Re: Scottish Monarchy
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.
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Re: Scottish Monarchy
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