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Electric Scotland News
I've been thinking about how the world is coping with the virus and what the implications are going forward.
I've decided that we've all already spent more money that we can afford so further measures are not really available to keep people in work or to furlough payments. I can also well understand both the US and UK attempts to delay the virus lockdown as both countries were well aware of the major costs this would have on their countries. So while people may well say we should have locked down earlier I can well understand the reluctance to do so.
Here in Canada we are also in major deficit territory and frankly this is going to impact on the younger generation in particular. We simply do not have the money to continue to bale out people and so I say we all need to get back to work and open things up while at the same time being much more aggressive on punishing people that don't do social distancing or wear face masks. We should name and shame people that defy the rules and we need to ensure we put them in "Coventry" to show their behavior is unacceptable.
The testing for the virus is not as good as it should be and we still don't have quick tests to check if we are ok or not. That needs to change.
Overall.. the world is running out of money and so we need to either bite the bullet by letting everyone be infected and take the consequences or we need to be much more aggressive on breakers of the rules of social distancing and use of face masks. And do remember that it was China that started all this!!!
As to the US presidential race.
I watched the first TV show from the Spectator on the US Elections which you can view at:
and was struck how they showed how the majority of the press are anti-Trump. Like they mentioned that the recent deal between Israel, Bahrain and the UAE was a major political win for Trump was really not covered by the US press and where it certainly very much deserved to be. See https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-53785815
It was however quite depressing as to their projections of what would be the result of the elections. Do watch the video above to learn more.
And finally looking at the local Brexit negotiations.
I continue to be amazed at how many MP's are weak minded and totally unsuitable to vote on serious matters. The claim that the UK is breaking International law is just not true. And the fact that the Democrats in the USA are being critical of us for daring to stand up for ourselves is just biased and ignorant. The EU is a dictatorship and certainly not democratic and they are trying everything they can to bully the UK into surrendering our independence after leaving the EU. As to the Good Friday Agreement what the UK are proposing does not affect that agreement at all. Whereas if we did not go through with it that would have a major affect on Northern Ireland where the Scots-Irish come from. It seems that many in the US are poorly educated on the situation and their press are not up to the task of explaining the real situation.
Learn the true situation by reading this article at:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2020/09...eptember-2020/
Scottish News from this weeks newspapers
Note that this is a selection and more can be read in our ScotNews feed on our index page where we list news from the past 1-2 weeks. I am partly doing this to build an archive of modern news from and about Scotland as world news stories that can affect Scotland and all the newsletters are archived and also indexed on Google and other search engines. I might also add that in a number of newspapers you will find many comments which can be just as interesting as the news story itself and of course you can also add your own comments if you wish which I do myself from time to time.
The UN’s Unhappy Birthday
In fact, the pandemic helps illustrate why the UN is not fit to organize and manage the international cooperation that the world urgently needs.
Read more at:
https://www.project-syndicate.org/co...-haass-2020-09
Oregon wildfires: Half a million people flee dozens of infernos
More than half a million people in the US state of Oregon are fleeing deadly wildfires that are raging across the Pacific Northwest, authorities say.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54113416
Glenisla Hotel: Smuggling, hidden treasure, witches and the 1745 Jacobite rebellion
Glenisla Hotel has been a coaching inn since the 1700s and boasts links to the 1745 Jacobite rebellion. Locals petitioning against plans to turn it into homes were delighted when the new owners revealed their hopes to restore the historic building as the beating heart of the community
Read more at:
https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/nost...ite-rebellion/
Brexit: Michael Gove says bill will protect integrity of UK
Mr Gove said: "These steps are a safety net, they're a long-stop in the event, which I don't believe will come about but we do need to be ready for, that the EU follow through on what some have said they might do which is, in effect, to separate Northern Ireland from the rest of the United Kingdom."
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-54129927
Switzerland warned EU under pressure as Bern and UK standoff with bloc
BREXIT deadlock between the UK and the EU has coincided with the bloc's tense talks with Switzerland - and the country's finance minister warned Brussels in under pressure.
Read more at:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/13...rade-talks-spt
Sturgeon's nightmare! Orkney to follow Shetland in demanding independence from Scotland
NICOLA Sturgeon now faces Orkney demands to secede after civic bosses admitted they would seek self-determination in the event of any future constitutional change
Read more at:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/polit...ds-snp-scottis
SNP's hate crime law now officially the most controversial legislation since devolution
However, the controversial legislation has already faced criticism from the Scottish Police Federation, the Catholic Church in Scotland and the Law Society of Scotland, along with groups including the Free to Disagree campaign.
Read more at:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/polit...olyrood-latest
From Auld Alliance to creating the United Kingdom
THE AULD ALLIANCE was a treaty of mutual defence against England signed by John Balliol and Philip IV of France in Paris in 1295. It lasted till 1560.
Read more at:
https://www.thinkscotland.org/todays...ead_full=14258
US backs off Canadian aluminium tariffs
The US is dropping plans for a 10% tariff on certain types of Canadian aluminium that President Donald Trump announced just last month.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-54168420
Trump hails dawn of new Middle East with UAE-Bahrain-Israel deals
Mr Trump spoke as the two Gulf states signed agreements fully normalising their relations with Israel.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-54168120
Finally SOMEBODY talks sense! Swiss economist tells EU to forget about UK paying bill
THE EUROPEAN UNION must forget about the money they are demanding from the UK pay post-Brexit, claims a Swiss academic.
Read more at:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/polit...rexit-latetest
Brexit victory as Brussels lets EU banks trade TRILLIONS through London until 2022 - even if there is No Deal
With Brussels increasingly scared of an acrimonious split, they shared plans to give Euro firms an 18-month special licence to carry on using London.
Read more at:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/126803...s-london-2022/
Disaster for BBC as 237,000 families stop paying licence fee costing £40million
In order to watch or record live television in the UK each household needs a £157.50 TV licence. However, there is speculation an increasing number of families are instead spending the money on streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime.
Read more at:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/13...vision-Netflix
Hell hath no fury like a partner scorned
THE RESPONSE of the Johnson Government to blatant EU bullying has been one of moderation in the extreme. Far from being an outrageous breach of international law it is a cool, reasoned response to unacceptable aggression.
Read more at:
https://www.thinkscotland.org/thinkb...ead_full=14261
Electric Canadian
Made Here: Quebec - The Invisible Nation
The Invisible Nation (Le Peuple Invisible), exploring how the Algonquin people once lived in harmony with the vast territory they occupied, and how the balance was upset when the Europeans arrived in the 16th century. Added this video to our Algonquin page at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist.../algonquin.htm
Algonquin Legends of New England or Myths and Folk Lore of the Micmac, Passamaquoddy, and Penobscot Tribes (pdf)
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...ew_England.pdf
Voyages and Travels of an Indian Interpreter and Trader
Describing the Manners and Customs of the North American Indians; with an account of the Posts situated on the River Saint Laurence, Lake Ontario, &c. to which is added a Vocabulary of the Chippeway Language. Names of Furs and Skins, in English and French. A list of words in the Iroquois, Mohegan, Shawanee, and Esquimeaux tongues and a table of the Anology between the Algonkin and Chippeway languages by J. Long (1791) (pdf)
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...nterpreter.pdf
Astoria
An Enterprise Beyond by Washington Irving in three volumes (1836)
You can read this at: http://www.electriccanadian.com/tran...re/astoria.htm
Thoughts on a Sunday morning - 13th September 2020
By Rev. Nola Crewe
You can view this at:
http://www.electricscotland.org/show...September-2020
History of Wheat in Canada
By the Research Branch of the Canada Department of Agriculture (1961) (pdf)
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/tran...heatcanada.pdf
Masters of the Wilderness
By Charles Bert Reed, M.D. (1914) (pdf)
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...dern00reed.pdf
Electric Scotland
Beth's Newfangled Family Tree
Got in the October edition Section 2.
Beth writes...
Here's the answer to the oft-asked question, "Why Newfangled?" If you are me, you have a completely logical explanation for that. My dream has always been to have a team of Newfoundlands to pull my big wagon load of very heavy newspapers around the Scottish games.
Well, I no longer have heavy newspapers to haul and right now, there are no games. Mmmm. I still want more Newfoundlands! I had three AKC Newfys. Their callin' names were Ruthie (Black), Chuckie (Bronze) and Walter (Landseer). That's well over 375 pounds of love in fur suits.
We used to tool about in Moultrie in a red MGB convertible. I'd drive most of the time, although they always wanted to drive. Ruthie would sit in the front seat, riding shotgun, and Chuckie and Walter would ride in the back surveying the world. Everyone wore glasses to protect their eyes. I am told we were a sight to see.
I have hours and hours of Newfy Adventures to tell. If I write one more word about them now, I will cry. I loved them greatly and always miss them. Back then, a Newfy of about eight years was old. Chuckie made it to that. Ruthie and Walter, not quite.
Anyway, lots of interesting things, I think, in this issue.
The big news was that sweet Tom, in his eagle-eye proofreading, found FIVE errors in 42 pages! Holy Moley. Those goofs were words which stuck together typing and a couple of commas who either were in wrong places or were not there at all. Lord, I wish Mrs. Durrance, my senior English teacher, could know about this! Remember, I only had room for ONE semester of typing, too.
Come to think of it, Mrs. Durrance had such a fit when I turned in about 25 feet of "Medieval parchment scroll" as my senior paper on The First Crusade, which was written by hand in brown in, in the first person, I don't think she wanted to ever see me again.
Please remember to send me your edits and changes in your email address. Please also send me queries to help you find lost and brick wall kin. Don't forget to send me your Flowers of the Forest information, too.
Keep on with being careful and staying safe.
Aye,
beth
You can read this at: https://electricscotland.com/bnft/index.htm
Musings of a real Tank Commander By Stuart Crawford.
Added Part 18
You can read this at: https://electricscotland.com/history...tank/index.htm
Mythology in the history of Anglo-Scots relations
by Alan Sked
You can read this at: https://electricscotland.com/history...angloscots.htm
The Tower of Craigietocher
July 31st - Got Married.
This is likely the final entry for our story of the building of the Tower and we wish them a happy life together.
See the pictures at: https://electricscotland.com/history...ietocher19.htm
Clan MacPherson
As you will note below we have been doing a major makeover of the Clan MacPherson section of our site. We've also added several videos to their Clan History page.
You can see all this at: https://electricscotland.com/webclans/m/macpher.html
Memorials of Service in India
From the Correspondence of the Late Major Samuel Charters MacPherson, C.B., Political agent at Gwalior during the Mutiny, and formerly employed in the Suppression of Human Sacrifices in Orissa Edited by his Brother, William MacPherson (1865) (pdf)
MacPherson, The Great Confederate Philosopher and Southern Blower
A Record of his Philosophy, His Career as a Warrior, Traveller, Clergyman, Poet, and Newspaper Publisher, His Death, Resuscitation, and subsequent Election to the Office of Governor of Louisiana by Alfred C. Hills, Editor of the New Orleans Era (1864) (pdf)
James MacPherson, An Episode in Literature
By J. S. Smart (1905) (pdf)
Memoirs of the Life and Travels of Charles MacPherson
In Asia, Africa and America illustrative of Manners, Customs, and Character; with a particular investigation of the National Treatment and possible improvement of the Negro and the British and French West India Islands written by himself chiefly between the years 1773 and 1790 (1800) (pdf)
Cluny MacPherson and a tale of Brotherly Love
By A. E. Barr (1884) (pdf)
We also got in their Autumn 2019 newsletter.
Story
Mythology in the history of Anglo-Scots relations
by Alan Sked
THERE CAN BE little doubt that the relationship with England has been the key factor in the birth, development and for some the decline of the Scottish nation. England is Scotland’s larger, richer and more powerful neighbour and all the ‘heroes’ of Scottish history have been defined by either victory over her or defeat at her hands. Only one, of course, Robert the Bruce, truly achieved victory. The rest – including Wallace, Mary Queen of Scots and Bonnie Prince Charlie – were either executed or driven into exile.
Still, the history of Scotland is so steeped in mythology that this is always overlooked. We Scots like to dress up our past in all its finery, like Montrose on his walk to the scaffold (‘dressed more like a bridegroom than a criminal’, according to one eye-witness report) and our contemporary Scottish Nationalists seem steeped in medievalism ready to refight the wars of independence all over again. They cleave to a Braveheart vision of the past, however unhistorical it may be.
Mythology was always at the heart of Anglo-Scottish relations.
In 1136 the Welsh monk Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote his Historia Regnum Britanniae which influenced English thought for centuries. This was supposedly the history of the British from their first arrival in Britain in the twelfth century BC under King Brutus, the great-grandson of the Trojan hero Aeneas, until their overthrow in the seventh century AD by the Angles and Saxons. Geoffrey’s book was important because it for the first time introduced characters such as King Lear, Cymbeline and Merlin, not to mention King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. More than that, by giving future English dynasties an ancient foundation, it became the basis of a national mythology which was continued in Caxton’s Chronicles of England (1480), Hidgen’s Polychronicon (1482) and a flood of books right into the Tudor period written by authors such as Edward Hall, Richard Grafton and Raphael Holinshed. After the Reformation, indeed, it became almost apocalyptic. England became an ‘elect nation’ and according to Bishop Aylmer, God was an Englishman.
Moreover, it became very dangerous, for pupils of Geoffrey added that after the death of King Brutus the British kingdom had been divided. His eldest son inherited Loegria (England), his second Albany (Scotland) and the third Cambria (Wales) and under feudal law, the English king held seniority over the other two. Worse still, by the time of King Arthur, this monarch ruled all of England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Scandinavia and Gaul, with Scotland as a tributary state, whose kings for centuries paid homage to England’s ruler.
Over the course of centuries this mythology became a powerful ideological weapon used to justify aggression against the Scots. Edward I, Henry V, and Henry VI all based their right to conquer Scotland on their descent from Brutus. Henry VIII likewise justified his claim to Scotland on his ‘Trojan-English’ ancestry. No king, he said had ‘more just title, more evident title, more certayn title, to any realm … than we have to Scotland.’
One almost inevitable reaction to this English ideology was the creation of a Scottish counter-ideology, which was used in international diplomacy at the same time as Edward submitted his claim to Scotland to the Pope in 1301. Then the Declaration of Arbroath of 1320, also laid before the Pope, claimed that Scotland had had 113 kings of her own and had never been ruled by a foreigner. The full exposition of the Scottish counter-ideology, however, had to wait till the monk, John of Fordoun, published his Chronica Gentis Scotorum between 1384 and 1387, later continued until 1437 under the title Scotichronicon.
Fordoun disputed that Brutus had ever ruled the entire island, which, he maintained had been called Albion, whereas the Roman name Britannia had only referred to England. The Scottish nation, he explained, was descended from a Greek prince named Gathelus (the Greeks, remember, had conquered the Trojans) and an Egyptian princess called Scota who had married about 1,500 BC. The Scots had subsequently wandered from the Mediterranean through the Pillars of Hercules and reached the west of Scotland, via Spain and Ireland. There they founded their kingdom in 330 BC under King Fergus I. After forty-five further kings and a period of exile lasting forty-three years the Kingdom of Scotland was re-established in 403 AD, from which date, despite English hostility, it had been ruled by independent Scottish monarchs.
Like Geoffrey’s Historia, the Scotichronicon dominated Scottish historical consciousness till well into the sixteenth century and had many interpreters, the most prominent being Hector Boece, Principal of the University of St. Andrews whose Scotorum Historiae was published in 1527. He used the tale of the forty-five fictitious kings as a constitutional and moral warning against corruption, which would, he feared, undermine the country’s stability. The power of this Scottish mythology declined from the sixteenth century but was never completely broken. When Charles II was restored he had a Dutch master, Jacob de Witt, paint a series of one hundred and eleven portraits of the Scottish kings, starting with Fergus I in 330 BC right up to himself and his brother James (the future James VII and II) on the walls of Holyrood Palace. Hence the legend was used as a source of royal legitimacy as late as 1660.
The original purpose of the legend had been to legitimise Scottish independence. This seemed to have been established by Robert the Bruce at Bannockburn in 1314. And legally, of course, it had been. Yet Scottish independence remained fragile. The country was often invaded, defeated and humiliated by the English. As early as 1332 and 1333 two full scale Scottish armies were cut to pieces and their leaders slain. In 1356 Edward III again invaded Scotland devastating the South East counties in the so-called ‘Burnt Candlemas’. Under Robert II attacks on England (usually at the behest of the French) brought punitive expeditions by John of Gaunt, who first ransomed Edinburgh and later burnt it. In 1400 Henry IV also led an army to Edinburgh while in 1402 the ‘the flower of chivalry of the whole realm of Scotland’ was captured and held to ransom at Homildon Hill. Scotland’s greatest defeat, however, came at Flodden in 1513 where the king (James IV) died along with his illegitimate son, the Archbishop of St. Andrews, two other bishops, three abbots, one dean, fourteen earls, about the same number of lords, three Highland chiefs, and a great number of lairds. Yet as a distinguished historian remarked: there was ‘nothing novel about a heavy defeat at the hands of the English and Flodden was neither the first nor the last in a long series.’ One need not list them all. The final humiliation, of course, was Scotland’s defeat, conquest and occupation by Oliver Cromwell in the 1650s. Remarkably, there is no folk memory of this at all among contemporary Scots, unlike the visceral memory of Cromwell’s record in Ireland among the Irish.
The independent kingdom unfortunately suffered other woes besides English invasions. It was cursed for example by a succession of royal minorities. In the period 1406-1488 there was no adult ruler for thirty-eight years. After Flodden in 1513 there were three royal minorities, so that in the space of more than seventy years there were no more than twenty-two years’ rule by a monarch of a mature age. Mary Queen of Scots became queen when only a week old; James VI was crowned at thirteen months; and David II became king at the age of five. Worst of all were the cases of David II and James I, both kings were captured by the English and kept as virtual prisoners by them. David II, defeated in battle, was kept in England from 1346 till 1357 and was only released when Scotland agreed to pay an exorbitant ransom for him (the ransom was continually renegotiated). James I was captured by English pirates and kept a prisoner from 1406 till 1424 and also had to pay a large sum to secure his freedom.
Scotland was also subject to noble factionalism, the fifteenth century being particularly lawless. Both James I and James III were murdered while the reign of James II saw a bitter struggle between him and the Black Douglases. Before his own murder James III had to experience the murder of his own favourites by a dissident nobility. The independent Scotland created by Bruce therefore remained at the mercy of the English who invaded and devastated it and held its kings to ransom. Moreover it was a poor and lawless place as the above-mentioned murders affirm. In 1398 the chronicler of Moray wrote that ‘there was no law in Scotland but he who was stronger oppressed him who was weaker.’ Crimes went unpunished and justice ‘lay in exile outwith the bounds of the country.’ Some kings, it is true—James V for example—did try to impose justice but a prominent historian could write of Scotland as late as the 1660s as ‘a country which could not afford and did not know how to administer any system of regular policing.’ Independent Scotland in fact could hardly defend or administer itself.
One great hope of salvation lay with the French. An alliance with France would surely create security. But the effectiveness of the Auld Alliance is just another Scottish myth.
END.
You can read the rest of this article at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...angloscots.htm
And that's it for this week and hope you all have a great weekend and mind and keep your distance, wash your hands and stay safe. Don't be stupid or selfish and instead be considerate of others and wear a mask if going shopping or into a crowded place and consider whether you should indeed go into a crowded space in the first place.
Alastair
https://electricscotland.com/scotnews.htm
Electric Scotland News
I've been thinking about how the world is coping with the virus and what the implications are going forward.
I've decided that we've all already spent more money that we can afford so further measures are not really available to keep people in work or to furlough payments. I can also well understand both the US and UK attempts to delay the virus lockdown as both countries were well aware of the major costs this would have on their countries. So while people may well say we should have locked down earlier I can well understand the reluctance to do so.
Here in Canada we are also in major deficit territory and frankly this is going to impact on the younger generation in particular. We simply do not have the money to continue to bale out people and so I say we all need to get back to work and open things up while at the same time being much more aggressive on punishing people that don't do social distancing or wear face masks. We should name and shame people that defy the rules and we need to ensure we put them in "Coventry" to show their behavior is unacceptable.
The testing for the virus is not as good as it should be and we still don't have quick tests to check if we are ok or not. That needs to change.
Overall.. the world is running out of money and so we need to either bite the bullet by letting everyone be infected and take the consequences or we need to be much more aggressive on breakers of the rules of social distancing and use of face masks. And do remember that it was China that started all this!!!
As to the US presidential race.
I watched the first TV show from the Spectator on the US Elections which you can view at:
It was however quite depressing as to their projections of what would be the result of the elections. Do watch the video above to learn more.
And finally looking at the local Brexit negotiations.
I continue to be amazed at how many MP's are weak minded and totally unsuitable to vote on serious matters. The claim that the UK is breaking International law is just not true. And the fact that the Democrats in the USA are being critical of us for daring to stand up for ourselves is just biased and ignorant. The EU is a dictatorship and certainly not democratic and they are trying everything they can to bully the UK into surrendering our independence after leaving the EU. As to the Good Friday Agreement what the UK are proposing does not affect that agreement at all. Whereas if we did not go through with it that would have a major affect on Northern Ireland where the Scots-Irish come from. It seems that many in the US are poorly educated on the situation and their press are not up to the task of explaining the real situation.
Learn the true situation by reading this article at:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2020/09...eptember-2020/
Scottish News from this weeks newspapers
Note that this is a selection and more can be read in our ScotNews feed on our index page where we list news from the past 1-2 weeks. I am partly doing this to build an archive of modern news from and about Scotland as world news stories that can affect Scotland and all the newsletters are archived and also indexed on Google and other search engines. I might also add that in a number of newspapers you will find many comments which can be just as interesting as the news story itself and of course you can also add your own comments if you wish which I do myself from time to time.
The UN’s Unhappy Birthday
In fact, the pandemic helps illustrate why the UN is not fit to organize and manage the international cooperation that the world urgently needs.
Read more at:
https://www.project-syndicate.org/co...-haass-2020-09
Oregon wildfires: Half a million people flee dozens of infernos
More than half a million people in the US state of Oregon are fleeing deadly wildfires that are raging across the Pacific Northwest, authorities say.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54113416
Glenisla Hotel: Smuggling, hidden treasure, witches and the 1745 Jacobite rebellion
Glenisla Hotel has been a coaching inn since the 1700s and boasts links to the 1745 Jacobite rebellion. Locals petitioning against plans to turn it into homes were delighted when the new owners revealed their hopes to restore the historic building as the beating heart of the community
Read more at:
https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/nost...ite-rebellion/
Brexit: Michael Gove says bill will protect integrity of UK
Mr Gove said: "These steps are a safety net, they're a long-stop in the event, which I don't believe will come about but we do need to be ready for, that the EU follow through on what some have said they might do which is, in effect, to separate Northern Ireland from the rest of the United Kingdom."
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-54129927
Switzerland warned EU under pressure as Bern and UK standoff with bloc
BREXIT deadlock between the UK and the EU has coincided with the bloc's tense talks with Switzerland - and the country's finance minister warned Brussels in under pressure.
Read more at:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/13...rade-talks-spt
Sturgeon's nightmare! Orkney to follow Shetland in demanding independence from Scotland
NICOLA Sturgeon now faces Orkney demands to secede after civic bosses admitted they would seek self-determination in the event of any future constitutional change
Read more at:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/polit...ds-snp-scottis
SNP's hate crime law now officially the most controversial legislation since devolution
However, the controversial legislation has already faced criticism from the Scottish Police Federation, the Catholic Church in Scotland and the Law Society of Scotland, along with groups including the Free to Disagree campaign.
Read more at:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/polit...olyrood-latest
From Auld Alliance to creating the United Kingdom
THE AULD ALLIANCE was a treaty of mutual defence against England signed by John Balliol and Philip IV of France in Paris in 1295. It lasted till 1560.
Read more at:
https://www.thinkscotland.org/todays...ead_full=14258
US backs off Canadian aluminium tariffs
The US is dropping plans for a 10% tariff on certain types of Canadian aluminium that President Donald Trump announced just last month.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-54168420
Trump hails dawn of new Middle East with UAE-Bahrain-Israel deals
Mr Trump spoke as the two Gulf states signed agreements fully normalising their relations with Israel.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-54168120
Finally SOMEBODY talks sense! Swiss economist tells EU to forget about UK paying bill
THE EUROPEAN UNION must forget about the money they are demanding from the UK pay post-Brexit, claims a Swiss academic.
Read more at:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/polit...rexit-latetest
Brexit victory as Brussels lets EU banks trade TRILLIONS through London until 2022 - even if there is No Deal
With Brussels increasingly scared of an acrimonious split, they shared plans to give Euro firms an 18-month special licence to carry on using London.
Read more at:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/126803...s-london-2022/
Disaster for BBC as 237,000 families stop paying licence fee costing £40million
In order to watch or record live television in the UK each household needs a £157.50 TV licence. However, there is speculation an increasing number of families are instead spending the money on streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime.
Read more at:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/13...vision-Netflix
Hell hath no fury like a partner scorned
THE RESPONSE of the Johnson Government to blatant EU bullying has been one of moderation in the extreme. Far from being an outrageous breach of international law it is a cool, reasoned response to unacceptable aggression.
Read more at:
https://www.thinkscotland.org/thinkb...ead_full=14261
Electric Canadian
Made Here: Quebec - The Invisible Nation
The Invisible Nation (Le Peuple Invisible), exploring how the Algonquin people once lived in harmony with the vast territory they occupied, and how the balance was upset when the Europeans arrived in the 16th century. Added this video to our Algonquin page at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist.../algonquin.htm
Algonquin Legends of New England or Myths and Folk Lore of the Micmac, Passamaquoddy, and Penobscot Tribes (pdf)
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...ew_England.pdf
Voyages and Travels of an Indian Interpreter and Trader
Describing the Manners and Customs of the North American Indians; with an account of the Posts situated on the River Saint Laurence, Lake Ontario, &c. to which is added a Vocabulary of the Chippeway Language. Names of Furs and Skins, in English and French. A list of words in the Iroquois, Mohegan, Shawanee, and Esquimeaux tongues and a table of the Anology between the Algonkin and Chippeway languages by J. Long (1791) (pdf)
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...nterpreter.pdf
Astoria
An Enterprise Beyond by Washington Irving in three volumes (1836)
You can read this at: http://www.electriccanadian.com/tran...re/astoria.htm
Thoughts on a Sunday morning - 13th September 2020
By Rev. Nola Crewe
You can view this at:
http://www.electricscotland.org/show...September-2020
History of Wheat in Canada
By the Research Branch of the Canada Department of Agriculture (1961) (pdf)
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/tran...heatcanada.pdf
Masters of the Wilderness
By Charles Bert Reed, M.D. (1914) (pdf)
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...dern00reed.pdf
Electric Scotland
Beth's Newfangled Family Tree
Got in the October edition Section 2.
Beth writes...
Here's the answer to the oft-asked question, "Why Newfangled?" If you are me, you have a completely logical explanation for that. My dream has always been to have a team of Newfoundlands to pull my big wagon load of very heavy newspapers around the Scottish games.
Well, I no longer have heavy newspapers to haul and right now, there are no games. Mmmm. I still want more Newfoundlands! I had three AKC Newfys. Their callin' names were Ruthie (Black), Chuckie (Bronze) and Walter (Landseer). That's well over 375 pounds of love in fur suits.
We used to tool about in Moultrie in a red MGB convertible. I'd drive most of the time, although they always wanted to drive. Ruthie would sit in the front seat, riding shotgun, and Chuckie and Walter would ride in the back surveying the world. Everyone wore glasses to protect their eyes. I am told we were a sight to see.
I have hours and hours of Newfy Adventures to tell. If I write one more word about them now, I will cry. I loved them greatly and always miss them. Back then, a Newfy of about eight years was old. Chuckie made it to that. Ruthie and Walter, not quite.
Anyway, lots of interesting things, I think, in this issue.
The big news was that sweet Tom, in his eagle-eye proofreading, found FIVE errors in 42 pages! Holy Moley. Those goofs were words which stuck together typing and a couple of commas who either were in wrong places or were not there at all. Lord, I wish Mrs. Durrance, my senior English teacher, could know about this! Remember, I only had room for ONE semester of typing, too.
Come to think of it, Mrs. Durrance had such a fit when I turned in about 25 feet of "Medieval parchment scroll" as my senior paper on The First Crusade, which was written by hand in brown in, in the first person, I don't think she wanted to ever see me again.
Please remember to send me your edits and changes in your email address. Please also send me queries to help you find lost and brick wall kin. Don't forget to send me your Flowers of the Forest information, too.
Keep on with being careful and staying safe.
Aye,
beth
You can read this at: https://electricscotland.com/bnft/index.htm
Musings of a real Tank Commander By Stuart Crawford.
Added Part 18
You can read this at: https://electricscotland.com/history...tank/index.htm
Mythology in the history of Anglo-Scots relations
by Alan Sked
You can read this at: https://electricscotland.com/history...angloscots.htm
The Tower of Craigietocher
July 31st - Got Married.
This is likely the final entry for our story of the building of the Tower and we wish them a happy life together.
See the pictures at: https://electricscotland.com/history...ietocher19.htm
Clan MacPherson
As you will note below we have been doing a major makeover of the Clan MacPherson section of our site. We've also added several videos to their Clan History page.
You can see all this at: https://electricscotland.com/webclans/m/macpher.html
Memorials of Service in India
From the Correspondence of the Late Major Samuel Charters MacPherson, C.B., Political agent at Gwalior during the Mutiny, and formerly employed in the Suppression of Human Sacrifices in Orissa Edited by his Brother, William MacPherson (1865) (pdf)
MacPherson, The Great Confederate Philosopher and Southern Blower
A Record of his Philosophy, His Career as a Warrior, Traveller, Clergyman, Poet, and Newspaper Publisher, His Death, Resuscitation, and subsequent Election to the Office of Governor of Louisiana by Alfred C. Hills, Editor of the New Orleans Era (1864) (pdf)
James MacPherson, An Episode in Literature
By J. S. Smart (1905) (pdf)
Memoirs of the Life and Travels of Charles MacPherson
In Asia, Africa and America illustrative of Manners, Customs, and Character; with a particular investigation of the National Treatment and possible improvement of the Negro and the British and French West India Islands written by himself chiefly between the years 1773 and 1790 (1800) (pdf)
Cluny MacPherson and a tale of Brotherly Love
By A. E. Barr (1884) (pdf)
We also got in their Autumn 2019 newsletter.
Story
Mythology in the history of Anglo-Scots relations
by Alan Sked
THERE CAN BE little doubt that the relationship with England has been the key factor in the birth, development and for some the decline of the Scottish nation. England is Scotland’s larger, richer and more powerful neighbour and all the ‘heroes’ of Scottish history have been defined by either victory over her or defeat at her hands. Only one, of course, Robert the Bruce, truly achieved victory. The rest – including Wallace, Mary Queen of Scots and Bonnie Prince Charlie – were either executed or driven into exile.
Still, the history of Scotland is so steeped in mythology that this is always overlooked. We Scots like to dress up our past in all its finery, like Montrose on his walk to the scaffold (‘dressed more like a bridegroom than a criminal’, according to one eye-witness report) and our contemporary Scottish Nationalists seem steeped in medievalism ready to refight the wars of independence all over again. They cleave to a Braveheart vision of the past, however unhistorical it may be.
Mythology was always at the heart of Anglo-Scottish relations.
In 1136 the Welsh monk Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote his Historia Regnum Britanniae which influenced English thought for centuries. This was supposedly the history of the British from their first arrival in Britain in the twelfth century BC under King Brutus, the great-grandson of the Trojan hero Aeneas, until their overthrow in the seventh century AD by the Angles and Saxons. Geoffrey’s book was important because it for the first time introduced characters such as King Lear, Cymbeline and Merlin, not to mention King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. More than that, by giving future English dynasties an ancient foundation, it became the basis of a national mythology which was continued in Caxton’s Chronicles of England (1480), Hidgen’s Polychronicon (1482) and a flood of books right into the Tudor period written by authors such as Edward Hall, Richard Grafton and Raphael Holinshed. After the Reformation, indeed, it became almost apocalyptic. England became an ‘elect nation’ and according to Bishop Aylmer, God was an Englishman.
Moreover, it became very dangerous, for pupils of Geoffrey added that after the death of King Brutus the British kingdom had been divided. His eldest son inherited Loegria (England), his second Albany (Scotland) and the third Cambria (Wales) and under feudal law, the English king held seniority over the other two. Worse still, by the time of King Arthur, this monarch ruled all of England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Scandinavia and Gaul, with Scotland as a tributary state, whose kings for centuries paid homage to England’s ruler.
Over the course of centuries this mythology became a powerful ideological weapon used to justify aggression against the Scots. Edward I, Henry V, and Henry VI all based their right to conquer Scotland on their descent from Brutus. Henry VIII likewise justified his claim to Scotland on his ‘Trojan-English’ ancestry. No king, he said had ‘more just title, more evident title, more certayn title, to any realm … than we have to Scotland.’
One almost inevitable reaction to this English ideology was the creation of a Scottish counter-ideology, which was used in international diplomacy at the same time as Edward submitted his claim to Scotland to the Pope in 1301. Then the Declaration of Arbroath of 1320, also laid before the Pope, claimed that Scotland had had 113 kings of her own and had never been ruled by a foreigner. The full exposition of the Scottish counter-ideology, however, had to wait till the monk, John of Fordoun, published his Chronica Gentis Scotorum between 1384 and 1387, later continued until 1437 under the title Scotichronicon.
Fordoun disputed that Brutus had ever ruled the entire island, which, he maintained had been called Albion, whereas the Roman name Britannia had only referred to England. The Scottish nation, he explained, was descended from a Greek prince named Gathelus (the Greeks, remember, had conquered the Trojans) and an Egyptian princess called Scota who had married about 1,500 BC. The Scots had subsequently wandered from the Mediterranean through the Pillars of Hercules and reached the west of Scotland, via Spain and Ireland. There they founded their kingdom in 330 BC under King Fergus I. After forty-five further kings and a period of exile lasting forty-three years the Kingdom of Scotland was re-established in 403 AD, from which date, despite English hostility, it had been ruled by independent Scottish monarchs.
Like Geoffrey’s Historia, the Scotichronicon dominated Scottish historical consciousness till well into the sixteenth century and had many interpreters, the most prominent being Hector Boece, Principal of the University of St. Andrews whose Scotorum Historiae was published in 1527. He used the tale of the forty-five fictitious kings as a constitutional and moral warning against corruption, which would, he feared, undermine the country’s stability. The power of this Scottish mythology declined from the sixteenth century but was never completely broken. When Charles II was restored he had a Dutch master, Jacob de Witt, paint a series of one hundred and eleven portraits of the Scottish kings, starting with Fergus I in 330 BC right up to himself and his brother James (the future James VII and II) on the walls of Holyrood Palace. Hence the legend was used as a source of royal legitimacy as late as 1660.
The original purpose of the legend had been to legitimise Scottish independence. This seemed to have been established by Robert the Bruce at Bannockburn in 1314. And legally, of course, it had been. Yet Scottish independence remained fragile. The country was often invaded, defeated and humiliated by the English. As early as 1332 and 1333 two full scale Scottish armies were cut to pieces and their leaders slain. In 1356 Edward III again invaded Scotland devastating the South East counties in the so-called ‘Burnt Candlemas’. Under Robert II attacks on England (usually at the behest of the French) brought punitive expeditions by John of Gaunt, who first ransomed Edinburgh and later burnt it. In 1400 Henry IV also led an army to Edinburgh while in 1402 the ‘the flower of chivalry of the whole realm of Scotland’ was captured and held to ransom at Homildon Hill. Scotland’s greatest defeat, however, came at Flodden in 1513 where the king (James IV) died along with his illegitimate son, the Archbishop of St. Andrews, two other bishops, three abbots, one dean, fourteen earls, about the same number of lords, three Highland chiefs, and a great number of lairds. Yet as a distinguished historian remarked: there was ‘nothing novel about a heavy defeat at the hands of the English and Flodden was neither the first nor the last in a long series.’ One need not list them all. The final humiliation, of course, was Scotland’s defeat, conquest and occupation by Oliver Cromwell in the 1650s. Remarkably, there is no folk memory of this at all among contemporary Scots, unlike the visceral memory of Cromwell’s record in Ireland among the Irish.
The independent kingdom unfortunately suffered other woes besides English invasions. It was cursed for example by a succession of royal minorities. In the period 1406-1488 there was no adult ruler for thirty-eight years. After Flodden in 1513 there were three royal minorities, so that in the space of more than seventy years there were no more than twenty-two years’ rule by a monarch of a mature age. Mary Queen of Scots became queen when only a week old; James VI was crowned at thirteen months; and David II became king at the age of five. Worst of all were the cases of David II and James I, both kings were captured by the English and kept as virtual prisoners by them. David II, defeated in battle, was kept in England from 1346 till 1357 and was only released when Scotland agreed to pay an exorbitant ransom for him (the ransom was continually renegotiated). James I was captured by English pirates and kept a prisoner from 1406 till 1424 and also had to pay a large sum to secure his freedom.
Scotland was also subject to noble factionalism, the fifteenth century being particularly lawless. Both James I and James III were murdered while the reign of James II saw a bitter struggle between him and the Black Douglases. Before his own murder James III had to experience the murder of his own favourites by a dissident nobility. The independent Scotland created by Bruce therefore remained at the mercy of the English who invaded and devastated it and held its kings to ransom. Moreover it was a poor and lawless place as the above-mentioned murders affirm. In 1398 the chronicler of Moray wrote that ‘there was no law in Scotland but he who was stronger oppressed him who was weaker.’ Crimes went unpunished and justice ‘lay in exile outwith the bounds of the country.’ Some kings, it is true—James V for example—did try to impose justice but a prominent historian could write of Scotland as late as the 1660s as ‘a country which could not afford and did not know how to administer any system of regular policing.’ Independent Scotland in fact could hardly defend or administer itself.
One great hope of salvation lay with the French. An alliance with France would surely create security. But the effectiveness of the Auld Alliance is just another Scottish myth.
END.
You can read the rest of this article at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...angloscots.htm
And that's it for this week and hope you all have a great weekend and mind and keep your distance, wash your hands and stay safe. Don't be stupid or selfish and instead be considerate of others and wear a mask if going shopping or into a crowded place and consider whether you should indeed go into a crowded space in the first place.
Alastair
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