Scottish Monarchy

[Leftenant Moley]

Can anyone tell me the first king of Scotland and when it was formed?(when they took it from the picts i presume).

[Red Harvest]

As I recall it wasn't taken from the Picts. Instead it was a "merger" of sorts between the Gaelic Scoti and the Picts to oppose the Viking raiders. Not that the two hadn't been fighting regularly before that. For some reason, Pict culture disappeared shortly thereafter, but it is not clear why and from what I understand this does not appear to have been a conquest or genocide. Kenneth I (mac Alpin) c. 840-858 is the first joint king.

[Pooma]

That would be Kenneth mac Alpin. First to rule something like a united Scotland, even if a lot of his subjects might not necessarily have been so up on the idea.

If you are interested in historical Scottish politics the Declaration of Arbroath is probably far more interesting. You can just about read bits of it with modern eyes; but translated is better.

But it's not like we celebrate it or anything. There's plenty of opportunities to get drunk and sing songs already (Burns Night, St Andrew - and Scotland has taken New Year and given the world back a Hogmanay to be proud of).

[Pooma]

Oh yeah, and Scotland was formed when the last load of ice sheets crawled their way back north.

The following is a Pop History of Scottish Monarchy for the Ritalin-Deprived

Making much of the goat related habits of Edward the First (not a nice man)

For your interest and delectation. For your instruction and inspiration.

And to soil the (not particularly) good name of Edward I (self proclaimed Hammer of the Scots). He who rids himself of poo on his grave, probably needs therapy.

There was no "I claim this land for (quick lads, what are we gonna call ourselves, no we can't be the fluffybunnikins, lets call ourselves) Scotland". The Scots were just one of a bunch of contenders. There was no sudden invasion like a Scottish 1066; eventually a whole load of tribes (some of whom even spoke Welsh!) started to boil down to a few leading ones. Kenneth MacAlpin ended up ruling Dalriada (the West, lots of sub-tribes there) and the Picts in the East. I think he inherited Dalriada directly, down the male line. His mother was a Pict, but I suspect that that wasn't enough claim and burly men with hammers may have gotten involved at some point. That's about 850.

We had a King Constantine a little later (actually severl). Someone made up the Scottish version of the traditional story about how we are decended from the Trojans (but that was the fashion then - there were probably people living on the Cape of Good hope proclaiming their national decent from Aeneas). Viking types still held the North. Took till about 950-960 to conquer as far as Banff.

With the country in place it took a little while for dynastic succession to settle down in Scotland. There were two royal houses, and they tended to take it in turns to rule. Macbeth really did change that. Contrary to a certain English playwrite he was actually a pretty effective king, and had no particular hand washing urges.

Macbeth is significant because his successor was a cousin: Lulach the Foolish (with a name like that he was never likely to be Lulach the Devastatingly Brilliant), and Lulach was the first person to be crowned at Scone.

Malcolm Canmore succeeded him - this much the play almost gets right. Married at least one son into the English Royal line, getting in there years before Robert T. Bruce. Was possibly a bit peeved when William T. Conquerer (aka lots of less nice things) eliminated the English Royal line and tried for one of his own. Got in fights with William. Lost a lot. Signed Treaty of Abernethy. Died in 1093. At least 3 of his sons got to be kings.

The next chunk of history is the usual attempt to knick Northumbria. (How could anyone think the English wouldn't notice when a stack of them lived there?).

Repeated attempts by English Kings to anglicise (spell?) Scotland. Repeated attempts by Scotland (or at least her kings) to anglicise Scotland. A few counts of likely kings being knobbled/killed/blinded. The usual.

The line dies out 2 centuries later when Alexander III has an acute attack of highly-cute-second-wife; tryingto get back to her late of a stormy night he ends up fish-bait. His surviving daughter is recalled to Scotland by Sir Patrick Spence in a particularly awful poem, but dies on the way. No more kings, officially it's an intergnum and America invents the next bit. The Treaty of Abernethy comes up here as it gives Edward I the idea that Scotland (and all of it's highly attractive sheep and goats) may belong to him. Scotland later decides that it "violently disagrees with this" but "not because of the sheep". This may be the basis of our national obsession with jokes about people who like their sheep just a little too much. Or maybe I'm making that bit up, you decide.

The bit between William (I never painted my face blue, I swear) Wallace and Robert the Bruce is shorter than you might think. Wallace really was torn to bits, dying in 1305. He was governor (Protector) of Scotland for a little while but really Edward the ******ing goat**** ******er was effective king from 1288 (death of Alexander III) onwards. Robert the Bruce assumed the throne in 1306. He also killed a bloke called the Red Comyn in my sorta home town of Dumfries. Since he did it in a church this was Very Naughty Indeed, even if it was claimed he only "shivved him a little, just a scratch really" and that "one of my followers may have gone back to render assistance, and inadvertently tripped, thus knifing the poor bloke a little more severely, crying shame really, I mean when you think about it. Shame for ol' Red really. Nice bloke".

Robert the Bruce is one of those guys who is hard to read. He inherited a vast fortune, and was probably the richest man in the British Isles when his father died, certainly one of the richest men in Europe. While William Wallace suffered from a slight urge to fight huge pitched battles, possibly since he was minor nobility Robert had nothing to prove. He turned out to be a master of guerilla warfare. A good thing because he was king in name only until 1314 when Edward I (the goat botherer) popped his clogs on the way North to "give him a right good seeing to" (Edward may have been a bit senile and confusing large burly men on horses with goats by then).

Edward II wasn't quite so good at killing the right people. His father (affectionately known as "oney" or that "goat bothering Scot-hammerer") left instructions (this bit is really gross) that he should be boiled down and his bones carried north at the head of the army. Instead Edward seems to have given instructions that his army should split in two, the really scarey cavalry should mostly wander a long way from the battle, for preference into large marshy land if it could be found. The infantry were to either get naked and run at the Scots shouting "Please hit me with sticks. Really big ones. Metal, and sharper, oh please sharper" or to form a large "a large clump next to the river, with no particular formation", "the better to be shoved back in there by the confusion of the ensuing combat". This set a mark for military incompetence that it took General Townshend about 6 centuries to match.

Edward II came north again a decade later in 1322. He didn't make any vast mistakes that time but sadly Robert the Bruce burned everything. Edward was unable to support his army after this deliberate scorched earth policy and in 1328 (maybe 1329, which is when The Bruce dies, I remember that much) the Treaty of Edinburgh establishes Scottish sovereignty after the 30 years of the Wars of Independence.

That line continues through James the First (and Sixth) who was also the King of England (but that doesn't matter so much here) to Charles; who was "a bit inflexible" and kicks of the English Civil War. Which isn't all that English really. Just as the Wars of Independence spills over into Ireland (where the Scots probably did eat the Irish after a massive famine) the civil war spills over into Scotland - actually starts in Edinburgh, involves stacks of Scottish (and Dutch, and some French and lots and lots of Irish) soldiers, and even a few generals you've possibly heard of.

When Charles gets shortened that's a king of Scotland buying the farm. The glorious revolution establishes William of Orange to "protect the kingdom and lands of England" (I'm more or less not making that one up, so it's almost unique) and that's about it for Scottish Monarchy.

There is no real way you can make any particular claim for the Scottish-ness of anyone on the throne after that. The current lot are famously Germanic, but Charles does think he looks good in a kilt.

[Gregoshi]

Welcome to the Org Pooma. And thanks for that very entertaining history of the Scottish monarchy.

[nokhor]

what was the original definition of 'the Bruce?'

[Yorkshireman]

Bruce was the family name, originally yhe Anglo-Norman "de Brus".

[Duke Malcolm]

King Malcolm III Canmore (Canmore meaning big head, or great leader) annexed Northumbria, or at least the northern bitty of it, which brought some Anglican influence onto Scotland, and kick-started the Scots language, since those folks spoke old anglo-saxon. He married (Saint) Margaret, an Anglo-Saxon princess, who convinced him to change the language spoken in his court to Saxon, although this shouldn't have been a great cultural change, since the Picts were allegedly very Saxon in their language and culture, like a Saxo-Celtic cross-breed.

King George, who took the throne after Queen Anne in 1714, was the great-grandson of King James VI and I, and the line has been continuous since then, with only a few name-changes for decoration.

[GoreBag]

Ceanmore is also indirectly responsible for beginning the destruction of the Gaelic language, but directly responsible of replacing the clan system with the English feudal system and also implementing religious change in the form of Roman Catholicism (practised by the Saxons), replacing the Church of Culdee (also Catholic, but not the same).

[Mouzafphaerre]

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Great thread guys! *subscribes*
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[Longshanks]

Making much of the goat related habits of Edward the First (not a nice man)

It gets lonely on campaign, and she gave me that 'come hither' look.

[Duke Malcolm]

The Feudal system didn't replace the Clan system, it sort of ran along side it.

[Duke Malcolm]

Also, according to certain sources, the Scottish Monarchy (and hence the current British Monarchy and many other European Monarchies) is descended from the Royal House of David, in the Bible. I couldn't say if this was true or not, but the Scots did originally come from the Middle East, and the people who led the Scots from there to spain, and onto Ireland and Scotland (and took the stone of destiny) were the descendants of an Egyptian Princess and a Hebrew King

[Longshanks]

I couldn't say if this was true or not, but the Scots did originally come from the Middle East, and the people who led the Scots from there to spain, and onto Ireland and Scotland (and took the stone of destiny) were the descendants of an Egyptian Princess and a Hebrew King

The Scotti were Celts and as such their ancestry lies in Europe & the Caucasus, not the Middle East.There is also no historical evidence supporting the notion that the leaders of the Scots were the descendants of a Hebrew King and an Egyptian princess.

[GoreBag]

The Feudal system didn't replace the Clan system, it sort of ran along side it.

I'm not saying it was an instantaneous change, but once the idea of the nasty, Beurla Feudal System made its way into Ceanmore's head, the clan system began to see its decline. Let me illustrate.

Under the clan "system", a term used loosely because there were few rules that each clan followed, portions of land belonged to each clan, or Tuath.
Several clans formed a Mortuath, or great clan, and two more great clans formed a Coicidh, which could be equated to a province. As each denomination had a leader, each Coicidh elected their own king, or Ri, and among them was elected the equivalent of the term "king" as we know it, the Ard-Ri (High King).

The Feudal System gave supreme authority to the king, who, instead of being elected to serve his people, was basically a tyrant (not in the Greek sense of the word). The fiefs granted by a Feudal king were used to help guarantee loyalty among the nobles, who used the same tactic until the line worked itself down to the common men. This is a striking difference with the Clan System's method of government.

Malcolm, here, once his head had been a little poisoned by his foreign wife, decided to incorporate the Feudal ideas into his kingdom, and began to disrupt the social order by granting lands to other nobles as gifts or bribes, as would a Feudal king, without thought to the clans who inhabited the areas. Despite how Malcolm's brother did his best to re-Gaelify, if you will, the kingdom after he became king, it didn't quite have the desired effect. The rest is history.

[Pooma]

It gets lonely on campaign, and she gave me that 'come hither' look.

Ohmygosh. Didn't realise that there *was* a Longshanks on here. I'm noticing there not denyint the "not a nice man" though. O_o

[Duke Malcolm]

Ahh, yes Malcolm III Canmore was the last king elected by way of Tanistry, wasn't he.

And there is some evidence to support the leaders of the Scots comng from and Egyptian princess and a Hebrew King, but I can't remember where...