Quote Originally Posted by cajuncelt View Post
Questions for the Scottish nationals:
Is the hereditary issues you have w/ the clan chiefs not identical to the monarchy?
Is the monarchy in their current position because of their protestant Stewart/Stuart bloodline?
Is that position not because they were the protestant decendents/head/chiefs of the Stewart/Stuarts?
Admittedly in ignorance, it seems akin to an American griping about their national/traditional government to include congressmen, governors, senators, but leaving the President out of it.
The clan system alive or dead, positive or negative, arose from specific needs. Because your neighbors were after your land, women, cattle etc., there was an accepted central head...the chief. And it worked. Sure it became bastardized. Everything negative mentioned is unquestionably true, BUT if you're going to look at the clearences, 1745, etc.; should you not look at the 12th, 13th, 14th centuries for example as well? It's very well documented how clansmen LOVED their chief back then for the most part. Bare minimum, he was accepted as a very necessary element. Sure that changed, but wasn't always so either.
I said I would bow out of this but as nobody else is likely to answer you then I will do so.
The hereditary system is similar to the monarchy in that it works to perpetuate a single dynasty through, preferably, the male line.
The present monarchy only claim descent through the daughter of James II who married William of Orange (William III). This was to ensure that any Roman Catholic was excluded from the throne and on William's death the Elector of Hanover was created George I to continue the exclusion of Catholics. This continues to this day due to the Act of Settlement, barring any Catholic having any claim to the succession.
It is not akin to an American griping about any of his/her political leaders as none of them are selected on an hereditary basis.
Originally clan chiefs were selected by a system known as tanistry, where the former chief would nominate a successor and clan members would then make their choice. Following the Norman invasion of 1066 and their later spread into Scotland, hereditary primogeniture became the rule along with heraldry, serfdom and all that that entailed. Effectively, from then on, nobles, who actually saw themselves as a race apart from common people, owned the peasants who worked on their lands and held them in bondage. The laws of the land reinforced this and any serf trying to escape would be ruthlessly hunted down. A situation not too different from slavery in more recent times. There were three classes in society, Nobles who exercised their claim to superiority through heraldry, the clergy who lived in great wealth on their monastic estates, and the vast majority of common people who lived in abject servitude to these others. Laws were even passed as to the type of clothing each class could wear and whether or not they could wear jewellery etc. to further cement these class distinctions.
As I said in an earlier post, certain people in Scotland were still regarded as bondsmen right up until the 19th century so this should not be considered an entirely medieval practice.
How clan chiefs were regarded is a matter of conjecture but the way they operated was more in the nature of a mafia-style protection racket than some benevolent society. The chief jealously guarded his lands and used his clansmen as a way of extorting wealth from other, weaker, neighbouring clans. They also operated in a not dissimilar way from Japanese Samurai in that they perpetuated a warrior class (the Gallowglasses) who did no useful work but were hired out as mercenaries by the chief. The vast majority of clansmen toiled to grow crops and raise cattle all for the benefit of this parasitic hierarchy and are unlikely to have regarded them other than with fear and loathing as a result. Why did they stay you ask? Because the lot in the next glen were probably even worse!