to the Pope. As a display of national unity and unequivocal support for Robert the Bruce, it seemed to be an overwhelming endorsement. However, in reality, many magnates and nobles were bullied or coerced into providing their seals for the document and a certain amount of antagonism seems to have been the result. That undercurrent of resentment no doubt helped to rekindle sympathies for the Comyn cause.
So it was in 1320 that Patrick, Earl of Dunbar, on his way to the Pope via France became aware of dangerous contacts between French supporters of Balliol and the pro-Balliol faction in Scotland. The King was warned of the plot and the result was the trials of the conspirators at the ‘Black Parliament’ of the 4th of August, 1320. Agnes Comyn, Countess of Strathearn turned King’s evidence and implicated those others brought to trial, for which betrayal she was rewarded with life imprisonment. She died in chains in the dungeon of Strathearn Castle.
The man whom the Chronicles later sought to pin the blame upon, Sir William Soules of Liddesdale, Governor of Berwick and Butler of Scotland, was arrested and brought to trial at the Parliament. He was also given a life sentence after confessing and was goaled in Dumbarton Castle. Soules’ mother was a Comyn and he was the son of a ‘Competitor’ in ‘the Great Cause’, which provided a reasonable link to his supposed motives in seeking the Crown. He wasn’t a realistic candidate by any means in 1320 and it is surely the case that the motive behind the whole affair lay squarely with restoring a Comyn to the Throne. After all, the Comyn claim had a tad more legitimacy, which explains why the Bruce went to all that trouble trying to win the propaganda war. The evidence of the Chronicles proves that he did.
The unfortunate Sir David de Brechin, a nephew of Bruce and whose mother was a Comyn, was found guilty of treason by virtue of being complicit in the plot and not having warned the King. He was executed with the severest penalty of Scottish Law, being drawn through the streets of Perth at a horse’s tail, hanged and beheaded. His brother, Thomas de Brechin, had his lands of Lumquhat in Fife forfeited, being perhaps also privy to the plot, but his fate is unknown.
Brechin’s was a notable execution, quite apart from his relationship to both Bruce and the Comyns. He was seen as a ‘Flower of Chivalry’, having acquitted himself well in battle against the Saracens, but his loyalty was suspect. He changed sides regularly and even fought on the English side at Bannockburn. Perhaps significantly, instead of sending his own seal, he got his wife to send hers for attachment to the Arbroath Declaration. Nevertheless, it is because of the manner of Brechin’s death that this affair was christened the ‘Black Parliament’.
The corpse of Sir Roger de Mowbray, who held the office of Standard Bearer of Scotland, and who had died in skirmishes before the trial, was brought to Parliament in a litter, found guilty and sentenced to be drawn, hung and beheaded. He had nothing to say in his defence. The Bruce’s clemency prevented his mutilation and he was allowed a decent burial. His lands of Barnbougle and Dalmeny in the county of Linlithgow, Inverkeithing in Fife, Cessford and Eckford in Roxburghshire, Methven in Perthshire, Kellie in Forfarshire and Kirk Michael in the county of Dumfries were forfeited to the Crown.
Of the other major figures in the conspiracy, Ingram d’Umphraville, heir to Angus, was also goaled. He later escaped to England, accompanied by Soules it would seem as both are recorded as having died in England sometime during 1321-2. At least three minor figures were condemned to death and executed. Those were Sir John Logie, whose lands were of Logie and Strath Gartney in Strathearn and Mentieth respectively, Sir Gilbert de Malherbe and a squire named Richard Brown. A handful of those involved were pardoned, namely Sir Patrick Graham, Sir Walter de Barclay, Sherriff of Aberdeen, Sir Eustace Maxwell of Caerlaverock, Eustace de Rattray and Hamelin de Troup. In all, at least ten of the forty-four Barons named as witnesses to the Declaration of Arbroath had been accused of plotting regicide, just a few weeks later. So much for national unity.
Incidentally, the Sir William Soules (de Soulis) mentioned here is not the evil Lord William of legend, made famous by Sir Walter Scott in a grisly tale of vengeance. Quite apart from a mythical wizard and his familiar, Robin Redcap, the association is unlikely. The story has it that for the wicked murder of Alexander Armstrong, the 2nd Laird of Mangerton, a Lord Soules of Hermitage Castle was encased in a sheet of lead and “beiled in his ain bru”. Another source has the 2nd Armstrong Lord born in Mangerton Castle in 1320 and dying in 1398, albeit killed by a de Soulis. That being the case, the legend is out by a generation. A more likely culprit for the source of the legend is Sir Ranulf de Soules of Liddel, who was born around 1150 and murdered by his servants in 1207 or 1208. That makes it a generation or three in the opposite direction. In any case, the dubious event is commemorated by the factual Milnholm Cross. Curiously though, to this day, no grass has grown on the place at Nine Stane Rigg where the cauldron is said to have been placed.
Wednesday, 3 August 2011
James II, King of Scots
James II, King of Scots, was killed at Roxburgh Castle on the 3rd of August, 1460.
James II was gey fond of guns and of murdering his subjects. This King’s speciality was inviting Douglas Earls to dinner and seeing them disposed of in a macabre, after dinner entertainment – not exactly what you’d call black comedy. In such a manner was the 6th Earl done away with and James himself even took a hand in the murder of the 8th Earl. One of James’ favourite guns was the cannon ‘Mons Meg’, which wasn’t short for ‘Monstrous Meg’, though it could’ve been. Somewhat appropriately, James was killed by a faulty cannon, which event occurred during the siege of Roxburgh Castle.
James II was known by the nickname, ‘James of the Fiery Face’ due to a large and disfiguring, vermillion coloured birthmark that covered half his face. Maybe he should’ve been called the ‘Fiery King’, given his temper. Notwithstanding his faults, James was a vigorous and popular prince, regarded as one of the better Scottish monarchs of the period. Although not a scholar like his father, James showed interest in education and during his reign, he introduced some important legislative measures. Those involved the tenure of land, the reformation of the coinage and the protection of the poor, whilst the organisation for the administration of justice was also greatly improved. He also established many trade links on the continent and through his wife, Mary of Gueldres and the marriages of his sisters, gained many valuable political alliances.
King James II, the only surviving son of James I and his Queen, Joan Beaufort, was born on the 16th of October, 1430. He succeeded to the Throne at seven years of age, after his father was brutally murdered at St. John’s Toun of Perth, because his elder twin, Alexander, Duke of Rothesay, had died in infancy. During James’ minority, his guardians began well by rounding up and executing the murderers of James I. However, after Archibald, Earl of Douglas, who was Regent for the child King, died in 1439, the situation degenerated and a savage and bloody struggle for power ensued. That feud involved three key protagonists, Sir William Crichton, the keeper of Edinburgh Castle, Sir Alexander Livingstone and William, the 6th Earl of Douglas.
To some extent, things became a bit like ‘pass the parcel’ as Crichton initially had custody of the young James, but he was then kidnapped and carried off to Stirling by Livingstone who also abducted Joan Beaufort. When Parliament demanded that Livingstone release James and his mother, Livingstone and Crichton formed an alliance against the Douglas. The result of their plotting was that the young Earl of Douglas was treacherously murdered at the infamous ‘Black Dinner', whilst the young James was humiliatingly impotent to prevent his death.
Twelve years later, in an amazing action replay of the events of the ‘Black Dinner’, the 8th Earl of Douglas was invited to Stirling Castle on the King’s safe conduct. That William didn’t have quite the same relationship with the King as his predecessor and was – wrongly and tragically – viewed with suspicion as a threat to the Crown. Despite the manner of his father’s death and the dastardly execution of the 6th Earl, James II, King of Scots, bloodied his own hands in exactly the same way as those he would have previously condemned. Douglas was stabbed in a frenzied rage by the King himself. Ultimately, the Douglas power was ended at the Battle of Arkinholm in May, 1455.
James II became very fond of guns and an enthusiastic promoter of the new military invention, the cannon. Although gunpowder was known in Europe during the High Middle Ages, it was not until the Late Middle Ages that cannon were widely developed. The first European cannon were probably used in Iberia during the Islamic wars against the Christians in the 13th Century and cannon first appeared in Britain in 1327. Primitive cannon were engaged at the Battle of Crécy in 1346. During the 15th Century, cannon advanced so that bombards became effective siege engines, gradually replacing siege engines and other aging forms of weaponry. ‘Bombardum’ was the earliest term used for ‘cannon’, but from 1430, it came to refer only to the largest of siege weapons.
If you want to see just how big such bombards were, take a trip to Edinburgh Castle. In 1457, James II was given the present of a great siege gun, originally made for the Queen's uncle, the Duke of Burgundy, at Mons, now in Belgium. That bombard, weighing over six tons, was christened ‘Mons Meg’ and was kept with the rest of the royal guns in Edinburgh Castle. She (it!) was used in anger against the English, but its enormous bulk soon made it obsolete as a siege gun. It wasn’t brought to the siege of Roxburgh Castle, because it was too big to transport. Later, in 1681, during a birthday salute for the Duke of Albany (later to become James VII & II, the last Stewart King), its barrel burst open and it was unceremoniously dumped beside Foog’s Gate in Edinburgh Castle. However, ‘Mons Meg’ is now restored and proudly on display in the Castle.
In 1460, James II involved himself in the English dynastic struggle, the ‘Wars of the Roses’, placing his weight behind the Lancastrians, the family of his mother, Joan Beaufort, after the defeat of Henry VI at Northampton. James attacked English possessions across the border, which led to escalating retaliations and James’ determination to recover Roxburgh Castle. The once majestic Castle, also known as Marchmount, standing on a high tree covered mound between the Teviot and the Tweed south of Kelso, was fought over time and again by the Scots and English. It was a fortress as far back as the Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria and a Royal Scots castle since at least the time of David I. Like Berwick, it was seized and occupied by hostile English in 1334 and attempts to win it back by the Douglases and James’ father were unsuccessful. It was in English hands for over one hundred years and became a thorn in the side of Scotland.
James took a large army and half a dozen bombards, newly imported from Flanders, to lay siege to Roxburgh. One of these was known as the ‘Flanders Lion’ and it was ironic that James’ enthusiasm and determination to be personally involved in firing and showing off that mighty cannon ‘in honour of his Queen’ led to his death. On the 3rd of August, 1460, whilst attempting to fire the ‘Lion’, James was killed by flying shrapnel when it burst its casing in a thunderous explosion. Robert Lindsay of Pitscottie, writing in his ‘Historie’ of James' reign, stated, “as the King stood near a piece of artillery, his thigh bone was dug in two with a piece of misframed gun that brake in shooting, by which he was stricken to the ground and died hastily.” He was twenty nine years, nine months and seventeen days old. Nigel Tranter, in his novel ‘The Lion’s Whelp’ suggests that the Queen was present at the siege, and he has her sinking to her knees to cradle her husband’s bloodied features in her arms.
It would appear, however, that the Queen was brought to the scene from Hume Castle and it was she who urged the disheartened army to maintain the siege. George Douglas, the 4th ‘Red Douglas’ Earl of Angus, was also wounded in the blast, but he recovered sufficiently to lead the siege. Roxburgh fell a few days later and its fortifications were demolished. The fate of the English garrison is not recorded, but there appears to have been no prisoners taken. The nine year old James Stewart was crowned James III at Kelso Abbey a week later, ushering in yet another minority Kingship and his mother, Mary of Gueldres, acted as regent until her own death three years later. James II was buried at Holyrood Abbey, in Edinburgh.
James II was gey fond of guns and of murdering his subjects. This King’s speciality was inviting Douglas Earls to dinner and seeing them disposed of in a macabre, after dinner entertainment – not exactly what you’d call black comedy. In such a manner was the 6th Earl done away with and James himself even took a hand in the murder of the 8th Earl. One of James’ favourite guns was the cannon ‘Mons Meg’, which wasn’t short for ‘Monstrous Meg’, though it could’ve been. Somewhat appropriately, James was killed by a faulty cannon, which event occurred during the siege of Roxburgh Castle.
James II was known by the nickname, ‘James of the Fiery Face’ due to a large and disfiguring, vermillion coloured birthmark that covered half his face. Maybe he should’ve been called the ‘Fiery King’, given his temper. Notwithstanding his faults, James was a vigorous and popular prince, regarded as one of the better Scottish monarchs of the period. Although not a scholar like his father, James showed interest in education and during his reign, he introduced some important legislative measures. Those involved the tenure of land, the reformation of the coinage and the protection of the poor, whilst the organisation for the administration of justice was also greatly improved. He also established many trade links on the continent and through his wife, Mary of Gueldres and the marriages of his sisters, gained many valuable political alliances.
King James II, the only surviving son of James I and his Queen, Joan Beaufort, was born on the 16th of October, 1430. He succeeded to the Throne at seven years of age, after his father was brutally murdered at St. John’s Toun of Perth, because his elder twin, Alexander, Duke of Rothesay, had died in infancy. During James’ minority, his guardians began well by rounding up and executing the murderers of James I. However, after Archibald, Earl of Douglas, who was Regent for the child King, died in 1439, the situation degenerated and a savage and bloody struggle for power ensued. That feud involved three key protagonists, Sir William Crichton, the keeper of Edinburgh Castle, Sir Alexander Livingstone and William, the 6th Earl of Douglas.
To some extent, things became a bit like ‘pass the parcel’ as Crichton initially had custody of the young James, but he was then kidnapped and carried off to Stirling by Livingstone who also abducted Joan Beaufort. When Parliament demanded that Livingstone release James and his mother, Livingstone and Crichton formed an alliance against the Douglas. The result of their plotting was that the young Earl of Douglas was treacherously murdered at the infamous ‘Black Dinner', whilst the young James was humiliatingly impotent to prevent his death.
Twelve years later, in an amazing action replay of the events of the ‘Black Dinner’, the 8th Earl of Douglas was invited to Stirling Castle on the King’s safe conduct. That William didn’t have quite the same relationship with the King as his predecessor and was – wrongly and tragically – viewed with suspicion as a threat to the Crown. Despite the manner of his father’s death and the dastardly execution of the 6th Earl, James II, King of Scots, bloodied his own hands in exactly the same way as those he would have previously condemned. Douglas was stabbed in a frenzied rage by the King himself. Ultimately, the Douglas power was ended at the Battle of Arkinholm in May, 1455.
James II became very fond of guns and an enthusiastic promoter of the new military invention, the cannon. Although gunpowder was known in Europe during the High Middle Ages, it was not until the Late Middle Ages that cannon were widely developed. The first European cannon were probably used in Iberia during the Islamic wars against the Christians in the 13th Century and cannon first appeared in Britain in 1327. Primitive cannon were engaged at the Battle of Crécy in 1346. During the 15th Century, cannon advanced so that bombards became effective siege engines, gradually replacing siege engines and other aging forms of weaponry. ‘Bombardum’ was the earliest term used for ‘cannon’, but from 1430, it came to refer only to the largest of siege weapons.
If you want to see just how big such bombards were, take a trip to Edinburgh Castle. In 1457, James II was given the present of a great siege gun, originally made for the Queen's uncle, the Duke of Burgundy, at Mons, now in Belgium. That bombard, weighing over six tons, was christened ‘Mons Meg’ and was kept with the rest of the royal guns in Edinburgh Castle. She (it!) was used in anger against the English, but its enormous bulk soon made it obsolete as a siege gun. It wasn’t brought to the siege of Roxburgh Castle, because it was too big to transport. Later, in 1681, during a birthday salute for the Duke of Albany (later to become James VII & II, the last Stewart King), its barrel burst open and it was unceremoniously dumped beside Foog’s Gate in Edinburgh Castle. However, ‘Mons Meg’ is now restored and proudly on display in the Castle.
In 1460, James II involved himself in the English dynastic struggle, the ‘Wars of the Roses’, placing his weight behind the Lancastrians, the family of his mother, Joan Beaufort, after the defeat of Henry VI at Northampton. James attacked English possessions across the border, which led to escalating retaliations and James’ determination to recover Roxburgh Castle. The once majestic Castle, also known as Marchmount, standing on a high tree covered mound between the Teviot and the Tweed south of Kelso, was fought over time and again by the Scots and English. It was a fortress as far back as the Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria and a Royal Scots castle since at least the time of David I. Like Berwick, it was seized and occupied by hostile English in 1334 and attempts to win it back by the Douglases and James’ father were unsuccessful. It was in English hands for over one hundred years and became a thorn in the side of Scotland.
James took a large army and half a dozen bombards, newly imported from Flanders, to lay siege to Roxburgh. One of these was known as the ‘Flanders Lion’ and it was ironic that James’ enthusiasm and determination to be personally involved in firing and showing off that mighty cannon ‘in honour of his Queen’ led to his death. On the 3rd of August, 1460, whilst attempting to fire the ‘Lion’, James was killed by flying shrapnel when it burst its casing in a thunderous explosion. Robert Lindsay of Pitscottie, writing in his ‘Historie’ of James' reign, stated, “as the King stood near a piece of artillery, his thigh bone was dug in two with a piece of misframed gun that brake in shooting, by which he was stricken to the ground and died hastily.” He was twenty nine years, nine months and seventeen days old. Nigel Tranter, in his novel ‘The Lion’s Whelp’ suggests that the Queen was present at the siege, and he has her sinking to her knees to cradle her husband’s bloodied features in her arms.
It would appear, however, that the Queen was brought to the scene from Hume Castle and it was she who urged the disheartened army to maintain the siege. George Douglas, the 4th ‘Red Douglas’ Earl of Angus, was also wounded in the blast, but he recovered sufficiently to lead the siege. Roxburgh fell a few days later and its fortifications were demolished. The fate of the English garrison is not recorded, but there appears to have been no prisoners taken. The nine year old James Stewart was crowned James III at Kelso Abbey a week later, ushering in yet another minority Kingship and his mother, Mary of Gueldres, acted as regent until her own death three years later. James II was buried at Holyrood Abbey, in Edinburgh.
Tuesday, 2 August 2011
Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone and many other useful things, died on the 2nd of August, 1922.
Alexander Graham Bell is famous for being the inventor of the first practical telephone, but he should be remembered for far more than that, wonderful invention as it was. Bell was an eminent scientist, inventor, engineer and innovator and rightly famous as he is for his ‘acoustic telegraph’, his inquisitiveness, intellect, inspiration and determination drove him to many more achievements. Perhaps, in retrospect, none of his inventions was more socially impactful than the telephone proved to be, but his involvement with the art of communication was profound and began at a very early age, due to his father, grandfather and uncle all being elocutionists.
Bell’s laboratory notebooks demonstrate his intellectual curiosity and his life seems to have been one of perpetual seeking and striving to learn and create. Even as a child Alexander was always looking for answers and, although every child asks “Why?” wee Eck must’ve driven his parents to distraction by his incessant curiosity. Well, maybe not; methinks they encouraged his interest. In any case, his enthusiasm never waned and, months before he died, Bell was telling a reporter, “There cannot be mental atrophy in any person who continues to observe, to remember what he observes, and to seek answers for the unceasing ‘hows and whys’ about things.”
Alexander Graham Bell was born in Edinburgh on the 3rd of March, 1847. As a boy, Alexander received his early schooling at home, from his father, whilst later, for four terms, until he was fifteen, he attended the Royal High School in Edinburgh. After that, Alexander spent a year in London with his grandfather, who encouraged his interest in science and coached him for the attributes of a teacher. Back in Scotland at sixteen, Alexander got a job in Elgin as a pupil-teacher of elocution and music and a year later, he made it to the University of Edinburgh. In 1868, Alexander completed his matriculation exams at Edinburgh and was accepted for admission to the University of London. Two years later, in 1870, Bell emigrated to Canada with his parents, of which fact perhaps many people aren’t aware. Yes it’s true, Alexander Graham Bell first arrived in the United States of America, in 1871, via its neighbour and this son of Scotland didn’t become a naturalized citizen of the United States until 1882.
In Bell’s involvement in teaching in Canada and his research on hearing and speech, further led him to experiment with hearing devices, which eventually culminated in his being awarded the first US patent for the telephone. That patent – number 174,465 – was granted on the 7th of March, 1876. There has been some controversy over that patent as there were claims that Elisha Gray was first to file an application for a device using a water transmitter. However, on the 25th of February, 1875, a year before Gray’s first application and Bell’s successful patent, Bell had filed an application describing mercury as the liquid in its variable resistance device. If anyone copied anyone, it was Gray in his substituting of water for mercury.
A year later, in 1877, Bell formed the Bell Telephone Company and by 1886, over 150,000 people in the U.S. owned telephones. The telephone thus emerged as one of the most successful products ever and, since then, its function has come to be taken for granted, never mind that in some cases, like smartphones, it’s almost a secondary application. Funnily enough, Bell came to consider his most famous invention to be an intrusion on his ‘real work’ as a scientist and he went so far as to refuse to have a telephone in his study.
The enormous financial success of Bell Telephone meant that Bell’s future was secure, however, he didn’t rest upon his laurels. Instead, Bell devoted himself to his scientific interests and continued to test out new ideas throughout a long and productive life. After the telephone, Bell further explored the realm of communications as well as engaging in a huge variety of other activities. Bell got involved in groundbreaking work in optical telecommunications, hydrofoils, kites, airplanes, tetrahedral structures, sheep-breeding, artificial respiration, desalinization and water distillation, and metal detecting.
Bell was not a lone genius. He believed in teamwork as was evidenced from his employment of Thomas A. Watson, an experienced electrical designer and mechanic, to assist him with the telephone. Later, from 1881, Bell worked with his cousin, Chichester Bell, and a guy called Charles Sumner Tainter. That was at the Volta Laboratory in Washington, D.C., which Bell set up using the $10,000 prize he got from winning the French Volta Prix. Amongst other things, the Volta Lab experiments produced major improvements in Thomas Edison’s phonograph, such that it became commercially viable. That’s something we also take for granted today, equally with the telephone. Next time you play a CD or better still, if you’ve still got any, your LPs, say a “thank you” to Alexander Graham Bell. The Volta Bureau later evolved into the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, which became a leading center for the research and pedagogy of deafness.
Amongst Bell’s later innovations was the ‘photophone’, a device that enabled sound to be transmitted on a beam of light, presaging fibre optic communications by half a century or so. Bell and Charles Sumner Tainter jointly developed the ‘photophone’, also known as the ‘radiophone’ using a sensitive selenium crystal and a mirror that vibrated in response to a sound. In 1881, a year after gaining its master patent, they successfully sent a ‘photophone’ message over 200 yards between two buildings. Bell regarded the ‘photophone’, rather than the telephone, as his greatest invention, calling it his “proudest achievement” and writing that it was “the greatest invention [I have] ever made, greater than the telephone.”
Bell also devoted a great deal of time and effort to the challenge of flight. He didn’t quite beat the Wright Brothers to it, however, in 1907, four years after the Kitty Hawk, Bell formed the Aerial Experiment Association with Glenn Curtiss, William ‘Casey’ Baldwin, Thomas Selfridge, and J.A.D. McCurdy. The goal of that group was to create airborne vehicles and by 1909, they had produced four powered aircraft. The most noteworthy being the ‘Silver Dart’, which made the first successful powered flight in Canada in February, 1909.
Bell, who died of diabetes on the 2nd of August, 1922, at Beinn Bhreagh in Nova Scotia, has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history. Who could argue with that? During his funeral, every phone on the continent of North America was silenced in his honor. He was buried atop Beinn Bhreagh Mountain, in Nova Scotia.
Alexander Graham Bell is famous for being the inventor of the first practical telephone, but he should be remembered for far more than that, wonderful invention as it was. Bell was an eminent scientist, inventor, engineer and innovator and rightly famous as he is for his ‘acoustic telegraph’, his inquisitiveness, intellect, inspiration and determination drove him to many more achievements. Perhaps, in retrospect, none of his inventions was more socially impactful than the telephone proved to be, but his involvement with the art of communication was profound and began at a very early age, due to his father, grandfather and uncle all being elocutionists.
Bell’s laboratory notebooks demonstrate his intellectual curiosity and his life seems to have been one of perpetual seeking and striving to learn and create. Even as a child Alexander was always looking for answers and, although every child asks “Why?” wee Eck must’ve driven his parents to distraction by his incessant curiosity. Well, maybe not; methinks they encouraged his interest. In any case, his enthusiasm never waned and, months before he died, Bell was telling a reporter, “There cannot be mental atrophy in any person who continues to observe, to remember what he observes, and to seek answers for the unceasing ‘hows and whys’ about things.”
Alexander Graham Bell was born in Edinburgh on the 3rd of March, 1847. As a boy, Alexander received his early schooling at home, from his father, whilst later, for four terms, until he was fifteen, he attended the Royal High School in Edinburgh. After that, Alexander spent a year in London with his grandfather, who encouraged his interest in science and coached him for the attributes of a teacher. Back in Scotland at sixteen, Alexander got a job in Elgin as a pupil-teacher of elocution and music and a year later, he made it to the University of Edinburgh. In 1868, Alexander completed his matriculation exams at Edinburgh and was accepted for admission to the University of London. Two years later, in 1870, Bell emigrated to Canada with his parents, of which fact perhaps many people aren’t aware. Yes it’s true, Alexander Graham Bell first arrived in the United States of America, in 1871, via its neighbour and this son of Scotland didn’t become a naturalized citizen of the United States until 1882.
In Bell’s involvement in teaching in Canada and his research on hearing and speech, further led him to experiment with hearing devices, which eventually culminated in his being awarded the first US patent for the telephone. That patent – number 174,465 – was granted on the 7th of March, 1876. There has been some controversy over that patent as there were claims that Elisha Gray was first to file an application for a device using a water transmitter. However, on the 25th of February, 1875, a year before Gray’s first application and Bell’s successful patent, Bell had filed an application describing mercury as the liquid in its variable resistance device. If anyone copied anyone, it was Gray in his substituting of water for mercury.
A year later, in 1877, Bell formed the Bell Telephone Company and by 1886, over 150,000 people in the U.S. owned telephones. The telephone thus emerged as one of the most successful products ever and, since then, its function has come to be taken for granted, never mind that in some cases, like smartphones, it’s almost a secondary application. Funnily enough, Bell came to consider his most famous invention to be an intrusion on his ‘real work’ as a scientist and he went so far as to refuse to have a telephone in his study.
The enormous financial success of Bell Telephone meant that Bell’s future was secure, however, he didn’t rest upon his laurels. Instead, Bell devoted himself to his scientific interests and continued to test out new ideas throughout a long and productive life. After the telephone, Bell further explored the realm of communications as well as engaging in a huge variety of other activities. Bell got involved in groundbreaking work in optical telecommunications, hydrofoils, kites, airplanes, tetrahedral structures, sheep-breeding, artificial respiration, desalinization and water distillation, and metal detecting.
Bell was not a lone genius. He believed in teamwork as was evidenced from his employment of Thomas A. Watson, an experienced electrical designer and mechanic, to assist him with the telephone. Later, from 1881, Bell worked with his cousin, Chichester Bell, and a guy called Charles Sumner Tainter. That was at the Volta Laboratory in Washington, D.C., which Bell set up using the $10,000 prize he got from winning the French Volta Prix. Amongst other things, the Volta Lab experiments produced major improvements in Thomas Edison’s phonograph, such that it became commercially viable. That’s something we also take for granted today, equally with the telephone. Next time you play a CD or better still, if you’ve still got any, your LPs, say a “thank you” to Alexander Graham Bell. The Volta Bureau later evolved into the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, which became a leading center for the research and pedagogy of deafness.
Amongst Bell’s later innovations was the ‘photophone’, a device that enabled sound to be transmitted on a beam of light, presaging fibre optic communications by half a century or so. Bell and Charles Sumner Tainter jointly developed the ‘photophone’, also known as the ‘radiophone’ using a sensitive selenium crystal and a mirror that vibrated in response to a sound. In 1881, a year after gaining its master patent, they successfully sent a ‘photophone’ message over 200 yards between two buildings. Bell regarded the ‘photophone’, rather than the telephone, as his greatest invention, calling it his “proudest achievement” and writing that it was “the greatest invention [I have] ever made, greater than the telephone.”
Bell also devoted a great deal of time and effort to the challenge of flight. He didn’t quite beat the Wright Brothers to it, however, in 1907, four years after the Kitty Hawk, Bell formed the Aerial Experiment Association with Glenn Curtiss, William ‘Casey’ Baldwin, Thomas Selfridge, and J.A.D. McCurdy. The goal of that group was to create airborne vehicles and by 1909, they had produced four powered aircraft. The most noteworthy being the ‘Silver Dart’, which made the first successful powered flight in Canada in February, 1909.
Bell, who died of diabetes on the 2nd of August, 1922, at Beinn Bhreagh in Nova Scotia, has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history. Who could argue with that? During his funeral, every phone on the continent of North America was silenced in his honor. He was buried atop Beinn Bhreagh Mountain, in Nova Scotia.
Monday, 1 August 2011
The 'Dress Act'
The wearing of ‘Highland Clothes’ was proscribed or banned and that ban came into force on the 1st of August, 1747.
In the wake of the Jacobite Uprising and its glorious failure at the Battle of Culloden in 1746, the wearing of the kilt and other elements of ‘Highland Clothes’ was banned by the Hanoverian Government. In addition to the medieval reprisals and barbarities inflicted upon the Highlanders by ‘Butcher’ Cumberland after Culloden, a petty and spiteful Parliament, fearful of another attempt at restoring the legitimate House of Stuart (Stewart), decided to punish Highland Scotland by the imposition of new laws and the issue of an Act intended to destroy the Clans’ economic and cultural identity. New laws abolished heritable jurisdictions and claimed (stole) estates for the crown. The Act of Proscription, drawn up in 1746, reiterated the Disarming Acts of 1716 and 1725, which restricted the possession of weapons amongst Highlanders, and included the ‘Dress Act’, which banned the traditional wearing of tartans and Highland dress for all except Government troops.
Under the ‘Dress Act’, which came into force on the 1st of August, 1747, men and boys were forbidden to wear ‘Highland Clothes’. Note that the act didn’t actually ban tartan or all use of tartan; it only banned its use for certain kinds of clothing. Nor did the act apply to those men serving as soldiers in Highland Regiments or to the Gentry, sons of Gentry or women. It also only affected ‘that part of Great Briton called Scotland’. The area in which the act was to be enforced was more particularly defined in the earlier Disarming Act of 1716 as being ‘within the shire of Dunbartain, on the north side of the water of Leven, Stirling on the north side of the river of Forth, Perth, Kincardin, Aberdeen, Inverness, Nairn, Cromarty, Argyle, Forfar, Bamff, Sutherland, Caithness, Elgine and Ross’.
The wording of the ‘Dress Act’ contained within the Proscription Act was as follows:
“And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That from and after the first day of August, one thousand seven hundred and forty seven, no man or boy, within that part of Great Briton called Scotland, other than shall be employed as officers and soldiers in his Majesty's forces, shall on any pretence whatsoever, wear or put on the clothes commonly called Highland Clothes (that is to say) the plaid, philibeg, or little kilt, trowse, shoulder belts, or any part whatsoever of what peculiarly belongs to the highland garb; and that no tartan, or partly-coloured plaid or stuff shall be used for great coats, or for upper coats; and if any such person shall presume, after the said first day of August, to wear or put on the aforesaid garments or any part of them, every such person so offending, being convicted thereof by the oath of one or more credible witness or witnesses before any court of justiciary, or any one or more justices of the peace for the shire or stewartry, or judge ordinary of the place where such offence shall be committed, shall suffer imprisonment, without bail, during the space of six months, and no longer; and being convicted for a second offence before a court of justiciary or at the circuits, shall be liable to be transported to any of his Majesty's plantations beyond the seas, there to remain for a space of seven years.”
Of course, the Highlanders made it their business to elude the spiteful and unconstitutional law, and employed ingenious means in so doing. General Stewart reported that, “instead of the prohibited tartan kilt, some wore pieces of a blue, green, or red thin cloth, or coarse camblet, wrapped round the waist, and hanging down to the knees like the fealdag.” He went on to include, “others, …sewed up the centre of the kilt with a few stitches between the thighs.” At first, these ingenious attempts at evading the act were punished somewhat severely, but by the time of a trial that took place in 1757, breaches were regarded with a lenient eye. Eventually, on the 1st of July, 1782, to great rejoicing in the north, the law was erased from the statute book by the Act of Abolition. A proclamation was issued in Gaelic and English which included:
“Listen Men. This is bringing before all the Sons of the Gael, … You are no longer bound down to the unmanly dress of the Lowlander. …[you] may after this put on and wear the Truis, the Little Kilt, the Coat, and the Striped Hose, as also the Belted Plaid, without fear of the Law of the Realm or the spite of the enemies.”
Any form of prohibition will always rile the people, who will always find ways to circumvent the legislation. Offences against such acts always multiply, not least because of the very temptation inherent in their silliness. Ultimately they are repealed, because they fail to achieve their objective and their introduction is generally a sign of weakness or lack of wisdom in a Government. The ‘Dress Act’, interfering as it did in a matter so personal and apparently harmless, seems to have been nothing more than wanton and insulting oppression, intended to humble and degrade. If the people who passed the ‘Dress Act’ thought it would eradicating the Highlanders’ national spirit and turn them into passive and ersatz Lowlanders, once more were they forced ‘tae think again’. They were obviously totally ignorant of the real character of Highlanders.
Now, of course, tartan and the kilt have become potent symbols Scotland and Scottish culture. Maybe that’s due in part to the ‘Dress Act’, which had the reverse affect to that intended, turning it into something far more emblematic and sacrosanct than it ever was. It must have been a catalyst for the popular and oft perpetuated myths that exist today around the wearing of the kilt and who can wear what tartan. One way or another, since it was banned in the 18th Century, it has become an industry indispensible to Scotland’s economy.
In the wake of the Jacobite Uprising and its glorious failure at the Battle of Culloden in 1746, the wearing of the kilt and other elements of ‘Highland Clothes’ was banned by the Hanoverian Government. In addition to the medieval reprisals and barbarities inflicted upon the Highlanders by ‘Butcher’ Cumberland after Culloden, a petty and spiteful Parliament, fearful of another attempt at restoring the legitimate House of Stuart (Stewart), decided to punish Highland Scotland by the imposition of new laws and the issue of an Act intended to destroy the Clans’ economic and cultural identity. New laws abolished heritable jurisdictions and claimed (stole) estates for the crown. The Act of Proscription, drawn up in 1746, reiterated the Disarming Acts of 1716 and 1725, which restricted the possession of weapons amongst Highlanders, and included the ‘Dress Act’, which banned the traditional wearing of tartans and Highland dress for all except Government troops.
Under the ‘Dress Act’, which came into force on the 1st of August, 1747, men and boys were forbidden to wear ‘Highland Clothes’. Note that the act didn’t actually ban tartan or all use of tartan; it only banned its use for certain kinds of clothing. Nor did the act apply to those men serving as soldiers in Highland Regiments or to the Gentry, sons of Gentry or women. It also only affected ‘that part of Great Briton called Scotland’. The area in which the act was to be enforced was more particularly defined in the earlier Disarming Act of 1716 as being ‘within the shire of Dunbartain, on the north side of the water of Leven, Stirling on the north side of the river of Forth, Perth, Kincardin, Aberdeen, Inverness, Nairn, Cromarty, Argyle, Forfar, Bamff, Sutherland, Caithness, Elgine and Ross’.
The wording of the ‘Dress Act’ contained within the Proscription Act was as follows:
“And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That from and after the first day of August, one thousand seven hundred and forty seven, no man or boy, within that part of Great Briton called Scotland, other than shall be employed as officers and soldiers in his Majesty's forces, shall on any pretence whatsoever, wear or put on the clothes commonly called Highland Clothes (that is to say) the plaid, philibeg, or little kilt, trowse, shoulder belts, or any part whatsoever of what peculiarly belongs to the highland garb; and that no tartan, or partly-coloured plaid or stuff shall be used for great coats, or for upper coats; and if any such person shall presume, after the said first day of August, to wear or put on the aforesaid garments or any part of them, every such person so offending, being convicted thereof by the oath of one or more credible witness or witnesses before any court of justiciary, or any one or more justices of the peace for the shire or stewartry, or judge ordinary of the place where such offence shall be committed, shall suffer imprisonment, without bail, during the space of six months, and no longer; and being convicted for a second offence before a court of justiciary or at the circuits, shall be liable to be transported to any of his Majesty's plantations beyond the seas, there to remain for a space of seven years.”
Of course, the Highlanders made it their business to elude the spiteful and unconstitutional law, and employed ingenious means in so doing. General Stewart reported that, “instead of the prohibited tartan kilt, some wore pieces of a blue, green, or red thin cloth, or coarse camblet, wrapped round the waist, and hanging down to the knees like the fealdag.” He went on to include, “others, …sewed up the centre of the kilt with a few stitches between the thighs.” At first, these ingenious attempts at evading the act were punished somewhat severely, but by the time of a trial that took place in 1757, breaches were regarded with a lenient eye. Eventually, on the 1st of July, 1782, to great rejoicing in the north, the law was erased from the statute book by the Act of Abolition. A proclamation was issued in Gaelic and English which included:
“Listen Men. This is bringing before all the Sons of the Gael, … You are no longer bound down to the unmanly dress of the Lowlander. …[you] may after this put on and wear the Truis, the Little Kilt, the Coat, and the Striped Hose, as also the Belted Plaid, without fear of the Law of the Realm or the spite of the enemies.”
Any form of prohibition will always rile the people, who will always find ways to circumvent the legislation. Offences against such acts always multiply, not least because of the very temptation inherent in their silliness. Ultimately they are repealed, because they fail to achieve their objective and their introduction is generally a sign of weakness or lack of wisdom in a Government. The ‘Dress Act’, interfering as it did in a matter so personal and apparently harmless, seems to have been nothing more than wanton and insulting oppression, intended to humble and degrade. If the people who passed the ‘Dress Act’ thought it would eradicating the Highlanders’ national spirit and turn them into passive and ersatz Lowlanders, once more were they forced ‘tae think again’. They were obviously totally ignorant of the real character of Highlanders.
Now, of course, tartan and the kilt have become potent symbols Scotland and Scottish culture. Maybe that’s due in part to the ‘Dress Act’, which had the reverse affect to that intended, turning it into something far more emblematic and sacrosanct than it ever was. It must have been a catalyst for the popular and oft perpetuated myths that exist today around the wearing of the kilt and who can wear what tartan. One way or another, since it was banned in the 18th Century, it has become an industry indispensible to Scotland’s economy.
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