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Boreades
In: finity and beyond
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So how did Scottish characters become part of what most people regard as an English legend?
The answer might be with the drovers. Elizabeth McQuillan has described the situation well:
| In the absence of lush grazing, and before the arrival of farm machinery, Scottish cattlemen had a pretty tough time going about the business of raising, tending, protecting and then selling their cattle. However, throughout the latter 17th century, the 18th century and early 19th century, there was a huge demand for meat due to the wars that England waged with a smörgåsbord of countries. Salted beef was needed to supply the naval fleet during the Napoleonic wars and the cattle, no matter where they started their journey, had to make it to London to meet demand. |
This meant passing through the Debatable Lands in between Scotland and England, through the territories of characters like Rob Roy (that romanticised thief and cattle rustler), and the "Border reiver" clans. All eager to take the cattle away from the drovers on their journey all the way to London.
| In 1794, Smithfield meat market in London processed 108,000 cattle, with an estimated 80 per cent having originated in Scotland, while in 1663, a total of 18,574 cattle were recorded passing north to south via Carlisle. |
Ref : Elizabeth McQuillan, The Caledonian Mercury
"Drovers and reivers - moving cattle the hard way"
Cattle rustling was a favourite pastime of these clans and especially with the younger men who saw it as part of gaining status and becoming adult. Some might say it continues to this day with gangs of lads. It's just four wheels now, instead of four legs.
Elizabeth McQuillan continues:
| During this arduous journey, the drovers were at constant risk of having their cattle plundered by armed “reivers”, or rustlers. The Border area between central Scotland and northern England had a particularly high population of reivers, ranging from the poorest peasant to landed gentry, as there was a lot of money to be made stealing the cattle. But there were protection rackets even then. The black cattle could be protected at a price – which is where the term “blackmail” is said to be originated. The clan MacGregor, among many others, could be paid to provide an armed escort. |
Note the choice of the phrase : "could be paid to provide an armed escort". Selling protection against theft is, of course, a euphamism for a protection racket. Rob Roy MacGregor gave us the word blackmail from the 'rent' he charged drovers for the cattle they moved across his lands.
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Boreades
In: finity and beyond
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If blackmail and protection rackets were a serious occupational hazard for you, what would you do about it? The prudent and sensible Scottish drovers organised their own protection, from trusted clanfolk.
Who would have the necessary skills?
This is suggestive of Sheila McGregor's old highland hunters (and martial artists), with traditions and beliefs that go back to the Neolithic.
See her chapter on "Why was the Fisher King Lame?"
Littlejohns with their bowstaffs, Scathelock / Scarletts with whatever Scarletts preferred. Knives or swords? And Hoods with their longbows for forest hunting.
By the time of the 18th century, drovers were regularly armed with firearms as well. After the Jacobite Rebellions (1745 etc), when the English were busy "pacifying" the unruly and ungrateful Scots, all weapons would be confiscated. All except the drovers, who by official English decree were still allowed to carry weapons.
How would these passing drovers be seen by local people? Similar travelling folk, like gypsies and tinkers, were notoriously distrusted as outsiders (in the words of the song : gypsies, tramps and thieves).
The drovers were in some respects seen as even worse, with huge herds of cattle that could break down fences and destroy crops. On their journeys through England, these groups of armed men with martial skills, travelling across country, with no allegiances to local lords or authorities, would have been viewed with suspicion, or regarded as outlaws by the local feudal barons and magistrates.
The rest is legend.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Most informative. We evoke some of this in Megalithic Empire but clearly we did not go far enough.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I am reading David Hume's History of England, written in the middle of the eighteenth century, from the point of view of the Scottish Enlightenment. I cannot vouch for its accuracy but it gives a different--and to my mind, better--account of late medieval England than modern academic historians do. How is this possible?
| It is because they are all using the same sources |
Academics like to give the impression they are technically equipped beyond anything an eighteenth century writer could manage but this is not so. No other sources have been discovered since Hume's day. They are all 'commentating' on the same few, unreliable manuscripts.
In fact the historians have gone backwards because they are encumbered by all the history that has been written since. What in AE we call the 'tyranny of knowledge'. They are no longer writing 'from the sources'.
I will give some examples from the reign of Edward III, and you will have no difficulty spotting the differences. You can judge for yourself whether Hume's version is to be preferred. I'll start with this, definitely not written in 'academese'
| The injured nobles began to think of vindicating their rights by force of arms; and they applied to Edward for his concurrence and assistance. |
This is after Robert the Bruce has defeated Edward II and established Scotland, apparently with finality, to be an independent kingdom. And after Edward III has recognised this to be so, with all the bells and whistles of medieval formality. /more
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| But there were several reasons which deterred the king from openly avowing their enterprise. |
Hume is referring to the time after Robert the Bruce has died, his infant son is king and Scotland is being ruled by a slightly shaky Regency. The English baronage figured there would be rich pickings in Scotland. Edward III wasn't so sure
| In his treaty with Scotland he had entered into a bond of twenty thousand pounds, payable to the pope, if within four years he violated the peace; and as the term was not yet elapsed, he dreaded the exacting of that penalty by the sovereign pontiff, who possessed so many means of forcing princes to make payment. |
Modern British historians live in a world where religion is something of a dead letter and the Pope is an outmoded force. Edward III did not live in such a world. He did though live in a modern world where international opinion had to be reckoned with
| He was also afraid that violence and injustice would everywhere be imputed to him, if he attacked with superior force a minor king, and a brother-in-law, whose independent title had so lately been acknowledged by a solemn treaty. |
What to do?
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| Edward resolved not to proceed by open violence. He secretly encouraged Baliol in his enterprise. |
Baliol was a pre-Bruce Scottish king who was so incompetent -- and pro-English -- he'd been thrown out of Scotland to live first in a London dungeon then on his English estates.
| Edward connived at Baliol assembling forces in the north; and gave countenance to the nobles who were disposed to join in the attempt. |
Officially to put Baliol back on the Scottish throne but really to make Scotland a part of England.
| A force of near two thousand five hundred men was enlisted under Baliol, by Umfreville, earl of Angus, the lords Beaumont, Ferrars, Fitzwarin, Wake, Stafford, Talbot, and Moubray. As these adventurers apprehended that the frontiers would be strongly armed and guarded, they resolved to make their attack by sea; and having embarked at Ravenspur, they reached in a few days the coast of Fife. |
But what chance did such a puny force have against the aroused Scottish nation? More than you might think...
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Academic 'British' historians--they are not divided into English and Scottish ones thanks to peer review--take a very firm and a very unanimous view of Scottish history. It's a story of a small and plucky race who survived sharing an island with a vastly bigger country until both came to their senses. Hume, being a Scottish historian, has no such illusions.
| Scotland was at that time in a very different situation from that in which it had appeared under the victorious Robert. Besides the loss of that great monarch, whose genius and authority preserved entire the whole political fabric, and maintained a union among the unruly barons.. |
I learned something generally about medieval history from Hume. Something academic historians do not emphasise nearly enough--relying as they do on domestic sources. Kings are forever leaving their kingdoms to their own devices so they can go off on jollies far, far away and for a long, long time.
| Lord Douglas [the regent for Bruce's infant son] had gone over to Spain in a crusade against the Moors, and had there perished in battle |
Next!
| The earl of Murray, who had long been declining through age and infirmities, had lately died, and had been succeeded in the regency by Donald, earl of Marre, a man of much inferior talents: the military spirit of the Scots, though still unbroken, was left without a proper guidance and direction: and a minor king seemed ill qualified to defend an inheritance, which it had required all the consummate valor and abilities of his father to acquire and maintain. |
Hume is a great one for the Great Man being the engine of history, a theory that is extremely unfashionable today. I am no longer signed up to this myself, at least when it comes to Anglo-Scottish history...
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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As we know the 'tyranny of large numbers' specially affects the numbers on either side in battles. But worse than that, the results of battles is rarely a matter of 'a fair fight, who won?'
| But as the Scots were apprised of the intended invasion, great numbers, on the appearance of the English fleet, immediately ran to the shore, in order to prevent the landing of the enemy. |
It is always a mystery why people waiting on the beach don't put people stumbling ashore in drips and drabs to the sword
| Baliol had valor and activity, and he drove back the Scots with considerable loss. He marched westward into the heart of the country; flattering himself that the ancient partisans of his family would declare for him. |
Plus he was the King of Scotland (o.n.o.). What could go wrong?
| But the fierce animosities which had been kindled between the two nations, inspiring the Scots with a strong prejudice against a prince supported by the English, he was regarded as a common enemy; and the regent found no difficulty in assembling a great army to oppose him. |
So a tiddly little expeditionary force plus a few family retainers are facing the Flower of Scotland
| It is pretended that Marre had no less than forty thousand men under his banners; but the same hurry and impatience that made him collect a force, which, from its greatness, was so disproportioned to the occasion, rendered all his motions unskilful and imprudent. |
No country had a standing army at this time so 'the usual suspects' would be closer to the mark.
| The River Erne ran between the two armies; and the Scots, confiding in that security, as well as in their great superiority of numbers, kept no order in their encampment. |
That's another thing. People are always losing track of the enemy. It's called the 'fog of war'. Even when you can see them on the other bank of the river.
| Baliol passed the river in the night-time; attacked the unguarded and undisciplined Scots; threw them into confusion, which was increased by the darkness, and by their very numbers, to which they trusted; and he beat them off the field with great slaughter. |
Job done? You're forgetting about the 'losing sight of' factor.
| But in the morning, when the Scots were at some distance, they were ashamed of having yielded the victory to so weak a foe, and they hurried back to recover the honor of the day. |
What could go wrong?
| Their eager passions urged them precipitately to battle, without regard to some broken ground which lay between them and the enemy |
In Scotland, broken ground is always a problem for men in kilts and claymores trying to stumble across it.
| which disordered and confounded their ranks. Baliol seized the favorable opportunity, advanced his troops upon them, prevented them from rallying, and anew chased them off the field with redoubled slaughter. |
Dearie me. Still I expect they'll regroup as per. But what's this?
| There fell above twelve thousand Scots in this action; and among these the flower of their nobility; the regent himself, the earl of Carrick, a natural son of their late king, the earls of Athole and Monteith, lord Hay of Errol, constable, and the lords Keith and Lindsey. |
Yes, but there can't be much left of the expeditionary force after all this coming and going, can there? Give us the bad news, we can take it.
| The loss of the English scarcely exceeded thirty men | |
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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A modern scholar would never put it this way. It would be reduced to some semblance of rationality. Mostly by mocking the sources and removing a nought from time to time. Yet the sources haven't changed from Hume's time to ours and academic historians are supposed to be limited to them for evidentiary purposes. So it is the modern scholar who is, as it were, making it up.
But there's worse to come.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| Baliol soon after made himself master of Perth; but still was not able to bring over any of the Scots to his party. |
That's pretty revealing. Here's someone who appears to be a king, of a country that appears to be in desperate need of a king, who has just scattered his rivals' armies... and he can get no takers!
| Patric Dunbar, earl of Marche, and Sir Archibald Douglas, brother to the lord of that name, appeared at the head of the Scottish armies, which amounted still to near forty thousand men |
'Forty thousand' would seem to be a conventional term for a 'helluvalot' and Scotland appears to be able to put large armies into the field at at the drop of a bonnet.
| and they purposed to reduce Baliol and the English by famine. They blockaded Perth by land; they collected some vessels to invest it by water... |
What could go wrong?
| ...but Baliol’s ships, attacking the Scottish fleet, gained a complete victory, and opened the communication between Perth and the sea. |
Where the hell had they come from?
| The Scotch armies were then obliged to disband for want of pay and subsistence: the nation was in effect subdued by a handful of men |
Easy come, easy go. So now are the Scotch [what a relief to be able to use that noble word again] prepared to accept their new (old) king?
| each nobleman who found himself most exposed to danger, successively submitted to Baliol: that prince was crowned at Scone: David, his competitor, was sent over to France with his betrothed wife Jane, sister to Edward: and the heads of his party sued to Baliol for a truce, which he granted them, in order to assemble a parliament in tranquillity, and have his title recognized by the whole Scottish nation. |
You must be joking.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| Lord Douglas [the regent for Bruce's infant son] had gone over to Spain in a crusade against the Moors, and had there perished in battle |
All of these folks are Normans, it's a Norman argument over land in England, Scotland and elsewhere including Spain and the Holy lands.
Robert de Bruis etc
Mostly these crusaders attacked each other.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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True, but it's on the cusp. The ruling class of the nation-state, the people, are slowly emerging. This is why the king is so critical. He can't beat the oligarchy-united, but if he's got the people on his side, they can't beat him either. But the people won't take any king.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| But Baliol’s imprudence, or his necessities, making him dismiss the greater part of his English followers, he was, notwithstanding the truce, attacked of a sudden near Annan, by Sir Archibald Douglas and other chieftains of that party; he was routed; his brother, John Baliol, was slain; he himself was chased into England in a miserable condition; and thus lost his kingdom by a revolution as sudden as that by which he had acquired it. |
Like I say, easy come, easy go. No matter.
| While Baliol enjoyed his short-lived and precarious royalty, he had been sensible that, without the protection of England, it would be impossible for him to maintain possession of the throne; and he had secretly sent a message to Edward, offering to acknowledge his superiority, to renew the homage for his crown, and to espouse the princess Jane, if the pope’s consent could be obtained for dissolving her former marriage, which was not yet consummated. |
This sums up the importance of the change from feudal state to nation-state. Everyone thought it was just like the old days...
| Edward, ambitious of recovering that important concession, made by Mortimer during his minority, threw off all scruples, and willingly accepted the offer; but as the dethroning of Baliol had rendered this stipulation of no effect, the king prepared to reinstate him in possession of the crown; an enterprise which appeared from late experience so easy and so little hazardous |
Or so he assumed...
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| So a tiddly little expeditionary force plus a few family retainers are facing the Flower of Scotland |
The Flower at that time was the Fleur de lis, for every crusader battle in Scotland there was a crusader battle in England, and elsewhere.
Both sides issued coins, long cross, short cross pennies, often with a fleur de lis.
| Lord Douglas [the regent for Bruce's infant son] had gone over to Spain in a crusade against the Moors, and had there perished in battle |
That doesn't surprise me as it's a spiritual religious fight against the Moors for land (moorland) under the banner of the shining cross, wherever needed.
Dartmoor Exmoor
| "tract of open, untilled, more or less elevated ground, often overrun with heath," c. 1200, from Old English mor "morass, swamp," from Proto-Germanic *mora- (source also of Old Saxon, Middle Dutch, Dutch meer "swamp," Old High German muor "swamp," also "sea," German Moor "moor," Old Norse mörr "moorland," marr "sea"), perhaps related to mere (n.1), or from root *mer- "to die," hence "dead land." |
Douglas= De Glas (Glastonbury)
What you keep on missing is, if I can be so Wiley The Bold, is that in order to claim (virgin) land you had to take it from the moors on behalf of god.
EG. So(mer)set is moor land that has been settled safely under the cross.
| Somerset's name derives from Old English Sumorsǣte, short for Sumortūnsǣte |
It's settled ex moorland.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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That makes a lot of sense in explaining why all that stuff about Patrick, Columba et al in Ireland was made up. Hatty and I worked out the whole Irish missionary movement, founding monasteries and bishoprics all over pagan Europe, was spurious but why it was necessary wasn't so clear. They came, they went, they disappeared.
If it meant the True Cross (i.e. the papal cross) had to be summoned to rid Ireland of the Celtic Cross then a crusade would be necessary.
| originally from French croisade, an alteration (influenced by Spanish cruzado ) of earlier croisée, literally ‘the state of being marked with the cross’, based on Latin crux | |
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