History question

[Tobus]

Can anyone shed light on the cross border allegiances of the lairds and how that played out. It has always been my understanding one of Scotland's greatest weaknesses was the very thing us descendants seem to hold in high esteem. Namely the clan system and internecine warfare and clan self interest above the national interest. To wit many chiefs and lairds also held lands and titles in England. Not to even mention the difference between the lowland and highland.

I'm not looking for a rehash of old injuries real or imagined but an honest telling of history that many of us have only heard as romanticized versions of a long ago memory.

Whoo doggies! That's a complicated and loaded subject. I doubt anyone here, even our best and brightest historians, would attempt to tackle that subject in a simple internet forum post. Many a book has been written on that subject, and it's well worth reading as many as you can find.

But yes, you're correct. Scottish history is full of clan warfare, clan rivalries, clan backstabbing, personal rivalries, personal backstabbing (both literally and metaphorically), and a general disability for everyone to work together towards a common cause. In fact, I can't think of a single instance where the entirety of Scotland agreed on anything, whether it was religious, social, political, sartorial, or otherwise.

[warrior]

In fact, I can't think of a single instance where the entirety of Scotland agreed on anything, whether it was religious, social, political, sartorial, or otherwise.

So that explains this forum then. ;) LOL

[Peter Crowe]

Can anyone shed light on the cross border allegiances of the lairds and how that played out. It has always been my understanding one of Scotland's greatest weaknesses was the very thing us descendants seem to hold in high esteem. Namely the clan system and internecine warfare and clan self interest above the national interest. To wit many chiefs and lairds also held lands and titles in England. Not to even mention the difference between the lowland and highland.

I'm not looking for a rehash of old injuries real or imagined but an honest telling of history that many of us have only heard as romanticized versions of a long ago memory.

As a student of Scottish History, my initial thoughts on this question are that it looks at Scotland and her perceived weaknesses from a 20th/21st century perspective. I would also echo what Tobus said about there being books written on this subject. It is a fair point and the following is only the briefest and therefore necessarily reductive overview on the subject.

Nationalism as a political project only dates from the late 18th century following the American War of Independence and the French Revolution. What is remarkable about Scotland's story is that a sense of Patria (Fatherland-Patriotism) has existed since at least the Wars of Independence in the late 13th and early 14th centuries in which an entity called Scotland was (re)defined despite strong local/family identities. Throughout the period following it was characterised by a weak central authority (Kingship) vis a vis a powerful nobility who saw themselves as autonomous petty kings whose loyalty to the Ard Ri (High King) was largely nominal and conditional. An example of this would be the Lordship of the Isles.

Scotland only became somewhat manageable by central authority after the Union of the Crowns in 1603. James VI is reputed to have said (after his accession to the throne of England) I sit here in London and govern Scotland by my pen which my ancestors could not do by the Sword. Most earlier Stewart (not Stuart until Mary Queen of Scots) Kings were lucky to survive to adulthood without being taken hostage or murdered by some faction of the nobility.

So I would stand your proposition on its head and ask is it not remarkable that Scotland has maintained a distinct culture, civil society and identity despite its inherent internal fault lines of religion, localism, clannishness, which although varied are identifiably Scottish and nothing else. We are a nation (and a people) built on a foundation of mixed Scotti, Picti, Brytthonic, Norse, Anglo-Saxon and Norman stock, augmented over time by new immigrant groups including; Flemings from Flanders, modern Irish, English, Italians, Poles, Indians, Pakistanis and Chinese. As such we are full of apparent paradoxes, being simultaneously Ancient and Modern, Communitarian and Individualist, Egalitarian and Feudal, Protestant and Catholic, Presbyterian, and Episcopalian, Rational and Romantic, Highland and Lowland, from East and West, etcetera. This is not even to begin to mention the external pressures of geo-political and economic reality that threaten the continued existence of a peripheral culture and identity such as that of Scotland and the Scots.
ith:

[Bugbear]

* Edit: on second thought, that's a bit off topic. Post deleted.