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Scotland! Scotland!

Kirkhill

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A tale of Nova Scotians in New Zealand by my favourite Scottish historian - a self-identified Scots-Ghanaian with dreadlocks who discovered that he is actually and Anglo-Nigerian. But he's still a Scot.

 
James VI & I

Cleared the Borders by
killing those he could,
sending some over to Holland to die fighting for the protestants against the Spanish,
sending some over the water to die of fever and starvation in Virginia, if they made it,
sending some over to Ulster to be kill the Irish until the Irish killed them
sending the rest doon the pits to howk coal to boil seawater to make salt that could be sold - Scotlands primary revenue stream.
If you couldn't find a job - no bother - anybody with a coal mine could take you off the street, along with the wife and kids, and put you to howking coals for the rest of your life and theirs and their descendants.

Blacks couldn't be enslaved in Scotland. But miners were until 1799

Stewart enslaved, killed, imprisoned and transported his own long before he took on the blacks, indians and irish.


 
Pacification of the Border and the Creation of the Ulster Scots and the Scotch-Irish, as distinct from the Anglo-Irish.

 
James VI & I

Cleared the Borders by
killing those he could,
sending some over to Holland to die fighting for the protestants against the Spanish,
sending some over the water to die of fever and starvation in Virginia, if they made it,
sending some over to Ulster to be kill the Irish until the Irish killed them
sending the rest doon the pits to howk coal to boil seawater to make salt that could be sold - Scotlands primary revenue stream.
If you couldn't find a job - no bother - anybody with a coal mine could take you off the street, along with the wife and kids, and put you to howking coals for the rest of your life and theirs and their descendants.

Blacks couldn't be enslaved in Scotland. But miners were until 1799

Stewart enslaved, killed, imprisoned and transported his own long before he took on the blacks, indians and irish.




This is the video that didn't get included in the deck.

And here's The Proclaimer song Bruce talks about. My generation.


The dance around the bairn on the Saltire is called America


 
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The origins of a recalcitrant people, untrusting of authority, demanding to read the rules themselves, wanting a say in their future and adamant they will not give up their weapons. No government without consent. And authority comes from the people, not the crown.



1567
Bothwell Kidnaps, Rapes and Marries Mary - 24 April to 15 May​
1567
Mary Stewart marries James Hepburn of Bothwell - 15 May​
1567
26 Scots Lords (Confederate Lords) raise an army to Depose Mary​
1567
Shane O'Neill Rebellion ends with his assassination on 2 June by the MacDonnells with whom he was in negotiation​
1567
Carberry Hill - 15 June​
1567
Mary Queen of Scots Deposed​
1567
Insurrection results in Mary Stewart imprisoned in Loch Leven - 16 June​
1567
Mary of Scots miscarries twins - 20 to 23 July​
1567
Mary of Scots abdicates - 24 July​
1567
Mary Stewart forced to abdicate in favour of her son James VI&I Stewart​
1567
James VI​
1567
James VI crowned​
1567
Stewart of Moray Regent​

1570
Stewart of Moray assassinated​
1570
Stewart of Lennox Regent​
1570
James VI & I (4)​

1572
Act For the Punishment of Vagabonds and for Relief of the Poor and Impotent (14 Eliz. I c. 5) provided comprehensive reform to the treatment of the poor. Firstly, Justices of the Peace were to survey and register “aged, decayed and impotent poor” who had resided within the parish for at least 3 years and decide how much money was required for their relief, then assess parish residents weekly for the appropriate amount.[32] Those refusing to contribute could be imprisoned. Vagabonds could be whipped and burned through the ear and then set to work. It also provided that if there were too many poor to be relieved through weekly collections, beggars could be licensed.​
1572
It further provided that any surplus funds could be used to “place and settle to work the rogues and vagabonds​

1573
Tobacco being smoked in England​

1573
The First Desmond Rebellion suppressed with the surrender of Fitzmaurice - 23 February​
1573
East Ulster Plantation - The east of the province (occupied by the MacDonnells and Clandeboye O'Neills) was intended to be colonised with English planters, to establish a barrier between the Gaels of Ireland and Scotland, and to stop the flow of Scottish mercenaries into Ireland. The conquest of east Ulster was contracted out to the Earl of Essex and Sir Thomas Smith. The O'Neill chieftain, Turlough Luineach O'Neill, fearing an English bridgehead in Ulster, helped his O'Neill kinsmen of in Clandeboye. The MacDonnells in Antrim, led by Sorley Boy MacDonnell, also called in reinforcements from their kinsmen in the Western Isles and Highlands of Scotland.[6] The plantation eventually degenerated, as atrocities were committed against the local civilian population before it was abandoned.​
1574
Brian MacPhelim O'Neill of Clandeboye, his wife and 200 clansmen were murdered at a feast organised by the Earl of Essex​
1575
Francis Drake (later victor over the Spanish Armada, then in the pay of the Earl of Essex) participated in a naval expedition that culminated in the massacre of 500 MacDonnell clans-people in a surprise raid on Rathlin Island.​

1577
Battle of Baffin Island - Frobisher's sailors skirmish with Inuit on Baffin Island​

1578
the English of the Kings and Queens County plantations, established by Bloody Mary, finally subdued the displaced O'Moore clan by massacring most of their fine (or ruling families) at Mullaghmast in Laois, having invited them there for peace talks. Rory Oge O'More, the leader of rebellion in the area, was hunted down and killed later that year. The ongoing violence meant that the authorities had difficulty in attracting people to settle in their new plantation. Settlement ended up clustered around a series of military fortifications.​
1579
The Second Desmond Rebellion in Munster with the support of Papal troops​
1579
Munster invaded​
1579
Stephen Junius Brutus’s 1579 Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos (A Defense of Liberty Against Tyrants)​

1579
In the year 1579 the Scottish Parliament found it necessary to ratify and approve the 1563 prohibition on the export of coal, and offer a reward to the "reveiler and apprehender of the contravenors of the Acte."​
1580
Hunger Crises in Europe through the decade to 1580​
1580
Witchcraft persecutions peaked during the Hunger Crises​

1581
Levant Company chartered​

1581
Third Scots Covenant​
1581
King's Confession of Scotland - James VI&I (15)​
1582
General Assembly of the Church of Scotland rejected episcopal government, adopting prebyterian government and reformed theology​

1582
Desmond's Irish Revolt​
1582
After three years of scorched earth warfare by the English, Munster was racked by famine. In April 1582, the provost marshal of Munster, Sir Warham St Leger, estimated that 30,000 people had died of hunger in the previous six months. Plague broke out in Cork city, to where the country people had fled to avoid the fighting. People continued to die of starvation and plague long after the war had ended, and it is estimated that by 1589 one-third of the province's population had died. Grey was recalled by Elizabeth I for his excessive brutality​
1583
The Second Desmond Rebellion, backed by Papal troops, suppressed by the protestant English of Elizabeth - The rebellion was in equal part a protest by feudal lords against the intrusion of central government into their domains; a conservative Irish reaction to English policies that were altering traditional Gaelic society; and a religious conflict, in which the rebels claimed that they were upholding Catholicism against a Protestant queen who had been pronounced a heretic in 1570 by the papal bull Regnans in Excelsis. The result of the rebellions was the destruction of the Desmond dynasty and the subsequent Munster Plantations – the colonisation of Munster with English settlers. In addition, the fighting laid waste to a large part of the south of Ireland. War-related famine and disease are thought to have killed up to a third of Munster's pre-war population.​
1583
Desmond Munster estates were confiscated by the Crown. The English authorities took the opportunity to settle the province with colonists from England and Wales, who, it was hoped, would be a bulwark against further rebellions.​
1584
Surveyor General of Ireland, Sir Valentine Browne and a commission surveyed Munster, to allocate confiscated lands to English Undertakers (wealthy colonists who "undertook" to import tenants from England to work their new lands). The English Undertakers were obligated to develop new towns and provide for the defence of planted districts from attack.[9]​

1584
Scottish Episcopal Church - James VI&I (18)​
1584
In 1584, James VI of Scotland had the Parliament of Scotland pass the Black Acts, appointing two bishops and administering the Church of Scotland under direct royal control. This met vigorous opposition and he was forced to concede that the General Assembly should continue to run the church. Calvinists who disliked the more ceremonious style of liturgy were opposed by an Episcopalian faction.​

1584
Virginia Company chartered​
1585
Roanoke Colony departs​
1586
Famine in England​
1587
Mary of Scots beheaded​

1587
James VI&I (21) takes Scots law into his own hands​
1587
Feuding was an historically effective method of resolving disputes but it was messy and left no role for the Crown - the Scots King had no army or tail.​
1587
Feuding on the western seaboard was conducted with such intensity that the Clan MacLeod and the Clan MacDonald on the Isle of Skye were reputedly reduced to eating dogs and cats in the 1590s​
1587
Feuding was further compounded by the involvement of Scottish clans in the wars between the Irish Gaels and the English Tudor monarchy in the 16th century.[18] Within these clans, there evolved a military caste of members of the lesser gentry who were purely warriors and not managers, and who migrated seasonally to Ireland to fight as mercenaries​
1587
In May 1587, James, attempting to reconcile his feuding nobility, invited them to a banquet at Holyrood at which they were made to shake hands and then progress through Edinburgh in apparent harmony​
1587
“Act for Universal Concord Among the King’s Lieges” passed by parliament in July​
1587
For the quieting and keeping in obedience of the disordered subjects, inhabitants of the borders, highlands and isles - 29 July - Lack of Central Control in Scotland - one of 136 separate acts passed in July​
1587
James VI took various measures to deal with the resulting instability, including the 1587 'Slaughter under trust' law, later used in the 1692 Glencoe Massacre. To prevent endemic feuding, it required disputes to be settled by the Crown, specifically murder committed in 'cold-blood', once articles of surrender had been agreed, or hospitality accepted.[34] Its first recorded use was in 1588, when Lachlan Maclean was prosecuted for the murder of his new stepfather, John MacDonald, and 17 other members of the MacDonald wedding party.[35]​
1587
Any competing authorities in Scotland, such as that of the kirk or the landed elite, were being strongly encouraged to allow the crown to harness their powers. In particular, James wanted to control the judicial system: he wrote, “Justice, which is the greatest virtue […] properly belongeth to a kings office.”​
1587
The state, as embodied by James VI & I , was gradually moving towards a monopoly on the use of violence. Nothing exemplified more clearly his determination to assert his authority than his personal interest in the suppression of feuding​

1587
After 1587, the sole object of the Barbary Corsairs became plunder, on land and sea. The maritime operations were conducted by the captains, or reises, who formed a class or even a corporation. Cruisers were fitted out by investors and commanded by the reises. Ten percent of the value of the prizes was paid to the pasha or his successors, who bore the titles of agha or dey or bey.[14]​
1587
It is thought that around 8,500 new slaves were needed annually to replenish numbers in North Africa - about 850,000 captives over the century from 1580 to 1680. By extension, for the 250 years between 1530 and 1780, the figure could easily have been as high as 1,250,000 - this is only just over a tenth of the Africans taken as slaves to the Americas from 1500 to 1800, but a considerable figure nevertheless. White slaves in Barbary were generally from impoverished families, and had almost as little hope of buying back their freedom as the Africans taken to the Americas: most would end their days as slaves in North Africa, dying of starvation, disease, or maltreatment.​
1587
Between 1580 and 1680, there were typically around 15,000 of these (Christian) 'renegades' in Barbary, (men who had turned Turk) including around half of the corsair captains, or re'is, and even some of the pashas. Most had probably never been slaves, however, but had come to North Africa looking for opportunity, and had cast off their Christianity along with their earlier lives.​

1588​
Little Ice Age - Irish of Loch Ce blamed the "heretical" Protestant Bishop of Elphin, John Lynch, for the a hailstorm in midsummer with stones larger than wild apples​

1588
The First Armada of Phillip II Hapsburg defeated by West Country sailors of Elizabeth I Tudor​

1589
James VI Stewart (23) marries Anne of Denmark​

1589
Munster Plantations - As well as the former Geraldine estates (spread through the modern counties of Limerick, Cork, Kerry and Tipperary), the survey took in the lands belonging to other families and clans that had supported the rebellions in Kerry and southwest Cork. However, the settlement here was rather piecemeal because the ruling clan – the MacCarthy Mór line – argued that the rebel landowners were their subordinates and that the lords actually owned the land. In this area, lands once granted to some English Undertakers was taken away again when native lords, such as the MacCarthys, appealed the dispossession of their dependants.[10] Other sectors of the plantation were equally chaotic. John Popham imported 70 tenants from Somerset, only to find that the land had already been settled by another undertaker, and he was obliged to send them home.[11] Nevertheless, 500,000 acres (202,343 ha) were planted with English colonists. The Crown hoped that the settlement would attract in the region of 15,000 colonists, but a report from 1589 showed that the English Undertakers had imported only about 700 English tenants between them. Historians have noted that each tenant was the head of a household, and that he therefore likely represented at least 4–5 other people. This would put the English population in Munster at nearer to three or four thousand persons, but it was still substantially below the projected figure.[12] The Munster Plantation was supposed to develop compact defensible settlements, but the English settlers were spread in pockets across the province, wherever land had been confiscated. Initially the English Undertakers were given detachments of English soldiers to protect them​

1589
In 1589, before a court could be held at Peebles, the privy councilors asked for the barons and lairds attending to subscribe assurances to keep the peace. This request was answered tartly that those who “were under feud had already subscribed particular assurances which were sufficient and the subscription of any further assurances was unnecessary.​

1589
Industrial Revolution - Thomas Proctor and William Peterson granted a patent to make iron, steel and melting lead with "earth-coal, sea-coal, turf and peat". The coal was "cooked".​

1590Fourth Scots Covenant
1590
King's Confession of Scotland - James VI (24)​
1590James VI & I (24) annuls all commissions of justiciary and lieutenancy throughout Scotland on the grounds that most Officers were in it for their own personal profit
1590Buccleuch knighted by James VI
1590Buccleuch appointed Keeper of Liddesdale and Warden of the West March

1590
English troops guarding the Munster plantations withdrawn​

1591
Ker of Cessford seemed particularly given to feuding: he had been involved in the killing of his kinsman William Ker of Ancrum in 1591, as part of his ongoing feud with his other cousin Andrew Ker of Ferniehirst​

1591
Ayr exported 343 tons of coal​
1592
The Scots Parliament were still anxious to guard the interest of the collieries, and we find them passing an Act "for the better punishment of the wicked crime of setting fire in coal benches, be sum ungodly persones, upon privat revenge and despite."​

1593
Dryfe Sands - Maxwells and Johnstones at feud​
1593
First of seven proclamations were made against the wearing of hagbutts and pistols in Scotland between 1593 and 1597 - Gun Control Legislation​

1593
Tyrone's Rebellion (Nine Years War) breaks out​
1594
O'Neill's Tyrone Rebellion​
1594
Tyrone's Nine Years War​

1594English crops suffered from 1594 to 1598

1594
James VI & I (28) reissues his order of 1590 setting aside all justiciary and lieutenancy commissions - suggests that he wasn't "heard" the first time​
1594
Earls of Bothwell forfeit the ownership of the Lordship of Liddesdale​
1594
Buccleuch was granted Liddesdale and numerous other Bothwell lands and appointed Keeper of Liddesdale together with his original holdings in Selkirkshire and Roxburghshire​
1594
A privy council ordinance of 1594 called for the holding of justice courts “becaus of the grit disordor ower all the pairtes of the realme”: though it particularly mentioned the Borders, proclamations of justice courts were to be made at Stirling, Aberdeen, and Inverness.​
1595
At least ten ordinances on feuding in Scotland were made from 1595 to 1597 These began with an ordinance in late 1595 in which James was resolved to “have all the said feuds removed and taken up a perfect reconciliation and agreement” among his subjects “to the advancement of his Majesty’s authority and service.”27 The combatants in thirteen named feuds were summoned before the King and council “to underlie such order as shall be prescribed for removing the said feuds”; any disobedience was to be “pursued with fire and sword.” James was described as being “chiefly occupied in this errand” (ie against feuding),​
1595
Of the 34 nobles and lairds listed at feud in 1595, only four were from the Borders.​


1596
In the Middle March a long-lasting feud between the Kers of Cessford and the Scotts of Buccleuch had its final flourish when, in 1596, Cessford challenged Buccleuch to a duel. Cessford seemed particularly given to feuding: he had been involved in the killing of his kinsman William Ker of Ancrum in 1591, as part of his ongoing feud with his other cousin Andrew Ker of Ferniehirst.​
1596
Buccleuch's release of Kinmont Willie Armstrong​
1596Kinmont Willie Armstrong arrested by Salkeld on a Truce Day
1596Buccleuch asserts the law and removes Armstrong from English custody at Carlisle
1596
An English report of 1596 noted that most of the men of Liddesdale were joined with Buccleuch “by oath and script.​
1596For a long time James held out against Elizabeth’s demands for the surrender of these men to English ward.
1596a number of pressures forced James to rethink his border policy.
1596Firstly, Elizabeth withheld the payment of his pension, directly linking its resumption to the disciplining of Buccleuch.
1596Then, in November 1596, the council reregistered a letter from Elizabeth of 1586 in which she had alluded to James’s right to succeed her. James appears to have been becoming nervous about Elizabeth’s continuing refusal to formally acknowledge his succession to the English throne.

1596
Fifth Scots Covenant​
1596
King's Confession of Scotland - James VI (30)​


1596The Oxfordshire rising took place in November 1596 under the rule of Queen Elizabeth I of England during times of bad harvest and unprecedented poverty. A small group of impoverished men developed a plan to seize weapons and armour and march on London, hoping to attract "200 or 300... from various towns of that shire".[1] They met on Enslow Hill on 21 November, but without any of the assumed support were quickly arrested,[2] and tortured due to suspicions of a wider conspiracy. A year later two of the men were hanged, drawn and quartered for their treason.[2]


1597
Hanseatic League expelled from London​
1597
Gresham College, the first institution of higher learning in London - On his death in 1579 Thomas Gresham had bequeathed the bulk of his property (consisting of estates in London and around England giving an income of more than 2,300 pounds a year) to his widow and her heirs, with the stipulation that after her death his own house in Bishopsgate Street and the rents from the Royal Exchange should be vested in the Corporation of London and the Mercers Company, for the purpose of instituting a college in which seven professors should read lectures, one each day of the week, in astronomy, geometry, physic, law, divinity, rhetoric and music​

1597James’s nerve seems to have weakened and he agreed to the surrender of Buccleuch to the English in October
1597
The Carlise Treaty - Anglo-Scots Border - Allows the local gentry a greater role in governance alongside the March Warders on special Border Councils - Jointly conceived by Burghley and James VI to give the gentry a greater stake in the rewards of a settled border​
1597
James VI & I (31) starts getting a grip on the Border after Elizabeth starts holding back on his pension and threatening his succession to her throne​
1597
Walter Scott of Buccleuch (Liddesdale) and Robert Ker of Cessford (Middle March) required to surrender themselves to English authority. - They became the principal officers of the crown on the Borders​
1597
Buccleuch surrenders to English justice in October​
1597
James was to pursue a newly consistent policy in the Borders in which the maintenance of good relations with Elizabeth was paramount. Any subsequent cross-border transgression was viewed with alarm, while those that perpetrated it were to be treated with increasing severity. There were seven judicial raids into the Borders from 1597 to 1603, mostly to the West March, where the Maxwell-Johnstone feud still burned brightly.​
1598
Ker of Cessford surrenders to English Justice in February​
1598
An act agreed by a Convention of the Estates for the “removing and extinguishing of deadly feuds,” charging all participants to submit their disputes to arbitration by the king and council.​
1598
James VI & I signs into law an Act Anent Feuding that applied across the whole of Scotland - As King he expected to personally hand out judgement on personal feuds​
1598
James VI & I promulgated another gun control act (#8)​
1598
In May James VI & I received his delayed £3000 sterling in pensions from Elizabeth.​
1598
Buccleuch and Cessford were pardoned by Elizabeth and released and came into line with James’s new policy: both were subsequently rewarded by him with confirmations of baronies and titles.​

1598
English defeated by Irish​

1598
Freemasonry - Lodge of Edinburgh (Mary's Chapel) No.1 - operative lodge of masons​

1598
The 1598 Act for the Relief of the Poor (39 Eliz. 1 c. 3) and the 1598 Act For the Punishment of Rogues, Vagabonds and Sturdy Beggars (39 Eliz. I c. 4) (“The Vagrancy Act”) limited the role of the Justices of the Peace to make administration of the poor laws less procedurally burdensome.[37] Notably, they placed the burden of setting poor to work and assessing parish collections in the hands of churchwardens and collections overseers and allowed the churchwardens and overseers to garnish property from those refusing to contribute. However, justices of the peace could assess other parishes within the same hundred to aid parishes unable to gather sufficient collections (a “rate in aid”).[38] The Vagrancy Act also allowed parish officers, in addition to Justices of the Peace, to punish vagabonds, thus giving the Justices of the Peace a more supervisory role.​

1599
The privy council noted that “the chief and only cause of the great misrule and unquietness of the West Border […] has been the deadly feuds and quarrels standing between the principal noblemen and barons [there] and seeing the said Border cannot be quieted and settled […] unless the said feuds be removed”; the council ordered the kindred leaders in the West March to submit their feuds to the council for resolution.34 This particularly referred to the unrelenting feud between the Maxwells and the Johnstones, a dispute which had festered throughout the sixteenth century, occasioning a large scale battle between the two surnames and their allies at Dryfe Sands in 1593.​

1599
Essex's expedition to Ireland​

1599
HEIC chartered​

1600Ruthven family name outlawed in Scotland
1600Wicked Clan Gregor targeted for special attention by James VI & I
1600Measures were taken against sheriffs who were failing in their duty: though the Borders sheriffs were called to account for their activities, there was a general summons, in 1600, for all sheriffs to attend a commission to consider how to make them more effective
1600James VI & I promulgated another gun control act (#9)
1600James’s continuing prioritization of the suppression of feuding was underlined by the Parliament’s ratification in 1600 of the act of 1598
1600Following the murder of his “beloved” West March warden, Sir John Carmichael, James ordered the trial of an Armstrong man who had been kept as a pledge for the good behaviour of his surname. The man was known as “a common and notorious thief,” but if the court at Dumfries could find nothing against him, he was still to be executed for the involvement of his surname in Carmichael’s murder.

1601
Essex's Rebellion was an unsuccessful rebellion led by Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, in 1601 against Elizabeth I of England and the court faction led by Sir Robert Cecil to gain further influence at court.​
1601
The Earl's London residence, Essex House, became a focal point for people who were upset with Elizabeth’s government. On 3 February 1601, five of the conspiracy leaders met at Drury House, the lodging of the Earl of Southampton. Hoping to avoid suspicion, Devereux himself was not present. The group discussed Devereux's proposals for seizing the court, the tower and the city. Their goal was to force the Queen to change the leaders in her government, particularly Robert Cecil, even if this attempt meant causing harm to the Queen's people.[6]​
1601
On 7 February, some of Devereux’s followers went to the Globe Theatre to ask the Lord Chamberlain's Men to stage a special performance of Richard II with the deposition scene included. The company was hesitant to perform such a controversial play, but eventually agreed once they were promised a payment of 40 shillings (equivalent to £445 in 2019)[7] "more than their ordinary".[8] On the same day, the council summoned Devereux to appear before them, but he refused. He had lost his chance to take the court by surprise, so he fell back on his scheme to rouse the city of London in his favour with the claim that Elizabeth’s government had planned to murder him and had sold out England to Spain.[9]​
1601
Essex and his followers hastily planned the rising. At about 10 am the next morning (8 February), Lord Keeper Thomas Egerton and three others came to Essex in the name of the Queen. Devereux seized the four messengers and kept them hostage while he and his followers (about 200 people) made their way to the city. They timed their arrival to coincide with the end of the sermon at Paul's Cross, because they expected the Lord Mayor to be there.[10] Meanwhile, Robert Cecil sent a warning to the mayor and the heralds denouncing Devereux as a traitor. Once the word traitor was used, many of Devereux's followers disappeared, and none of the citizens joined him as he had expected. Devereux's position was desperate, and he decided to return to Essex House. When he got there, he found the hostages gone. The Queen’s men, under Lord High Admiral Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Nottingham, besieged the house. By that evening, after burning incriminating evidence, Devereux surrendered. Devereux, the Earl of Southampton and the other remaining followers were placed under arrest.[6]​
On 8 February Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex went to Sir Thomas Smythe's house in Gracechurch Street. Smythe, serving as London's sheriff, advised Essex to turn himself in to the Lord Mayor of London. When Essex refused, Smythe left to confer with the Lord Mayor. Despite this Smythe was suspected of being a supporter of Essex.​
1601
Less than two weeks after the aborted rebellion, Essex and Southampton were tried for treason. The trial lasted only a day, and the guilty verdict was a foregone conclusion. Though Devereux had burnt incriminating evidence to save his followers prior to his arrest, he was convinced by Reverend Abdy Ashton to purge his soul of guilt: in turn Devereux confessed everyone who was involved including his sister Penelope Blount, Countess of Devonshire on whom he put a great deal of the blame, although no action was taken against her.​
1601
On 25 February 1601, Devereux was beheaded in the confines of the Tower. Southampton and Henry Neville (died 1615), however, survived the Tower, to be freed upon the accession of James I. Sir Christopher Blount, Sir Gelli Meyrick, Sir Henry Cuffe, Sir John Davies, and Sir Charles Danvers all stood trial for high treason on 5 March 1601 and were all found guilty. Davies was allowed to leave, but the other four were executed. There were no large-scale executions, however; the other members of the conspiracy were fined.​
1601
Sir Thomas Smythe was later accused of complicity in the Essex Rebellion, he was examined before the Privy Council. He was fired from his office of sheriff and committed to the Tower of London.[6] However, his imprisonment proved short due to Queen Elizabeth's death on 24 March 1603.​
1601
Spanish and Irish defeated at Kinsale​
1601
Essex-O'Neill Truce​
1601
Essex invades England​
1601
Essex executed​

1601
James VI & I was "entered Freemason and Fellowcraft of the Lodge of Scoon" on 15 April, 1601.​

1601
The 1601 Act For the Relief of the Poor (43 Eliz. I c. 2) reiterated the 1598 provisions​

1601
A proclamation for the “administration of better justice” warned that James was to appear himself at courts in Lothian, Fife, and Angus.​
1601
James ordered that Roxburgh should try a Scottish minister for the murder of an Englishman. He was to put his head “upoun a publict place of the merche […] to be a testimony to both the nations of our earnest care that friendship, love and amity may be entertained.”​
1601
In May, Elizabeth recognized James's efforts, raising his pension to £5,000 sterling​
1601
English politicians—notably her chief minister Sir Robert Cecil[g]—maintained a secret correspondence with James to prepare in advance for a smooth succession.​
1602
Alexander Colquhoun of Luss, troubled by MacGregors, was given permission by the Privy Council of Scotland to bear offensive arms and defend its territory​
1602
James VI & I personally ordered Ker of Cessford and his cousin Ker of Ferniehirst to subscribe a mutual assurance. Though Ferniehirst and Cessford settled their differences, hostility remained between their dependants, a fracas taking place as late as 1619.​
1602
It was reported that Elizabeth “does much commend the great care which the King does show to preserve the mutual peace.”​

1602
Kinsale falls to Elizabeth's forces under Mountjoy on 3 January​
1602
Red Hugh O'Donnell goes to Spain in a failed attempt to get Philip III to launch another attempt on Britain to assist the Irish​

1603
Glen Fruin - MacGregors vs Colquhouns - Colquhouns marched into Glen Fruin to take on the MacGregors - 400 MacGregors under Alastair of Glenstrae defeated the Colquhouns and slaughtered them - 7 February​
1603
Alastair of Glenstrae was accused “...of having killed about one hundred and forty of Sir Alexander’s men, most of them in cold blood, after they were made their prisoners; of having carried off eighty horses, six hundred cows, and eight hundred sheep; and of burning houses, corn-yards, etc.”​
1603
James VI issued a Royal Warrant accusing the MacGregors of attacking members of Clan Colquhoun at Glen Fruin “without pitie or compassion” or regard for young or old. Their deeds were “barbarous and horrible” with this “wicked and unhappy” race to be “exterminat and ruttit out” Feb 24.​
1603
Women of the name MacGregor were stripped, branded and whipped through the street and members of the clan could not longer travel in groups of more than four or carry a sharp knife, according to the Clan Gregor Society.​
1603
Those who killed a MacGregor could do so with impunity and could receive rewards for doing so.​
1603
During the spring of 1603, Lord Mountjoy concentrated his campaign in the northern counties and the province of Leinster. He ordered all land be scorched. Harvests and stock were destroyed and famine soon prevailed. Mountjoy and the English Privy Council had long urged Queen Elizabeth I of England to make peace. The war was costing three quarters of the Exchequer's annual revenue, and the aged Queen had been obliged to maintain an army of 20,000 men for several years past. By contrast, the English army assisting the Dutch during the Eighty Years' War was never more than 12,000 strong [3] Horrified by the cost of the war, Elizabeth now dropped her insistence on unconditional surrender and authorised Mountjoy to treat with The O'Neill upon honourable terms.​

1603
With the Queen clearly dying, Cecil sent James a draft proclamation of his accession to the English throne in March​
1603Elizabeth I Tudor Dies - 24 March - James was proclaimed king in London later the same day
1603
Main Plot​
1603
Bye Plot​
1603Borderers go on a one week rampage of Cumberland known as Busy Week or Ill Week when Elizabeth died - 6 men were killed, 14 taken prisoner for ransom, £6750 worth of damage inflicted upon property and over 5000 livestock driven away. The garrison from Berwick of 50 cavalry and 200 infantry, had to be called out to suppress the raid
1603
On 30 March, Tyrone submitted to the Crown unaware that Elizabeth Tudor was dead.[4] The pardon and the terms were considered to be very generous at the time​
1603
O'Neill's surrender to James Stewart by the Treaty of Mellifont marked the end of Tyrone's Rebellion (The Nine Years War) The terms of surrender granted to the rebels were considered generous at the time. a hugely costly and humiliating episode for the English government in Ireland. In the short term the war failed, and generous surrender terms given to the rebels re-granted them much of their former land, but under English law After the Treaty of Mellifont, the northern chieftains attempted to consolidate their positions, and the English administration attempted to undermine them​
1603
James VI ruled the name MacGregor should be “altogether abolished” and that all people of the clan should renounce their name and take another, under the pain of death. - Apr 3​
1603
James left Edinburgh for London on 5 April and progressed slowly southwards. Local lords received him with lavish hospitality along the route and James was amazed by the wealth of his new land and subjects, claiming that he was "swapping a stony couch for a deep feather bed".​
1603
Elizabeth's Funeral - 28 April​
1603
James arrives in London 9 days after Elizabeth's Funeral - 7 May​
1603
On 13 May 1603, after the accession of James I, Sir Thomas Smythe was knighted.​
1603
Sir Thomas Smythe re-elected governor of the East India Company and held that office until 1621 except for the year 1606-1607​
1603
Sir Thomas Smythe, sailing from Gravesend on 13 June 1603, arrived in Archangelsk on 22 July proceding by Kholmogory and Vologda to Yaroslavl to overwinter with the Tsar.​
1603
Sir Thomas Smythe obtained new trading privileges from the Tsar.​
1603
James VI & I declares the Border Marches no longer exist - They are now The Middle Shires - April​
1603
The overriding priority was that the Borders should be the same as anywhere else in the new Great Britain. But there was a fundamental flaw in these plans in the form of the continuation of separate English and Scottish legal systems. These differences were never to be resolved.​
1603
James VI Stewart of Scots Crowned King of England - July 25​
1603
James VI & I (37)​
1603
Union of the Crowns​
1603Pacification of the Borders initiated
1603George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland appointed Lieutenant of the three English Marches
1603Alexander Lord Home, Lieutenant of the three Scottish Marches
1603The Lieutenancy granted to Lord Home in July 1603 called for him to reduce the borderers to a “godly, peacable and quiet form of living,”
1603Home and Clifford agree to target the Grahams for Busy Week - Grahams were the most numerous with the most land and the best land - removing them would free up land for other incomers - it would also remove the clan with the biggest independent army
1603The Grahams were confronted with judicial mass execution or transportation - with the example of the MacGregors before them they decided to accept transportation in December
1603Clifford claimed the best of the Graham lands
1603
Buccleuch's Regiment formed for Dutch Service​
1603
King`s Guard (Highlands)​
1603
James abolishes privateering against Spain​
1603
Jack Ward deserts the RN for the Sale Rovers​

1603
James VI & I stopped the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland from meeting and increased the number of Scottish bishops​

1604Anglo-Spanish War I Ends
1604
James comes to terms with Spain​
1604James VI Stewart signs Peace Treaty with Phillip III Hapsburg to end Anglo-Spanish War
1604
Anglo-Dutch privateers turn Turk​
1604English Sea Dogs turn Turk - allies of the Dutch Sea Beggars

1604Buccleuch leads a Company or Regiment of Borderers in service of Maurice of Nassau

1604
King James Bible Commissioned​
1604
Book of Common Prayer mildly revised​

1604
Alastair of Glenstrae, with 11 others, hanged at the Mercat Cross in Edinburgh for beating the Colquhouns when they attacked him and his - the MacGregors had been outlawed for that​

1604
A memorandum of 1604, in James’s own hand, made his intentions clear: “to extinguish as well the name, as [the] substance of the borders, […] the differ-ence between them and other parts of the kingdom. For [the] doing whereof it is necessary that quarrels amongst them be reconciled and all strangeness between the nations be quite removed.”​
1604
In the period 1604 to 1610, 1,965 acts of caution were registered in Scotland and predominantly related to feud. Around 330 were for the Borders (that is, about seventeen per cent of the total); of these, around a third originated in the Middle March, very many fewer in the East March, and around a half from the West March.40 These figures for the Borders broadly concur with Brown’s findings that feuds in the Borders numbered around 23 per cent of the national total, compared with a figure of 40 per cent for the Lowlands south of the Tay. Feuding appears to have been more prevalent in the Borders, but it was not far outstripping the figures for other regions. Feud was part of life throughout Scotland.
When measures were taken to suppress feuding, they were undertaken with the whole of Scotland in mind: ordinances were as applicable to Fife as they were to the Borders.​
1604
Grahams that had been coerced to accept removal from their lands and transportation still had not been transported by December - a year after the agreement - in the meantime, and with nothing to lose, they reverted back to reiving - the border was wilder than ever​
1604
Clifford reported to Privy Council that although 600 were indicted at assizes in 1604 only 28 could be brought to trial with only 7 executions​
1604
Housesteads is a former farm whose lands include the ruins of the fort. In 1604 Hugh Nixon, "Stealer of cattle and receiver of stolen goods", became the tenant of Housesteads farm. From 1663, Housesteads was the home of the Armstrongs, a notorious family of Border Reivers. Nicholas Armstrong bought the farm in 1692, only to have to sell it again in 1694 to Thomas Gibson of Hexham for the sum of £485. They remained as tenants. They were a well-known band of horse thieves and cattle rustlers who used the old fort as a place to hold the stolen horses and cattle. They traded as far afield as Aberdeen and the south of England. At one time every male member of the family was said to have been a 'broken man', formally outlawed by English or Scottish authorities. Nicholas was hanged in 1704, and his brothers fled to America. The Armstrongs lived in a typical 16th-century defensive bastle house of two storeys: the ground floor for livestock and the upper level for living quarters. Its ruins remain built up against the south gate of the Roman fort, with external stone steps and narrow loop windows. A corn-drying kiln was inserted into the gate's guard chamber in the 17th century. In 1698, the farm had been sold to Thomas Gibson who turned the land around the fort to agriculture​
1605
Pacification of the Border formalized when the Commissions of the Middle Shires established - 10 locals, Five Englishmen and Five Scots, under one commission from one monarch - remove the option for miscreants to jump the border to safety - February​
1605
The failure of Home and Clifford to pacify the borders prompted James VI to declare the old laws invalid - March​
1605
The new commissioners of 1605 were told to deal with those leading a “godless, lawless and disordered course of life.”​
1605
In practice England and Scotland issued separate commissions with separate instructions - in England the commissioners were justices of the peace with authority within their county - they worked with the assizes and the Border Commissioners​
1605
In Scotland the High Court in Edinburgh criminal justice was administered in the provinces either by local deputes appointed by the Lord Justice General who held justice ayres, or by special commissions of justiciary issued traditionally only for short periods,​
1605
Both in England and Scotland the Commissions of the Middle Shires was a temporary expedience that ended up being renewed regularly until 1684​
1605
First meeting of theCommissions of the Middle Shires - April 7​
1605The Commissioners were provided with a paid and mounted border guard under the captainship of Sir William Cranstoun as Captain of the Horse Garrison, or King's Guard
1605There was evidence that Dunbar, Cranstoun, and the commissioners consciously used their jurisdiction somewhat harshly.The English commissioners observed of a court held at Hawick in August 1605 that their Scottish counterparts “made no bones to kill such fugitives or felons as made resistance.”
1605The contempt with which the privy council viewed some borderers was evident in its recommendations in 1605. Observing that “some order be taken with the idle youths” of the Borders and calling the area a “seminary of theft,” the council sug-gested that “no border man of any broken name shall part his rowmes or steadings amongst his children but all to go to the eldest: And the rest who have nothing to live upon sufficiently to be transported whither his Majesty and the council thinks fit.”8
1605People who were seen as an impediment to the new way of life in the Middle Shires were simply to be removed. The council thought that “the change of air will make in them an exchange of their manners,” while the Bishop of Carlisle entreated that the Annandale and Liddesdale should be “purged” of the Armstrongs, Nixons, and others since James was “so well understanding of the wickedness of the inhabitants.” He suggested that these men should be transported in the same way that it was planned to transport the Grahams from Cumberland. The notion of transportation per se indicates the dismissive way in which government viewed borderers
1605The treatment of the Grahams recalled the targeting of the “wicked Clan Gregor” from 1600
1605Initial plans to transport the male Grahams to join the English army at Flushing in the Low Countries proved shortlived, as they filtered back to the Borders.
1605Much has been made of such moves, though they affected only a small minority in the Borders at this time.

1605
Guy Fawkes - Gunpowder Plot - November 5​

1606
Sir Edward Coke, the English attorney general, observed in 1606, “it will not appear which will be the middle shires, for a jury of England and Scotland cannot yet join. And for many respects I think that such a proviso would be very offensive.”107​
1606
There was also recurring resistance, from 1604 onwards, to the principle of remanding offenders for trial in the country of their offence: remanding was seen, by James, as a crucial deterrent to those seeking refuges on the other side of the border.105 Though by 1612 legislation was finally passed on this issue by both countries’ parliaments, remanding was still a cause for concern in 1617; in 1623 Buccleuch had difficulty in extraditing a fugitive from Northumberland.106 Part of the problem lay in the continuation of separate legal systems in the two countries​
1606Buccleuch created Lord of Parliament by James VI&I
1606
By December 1606, however, they had already begun to deteriorate. The English commissioners were complaining about the severity of the Scottish commissioners, while the Scottish remonstrated with the English, urging them to search the farms on their side more carefully: “for we are informed that the fugitives have their maintenance there, dreading our side more than their own.”​
1606Continuing reports of crime spurred James VI & I , in December 1606, to complain that “we do not find so good success of your proceedings as we expected” and to announce the appointment of the earl of Dunbar, George Home, as Lieutenant over all the Middle Shires.79 Dunbar was to be the only man to have supra-border jurisdiction. Cranstoun reported directly to Dunbar
1606Dunbar’s work was noted to have “given more occasion of fear and terror to the evil disposed of those parts, and his very name there has suppressed more disorders than all the Commissioners could do.”82 The numerous indemnities granted to Dunbar and Cranstoun suggest the severity of their methods: one such exonerated Cranstoun’s actions when he was forced “to make a quick dispatch of a great number of [offenders] without any conviction or doom given against them by an assize, and sometimes to besiege them in houses and strengths and to raise fire against them.”83
1606Exemplary severity was the hallmark of this newly consistent pacification. Sentencing guidelines were made more extreme and indicated the government’s priorities in the region: thus the importance given to the suppression of cross-border theft could be seen in the ruling that theft of goods over twelve pence in value “shall be punished by death” and, significantly, “all accessories to such felonies, viz outputting and resetting, shall likewise suffer death for the same.” This compared with the leni-ent 20-day sentence for harming with a weapon.80
1606
In January 1606 the Scottish commissioners reported of their work at Peebles that they had convicted six offenders whom “we have exemplarily punished with life,”​
1606In May Scots Commissioners executed a further 32 men by “water and gallows” at courts in Hawick, Peebles, Jedburgh, and Dumfries.81
1606Hugh Montgomery and James Hamilton arranged an amnesty for Irish rebel Con O'Neil in exchange for 1/3 of his lands in Antrim and Down. They then encouraged tenants from other parts of Scotland to settle there and establish farms. Presbyterian Protestants in the middle of Irish Catholics
1606from 1606 there was a more successful transplantation of whole families of troublesome borderers, like the Grahams, to Ulster.
1606
Virginia company chartered 10 April​
1606
Virginia Company of Plymouth (Plymouth Company)​
1606
Virginia Company of London (London Company) - Jamestown​
1606
And the saids Estates of this present Parliament, giues power and commission to all maisters and awners of Coal-heughs and pannes, to apprehend all vagabounds and sturdie beggers to be put to labour. - 9 July​
1606
OUR SOVERAIGNE LORD, and Estates of this present Parliament, statutes and ordeins, that na person within this realme hereafter shall hyre or conduce any Salters, Coalyears or a coal-bearers, without a sufficient testimoniall of their Maister whom they last served, subscryved with his hand, or at least sufficient attestation of ane reasonable cause of their removing, made in presence of ane Baillie, of ane Magistrat of the part where they came fra. And in case any recesue, fee, hyre, supplie or intertaine any of the saids Coalyears, Salters or a Coal-bearers, without ane sufficient testimonie, as said is. The maisters whom fra they came, challenging their servants within yeare and day, that the partie from fra they are challenged, shall delyver them back againe within twentie foure houres, under the paine of ane hundreth pounds, to be payed to that persons whom fra they passed, and that for ilk person; and ilk tyme that they or any of them shall happen to be challenged, and not delyvered, and said is. And the said Coalyears, Coal-bearers and Salters to be esteemed, reput and halded as theives, and punished in their bodies, Viz. Sa many of them as shall receaue forewages and fees. And the saids Estates of this present Parliament, giues power and commission to all maisters and awners of Coal-heughs and pannes, to apprehend all vagabounds and sturdie beggers to be put to labour. - 9 July​
1606
Slavery In The Coal-Mines Of Scotland - By James Barrowman, Mining Engineer - Presented at Annual General Meeting of the Federated Institution of Mining Engineers, 14 September 1897​
1606
It is not necessary that the records of the dim and distant past be searched in order to find a condition of things answering to the title of this paper. Not a hundred years ago (1797), a system of servitude still existed in Scotland, sanctioned by the practice of two centuries, by virtue of which colliers and their families were fixed to the soil almost as effectually as if they had been bought in the slave-market of New Orleans or born in the hut of a negro on some Virginian plantation.​
1606
It is matter for surprise that such an institution should have been allowed to exist in Scotland, and our surprise is not lessened when on enquiry it appears that it was not a relic of the social system of the Middle Ages, but was the result of express enactment by the Scottish Parliament.​
1606
In the early centuries of our country's history, while yet the forests were extensive and wood abundant, there was little need for coal, and it was therefore not much sought after for domestic purposes. Perhaps the first use to which it was applied to any considerable extent was in the manufacture of salt from sea-water, as we find that the earliest coal-works were on the seashore, and usually associated with salt-pans. Saltmaking, being capable of continuous operation, required a regular supply of coal, and so these industries of saltmaking and coal-mining grew up side by side and interdependent. The early coal-workings were of a superficial character, being chiefly of the nature of quarries; indeed, the primary meaning of the word heugh - the name given in past times to a coal-pit - is a steep bank or glen. The labourers on the coal-producing estates, assisted by the members of their families, performed the work when it suited their convenience. The extension of the workings below the surface of the earth as the open diggings became exhausted, coupled with the increasing demand for coal and salt at home and abroad, necessitated more extensive, systematic, and continuous working, and in this way coal mining came to be a regular craft, not much sought after by outsiders, but providing ready and profitable occupation for the collier and his family, the father and elder sons hewing the coal and the daughters and younger sons - and not seldom the mother also - bearing it in baskets on their backs from the coal-face to the pit-mouth.​
1606
The collier and his dependents were subjected to a measure of social ostracism, partly on account of the spirit of the times, which in a much greater degree than now regarded all labour as menial, but chiefly because of the solitary nature of the occupation. Engaged in dirty and unattractive work, in darkness and alone, and dissociated from the activities of the outer world, the collier settled into that condition of separateness which is characteristic of the class to the present day.​
1606
Such was the state of the coal-mining population in the sixteenth century, when the country was awakening to a sense of its commercial capabilities. Successive Acts of Parliament passed in the later years of that century to prohibit the export of coal are evidence of the rise of an extensive trade with foreign countries, the wider development of existing coal-works, and the opening up of new fields to meet the demand. The owners of new coal-works, having no trained colliers on their own estates, sought them at established collieries, and induced them by means of gifts and promises of higher wages to leave their employment. This was naturally resented by their masters, who had difficulty in getting sufficient workers for their own pits. The aggrieved coal-owners made application to Parliament to put a stop to the practice. Accordingly, in the year 1606, an Act was passed, which ordained that no person should fee, hire, or conduce any salters, colliers, or coal-bearers without a sufficient testimonial from the master whom they had last served, and that any one hiring them without such testimonial was bound, upon challenge within a year and a day by their late master, to deliver them up to him, under a penalty of £100 for each person and each act of contravention, the colliers, bearers, and salters so transgressing and receiving wages to be held as thieves and punished accordingly. Reference has already been made to the close connexion between colliers and salters, which explains why salters were brought within the scope of this Act.​
1606
It need not be supposed that this measure did violence to the sentiment of the time, or that the workers thought it an instrument of oppression. It had been the rule for the collier and his family to live and be cared for and die on the estate on which he was born, and the mere preventing him from leaving the work where he was engaged, unless he had the permission of his master, would probably appear to him to be no unreasonable restriction.​
1606
Primarily designed to prevent desertions, the Act was ere long found to have a farther reach than its framers probably dreamt of. It authorized a coal-owner to retain his colliers as long as he had work for them. From the fact that many collieries were then in constant operation, and that some have worked continuously to the present day, it is apparent that the colliers attached to works of a permanent character were bound for life, and from generation to generation. And even in the case of collieries where work was not continuous, the worker found that he could not oblige his master to give him a testimonial on leaving, and that he was liable to be recalled as soon as work was resumed. Indeed, it appears to have been the rule for masters to withhold a testimonial, in order that they might the more freely reclaim when need arose.​
1606
Coal mining progressed. The workings, however, were carried on without much method, with very imperfect machinery, and altogether under difficulties; many of them arising from a want of thought, many from a desire to adhere to the traditional methods of mining, and more really from the very imperfect machinery known in those days.​
1606
We find the coal proprietors continue troubling the Privy Council in such a way as would lead to the conclusion that the collieries were not very profitable concerns, or that the proprietors were very grasping individuals. We have the Privy Council, upon the petition of the landowner, granting licences to export coal, and other advantages; which appear to have given them a close monopoly, and to have made the fortunes of many of them; but we cannot discover any records of the quantities of coal raised or exported in the 17th century.​

1606
King James VI & I decrees the Union Jack (The Cross of St George on the Cross of St Andrew) shall be flown from the maintops of both his Scots and his English ships while at sea. Their national flags were to separately flown from their foretops.​
 
1746- Battle of Culloden- EN-GER-LAND! EN-GER-LAND!
 
My Ayrshire ancestors fought on the Hanoverian side.... wearing breeks.
 
Trucking out the Proclaimers got me hunting for my favourite Scottish movie "Sunshine on Leith". Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be on YouTube anymore so here's a link to the finale which also happens to be my favourite version of "500 Miles". It doesn't have quite the same impact to tear up your eyes if you haven't seen the whole film but its still good enough on its own.


🍻
 
If it's alright with Mike and you lot - I'd like to continue with what is essentially a "vanity project"

This video is from an American historian, Thomas Sowell.



Why am I pursuing this? Because my sense is that a lot of people have lost touch with the history that was bred in the bone of many of the pioneers of Canada and elsewhere.

And it is hard, I think, to appreciate why some people cling to their bibles and their guns if you don't understand what drove them and the tales their grannies told them.

Feel free to ignore. Or shut me down.
 
Tim McGarry, a self-identified lapsed papist from Antrim, tells the tale of the Ulster-Scots. He's got a line of craic and offers a chuckle.

The second video has a shout out to a pedant from Belfast, a teacher, who penned a book in 1860 "The Provincialisms of Belfast and Surrounding Areas Pointed Out and Corrected" (5:30). Pedantry seems to be genetic @dapaterson . The teacher was none other than David Paterson.

 
It was curious to hear the reference to the Revolutionary Robert Burns (Scots Wha Hae and A Man's a Man) and how his works resonated in Belfast.

And that they were written in "Ulster Scots". That would mean that they were in fact written in "Ayrshire Scots", the language of my Grandfather, the Mason and Elder of the Kirk who was born in Ayrshire in a but and ben in a coal mining village. But he just called the language "Doric", as is Doric Scots - with a nod to Homer.

Poetry of that ilk was carried into Canada by, among others, Alexander McLachlan of Johnstone (up by Paisley) and Orangeville, Ont.


McLACHLAN, ALEXANDER, farmer, poet, tailor, and emigration agent; b. 11 Oct. 1817 in Johnstone (Strathclyde), Scotland, son of Charles McLachlan and Jean Sutherland; m. c. 1841 Clamina McLachlan in Upper Canada, and they had six sons and five daughters; d. 20 March 1896 in Orangeville, Ont.


Not many know that it was the Ulster Scots that brought Republicanism to Ireland. - Your health, Tone and Orr!
 
Putin might have done well to review the Siege of Londonderry - No surrender!


I have some quibbles about the suggestion that the letter mentioned in the beginning was faked, or propaganda. The locals new fine what had happened at Rullion Green, Drumclog, Bothwell Brig, Sanquhar and Airds Moss. They knew of the Highland Host at Kilmarnock and the Wigtown Martyrs. They knew how continental armies had dealt with the Waldensians. They knew how they and their parents had been handled in 1641. They knew how they would handle the Jacobites if they got the chance.

But, more importantly, for the modern observer, the driving of the locals, naked, to the walls of Derry, by the Jacobites, to get the defenders to open the gates, should give a clue as to what both sides were capable of.
 
Why this? Because these are the tales of the Deplorables. The tales of those that cling to their guns and their Bibles. That struggle to accept the imposition of authority.
 
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