Bonnie Scotland

Let's stairt we a wee bit poated history o this land o oors. A wance pit this oan the Scoatsman newspaper

website an sum respondents tae that thoucht that a should publish it,

so here ye are then. Ah micht develop it further if ah find the time

Ireland...St Ninian...Dalradia...celts, picts, scots, vikings...bang...kapow...crash...bang...wallop, and a bit o assasination, rape n pilage....Scotland....Rob the Bruce....edward longshanks....wants... it's mine gotta have....naw ye dinnae it's oors yer no gettin it.... here pope geis a haun, here tell him.... aye that's right... eddie pal get aff it's theirs....Declaration o Arbroath....Willie Wallace aff wi his heid an ither bits....this isnae right...
Bannockburn.... noo will ye tak a tellin its oors awa hame an stay there.....Mary Queen of the South....
Were aw Catholics.....John Knox......naw were no
awa ye go.....awright then had enough o this onywey
Liziie the poxy virgin Queen o even further south.....
aff wi her heid an aw, even if she is ma cousin.....here this isnae right either......ouch that hurt....go an dinnae dae tha....how no.....covenanters.....were aw protestant now.... naw were no.....were no haen ony bishops here.....jenny geddes..... stool..... crump.... that hurt tae.... King James sixth an furst......dae ye think if ah show them ma erse they'll clap ony louder.....Gunpowder plot......nae bang....guy fawkes....aff wi his heid an ither bits.....right wer'e definately aw protestant now.... naw were no....union o parliaments wi much connivance, corruption an skullduggery.......bonnie prince charlie.....twit n poof......cullodden.....bang crash wallop....treatchery.....butcher cumberland....
ouch tha hurt a lot.....highland clearances.....good queen vickie.....lord lyon king at
arms......tartans....british empire...harry lauder.....two world wars....european union.....devolution...... an noo..... It's Time

The Declaration of Arbroath

To the most Holy Father and Lord in Christ, the Lord John, by divine

providence Supreme Pontiff of the Holy Roman and Universal Church, his

humble and devout sons Duncan, Earl of Fife, Thomas Randolph, Earl of

Moray, Lord of Man and of Annandale, Patrick Dunbar, Earl of March,

Malise, Earl of Strathearn, Malcolm, Earl of Lennox, William, Earl of

Ross, Magnus, Earl of Caithness and Orkney, and William, Earl of

Sutherland; Walter, Steward of Scotland, William Soules, Butler of

Scotland, James, Lord of Douglas, Roger Mowbray, David, Lord of

Brechin, David Graham, Ingram Umfraville, John Menteith, guardian of

the earldom of Menteith, Alexander Fraser, Gilbert Hay, Constable of

Scotland, Robert Keith, Marischal of Scotland, Henry St Clair, John

Graham, David Lindsay, William Oliphant, Patrick Graham, John Fenton,

William Abernethy, David Wemyss, William Mushet, Fergus of Ardrossan,

Eustace Maxwell, William Ramsay, William Mowat, Alan Murray, Donald

Campbell, John Cameron, Reginald Cheyne, Alexander Seton, Andrew Leslie,

and Alexander Straiton, and the other barons and freeholders and the

whole community of the realm of Scotland send all manner of filial

reverence, with devout kisses of his blessed feet.

Most Holy Father and Lord, we know and from the chronicles and books

of the ancients we find that among other famous nations our own, the

Scots, has been graced with widespread renown. They journeyed from

Greater Scythia by way of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Pillars of

Hercules, and dwelt for a long course of time in Spain among the most

savage tribes, but nowhere could they be subdued by any race, however

barbarous. Thence they came, twelve hundred years after the people of

Israel crossed the Red Sea, to their home in the west where they still

live today. The Britons they first drove out, the Picts they utterly

destroyed, and, even though very often assailed by the Norwegians, the

Danes and the English, they took possession of that home with many

victories and untold efforts; and, as the historians of old time bear

witness, they have held it free of all bondage ever since. In their

kingdom there have reigned one hundred and thirteen kings of their own

royal stock, the line unbroken a single foreigner.

The high qualities and deserts of these people, were they not

otherwise manifest, gain glory enough from this: that the King of

kings and Lord of lords, our Lord Jesus Christ, after His Passion and

Resurrection, called them, even though settled in the uttermost parts

of the earth, almost the first to His most holy faith. Nor would He

have them confirmed in that faith by merely anyone but by the first of

His Apostles -- by calling, though second or third in rank -- the most

gentle Saint Andrew, the Blessed Peter's brother, and desired him to

keep them under his protection as their patron forever.

The Most Holy Fathers your predecessors gave careful heed to these

things and bestowed many favours and numerous privileges on this same

kingdom and people, as being the special charge of the Blessed Peter's

brother. Thus our nation under their protection did indeed live in

freedom and peace up to the time when that mighty prince the King of

the English, Edward, the father of the one who reigns today, when our

kingdom had no head and our people harboured no malice or treachery

and were then unused to wars or invasions, came in the guise of a

friend and ally to harass them as an enemy. The deeds of cruelty,

massacre, violence, pillage, arson, imprisoning prelates, burning down

monasteries, robbing and killing monks and nuns, and yet other

outrages without number which he committed against our people, sparing

neither age nor sex, religion nor rank, no one could describe nor

fully imagine unless he had seen them with his own eyes.

But from these countless evils we have been set free, by the help of

Him Who though He afflicts yet heals and restores, by our most

tireless Prince, King and Lord, the Lord Robert. He, that his people

and his heritage might be delivered out of the hands of our enemies,

met toil and fatigue, hunger and peril, like another Macabaeus or

Joshua and bore them cheerfully. Him, too, divine providence, his

right of succession according to or laws and customs which we shall

maintain to the death, and the due consent and assent of us all have

made our Prince and King. To him, as to the man by whom salvation has

been wrought unto our people, we are bound both by law and by his

merits that our freedom may be still maintained, and by him, come what

may, we mean to stand.

Yet if he should give up what he has begun, and agree to make us or

our kingdom subject to the King of England or the English, we should

exert ourselves at once to drive him out as our enemy and a subverter

of his own rights and ours, and make some other man who was well able

to defend us our King; for, as long as but a hundred of us remain

alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule.

It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are

fighting, but for freedom -- for that alone, which no honest man gives

up but with life itself.

Therefore it is, Reverend Father and Lord, that we beseech your

Holiness with our most earnest prayers and suppliant hearts, inasmuch

as you will in your sincerity and goodness consider all this, that,

since with Him Whose vice-gerent on earth you are there is neither

weighing nor distinction of Jew and Greek, Scotsman or Englishman, you

will look with the eyes of a father on the troubles and privation

brought by the English upon us and upon the Church of God. May it

please you to admonish and exhort the King of the English, who ought

to be satisfied with what belongs to him since England used once to be

enough for seven kings or more, to leave us Scots in peace, who live

in this poor little Scotland, beyond which there is no dwelling-place

at all, and covet nothing but our own. We are sincerely willing to do

anything for him, having regard to our condition, that we can, to win

peace for ourselves.

This truly concerns you, Holy Father, since you see the savagery of

the heathen raging against the Christians, as the sins of Christians

have indeed deserved, and the frontiers of Christendom being pressed

inward every day; and how much it will tarnish your Holiness's memory

if (which God forbid) the Church suffers eclipse or scandal in any

branch of it during your time, you must perceive. Then rouse the

Christian princes who for false reasons pretend that they cannot go to

help of the Holy Land because of wars they have on hand with their

neighbours. The real reason that prevents them is that in making war

on their smaller neighbours they find quicker profit and weaker

resistance. But how cheerfully our Lord the King and we too would go

there if the King of the English would leave us in peace, He from Whom

nothing is hidden well knows; and we profess and declare it to you as

the Vicar of Christ and to all Christendom.

But if your Holiness puts too much faith in the tales the English tell

and will not give sincere belief to all this, nor refrain from

favouring them to our prejudice, then the slaughter of bodies, the

perdition of souls, and all the other misfortunes that will follow,

inflicted by them on us and by us on them, will, we believe, be surely

laid by the Most High to your charge.

To conclude, we are and shall ever be, as far as duty calls us, ready

to do your will in all things, as obedient sons to you as His Vicar;

and to Him as the Supreme King and Judge we commit the maintenance of

our cause, csating our cares upon Him and firmly trusting that He will

inspire us with courage and bring our enemies to nought.

May the Most High preserve you to his Holy Church in holiness and

health and grant you length of days.

Given at the monastery of Arbroath in Scotland on the sixth day of the

month of April in the year of grace thirteen hundred and twenty and

the fifteenth year of the reign of our King aforesaid.

Endorsed: Letter directed to our Lord the Supreme Pontiff by the

community of Scotland.

Additional names written on some of the seal tags: Alexander

Lamberton, Edward Keith, John Inchmartin, Thomas Menzies, John

Durrant, Thomas Morham (and one illegible).

Here are a few links of things Scottish till ah get sum stuff thigither masel

• Caithness and Sutherland
• Scottish Culture
• Scottish Culture F.A.Q.
• Electric Scotland
• Scotlands People