Talk:History of Scotland

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History of Scotland is a featured article, which means it has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. If you see a way this page can be updated or improved without compromising previous work, feel free to contribute.

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Contents

1 Misc 2 1320-1560, the lost years 3 Trim down? 4 Roman Scotland 5 "history reached scotland" 6 Numericals 7 Well Done 8 The British Civil Wars 9 End of feudal duty 10 Outwith! 11 Other Scottish Civil Wars 12 Post-Roman Scotland 13 Doc Glasgow's Edits 14 Request for references

Misc

I want to make a History of Britain Series, this is, of course quite impossible between England, Scotland and Ireland and their various pre-1600 histories. So... I was thinking of making a History of England Series ending at the Union of the Crowns, after which History of Britain would come into affect. A history of Scotalnd will also be made. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:History_of_England - this is a table I have come up with, not all of the articles linked to are satisfactory. If anyone thinks it's a good idea - I wouldn't mind some help/imput etc. --OldakQuill 19:20, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Well, fair enough but note that England and Scotland as political entities only exist between about 500 AD and 1700 AD. Before that History of Britain is a more appropriate title since the Angles lived in Europe and the Scots in Ireland. After that History of the United Kingdom would be more appropriate. -- Derek Ross 21:00, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

843 Kenneth MacAlpin unites the Scots and Picts as one nation. This was the first step in creating a united Scotland, a process not completed until at least 1034 and perhaps much later. --Dumbo1 17:13, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

1320-1560, the lost years

Surely this article should have some discussion of Scottish history between 1320 and 1560? john k 00:22, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Indeed :) Derek observed the same thing (User talk:Derek Ross) and says he'll probably fix matters in a few weeks. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 00:28, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Actually I'm going to make a barebones start on it tonight. -- Derek Ross | Talk 00:34, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Phew. Finished -- Derek Ross | Talk 05:17, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Good job - I've added a few details here and there. It was James II who took on the Douglases, right? john k 05:55, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The Black Douglases! Yep. I just didn't want to go into too much detail but feel free. -- Derek Ross | Talk 06:17, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, I just wanted to add something about each of the Kings. Do you think we might want to go into a bit more detail on Mary Queen of Scots/The Reformation? john k 06:41, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Mary has such a good article about her already that I would hesitate to add any more about her in this one. The Reformation might be worth a bit more though. I think that we have enough about the important rulers now. Any additions should probably be about cultural or social history. For instance there isn't anything about the Black Death in Scotland, the role of famine, or about the rise and fall of the Scottish Parliament from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries. That's probably where we need to concentrate our efforts in the future. But not tonight :-) Bedtime for me. -- Derek Ross | Talk 06:54, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Yeah - that's stuff I know less about, so I'd have to take a back seat. Certainly the Reformation could have more, though. john k 07:08, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

BTW, how did such an incomplete article come to be featured already? It seems to me that it should still be at "candidate with unresolved objections" until it gets to a near-finished state. john k 07:08, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Don't know the answer to that one. I can only guess that it looked superficially complete to an uncritical reader. -- Derek Ross | Talk 07:14, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Trim down?

I rather like this article as it is, but when adding edits get warnings that it's too big and perhaps should be split up. Presumably reducing the number of images would be an option.

With some regret, one candidate for hiving off would be prehistory. Here's an idea of a reduced section as a link. Should this be taken further? (Prehistoric settlement) People lived in Scotland for at least 8500 years before recorded history came to these islands. From hunter-gatherer encampments to megalithic cairns and standing stones to Pictish and Celtic fortifications, this period is covered in Prehistory of Scotland. dave souza 11:37, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The images don't count toward the size of the article, it's only the wikitext. Don't worry too much about the warning - it's entirely a technical artifact, as some (very old) browsers have problems with large textboxes - but that means _very_ old browsers. I'd say we should ignore the warning for now - if the article gets significantly larger then we should chop it into sub-articles and leave the main "History Of Scotland" a survey article. You and Derek have between you transformed this article recently, and our new-found surfeit of quality text is a good problem to have. Keep up the good work. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 12:21, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Oh, btw, I think we should retain the photo of Stirling Castle at the article's very beginning, or substitute it with some other history-spanning image (Edinburgh Castle would make more sense, but our photo of that isn't so good). The opening section (and its accompanying image) shouldn't be in the main chronological flow of the article as a whole, but instead form a one or two paragraph summary of the whole article. The opening paragraph certainly isn't that yet (I'll move some glacial details down to prehistory), and it's something we need to have - the opening paragraph is generally what Raul uses for the text on the front page, when he features the article there (which he will do, once we give him the nod). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 12:33, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Right then. I've written a (nasty) summary opening paragraph, but it needs a few sentences covering roman through jacobite times. Man, writing a summary at this altitude is hard, and it's particularly tough to avoid falling into cliche and jingoism - so feel free to wrestle this down into something less sophomoric. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 13:02, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I agree about Stirling Castle. It's a nice picture, so I've put it back. And I'm impressed by your summary paragraph. 10,000 years in 250 words. Wow! -- Derek Ross | Talk 15:56, 2004 Jul 20 (UTC)

I seem to have glossed over 1 1/2 millennia, which isn't good. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 16:08, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice - I like Stirling Castle too, and it apparently was a Gododdin hillfort: I mean to try to find if there's any archaeology on it, and perhaps give it a mention in the text. New starting summary and move of glaciers looking good.

Since there was a lot of detail getting trimmed out, I've started a stub for Prehistoric Scotland which can act as an extension of the shorter item in the main article. Lots still to add. --dave souza 23:41, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Roman Scotland

The article is good, but the information about Roman Scotland is out of date.

Recent dendrochonology dating of timbers from under the fort in Carlisle shows the foundation at 72CE. At Newstead, Inchtuthil and Castleford coins and assemblages indicate that Roman military settlement was early Flavian, prior to Agricola. Tacitus is our major source for this period, however he was the son-in-law of Agricola. The writer Tertullian wrote this 100 years after the writings of Tacitus: Cornelius Tacitus, however, - who, to say the truth, is most loquacious in falsehood. It would seem that the historical account of the invasion of Scotland is somewhat fabricated. We have to turn to archaeology to provide us with information.

Recent archaeological discoveries shows that the Roman influence in Scotland was more significant than history suggests. The first military barrier was the Gask Ridge, built 40 years to Hadrians Wall, some 130 miles further North. It consisted of large forts blocking the south eastern exits of the highland glens. Hadrians Wall was built around 120CE. The Antonine Wall was built about 80 miles north of Hadrians Wall, 20 years later and was manned for 40 years. The area between the walls has often been thought of as being free from Roman influence. However this would be contrary to the normal Roman pattern of creating client kingdoms as buffer zones at the edge of the Roman Empire. There is plenty of archaeology to show significant romanisation north of Hadrians Wall, and there are plenty of forts north of the wall which were manned when the wall was supposedly the edge of the Roman Empire. This all goes to show that Hadrians Wall was not an impervious barrier.

That the Romans did not hold onto Scotland is seen by nationalists as to be something to be proud of. However the Romans held onto parts of Scotland, many times. It is likely that the Romans did not hold the whole of Scotland was because in many areas the poor soil and harsh climate, produced a low population density, and lack of coherent central state. Thus to hold onto the entirety of Scotland would cost a lot more than the gains it would bring. Areas which supported a higher population density, were often parts of the Roman Empire, as the wall moved back and forward. At the end of empire in the west, the area between the walls were incorporated into a fifth British province (Valentia). The rise of states to the north of scotland (picts), during the period of Roman occupation to the South, perhaps were a result of contact with Rome.

Not sure how that can be incorporated, but the current article almost writes out the influence of Rome on Scotland, whereas modern research has shown that Scotland was significantly influenced by Rome.

"Over the next thousand years Scotland remained linked to Celtic cultures, while England came under Anglo-Saxon domination." Again that is not entirely true. Scotland south of the Clyde-Forth line, was significantly influenced and invaded by the Anglo-Saxons: the current language spoken in Scotland which is, and has been for over 1000 years, the scottish dialect of English. This is not down to cultural imperialism by the English in the last few hundred years. Other languages existed, but did not survive. This is almost certainly due to the large influx of anglo-saxon speaking settlers. The gaelic which is spoken in the Highlands is a late addition from Ireland. The picts (whatever they spoke) and the brythonic speaking peoples didn't leave a linguistic heritage, just a load of place names. --Dumbo1 15:48, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with most of what you say (although Old Irish arrived in Scotland about the same time as Old English did, so Gaelic is no later an addition than English). I've certainly visited the remains of Roman forts in Perthshire, Angus and Kincardine and that coupled with the fact the the Picts lost the battle of Mons Graupius doesn't sit well with what the article says. Let's get the above into the article rather than sitting on the talk page.

The line

"Over the next thousand years Scotland remained linked to Celtic cultures, while England came under Anglo-Saxon domination."

was a late change. The original line said

"However, as a practical consequence, Scotland stayed cut off from the main currents of European thought and culture, and thus remained a fringe, backward nation for almost a thousand years",

which while arguable, made much more sense in the context of the preceding sentence,

"The failure of the Romans to conquer Caledonia can be seen as a triumph of the Caledonians and perhaps even as a source of national pride".

We should put back the original sentence in my opinion, rephrased to spare the feelings of more sensitive Scots if necessary. -- Derek Ross | Talk

Basically in agreement.
. "Over the next thousand years Scotland remained linked to Celtic cultures, while England came under Anglo-Saxon domination." Again that is not entirely true. Agreed - I wrote that having been annoyed by the "we're backwards" sentiment of "However, as a practical consequence, Scotland stayed cut off from the main currents of European thought and culture, and thus remained a fringe, backward nation for almost a thousand years" which seemed an absurd statement about a time when Celtic culture flourished, Angles brought Gododdin south east Scotland into touch with the Anglo-saxon scene and relationships with the Norse developed. England was pretty chaotic at this time. (Gaelic became the court language over most of Scotland in the 11th century, including SE Scotland, but was then displaced by Norman English influence.) The statement "The failure of the Romans to conquer Caledonia can be seen as a triumph of the Caledonians and perhaps even as a source of national pride". seemed rather foolish, but I didn't manage to think of a replacement. I've tried now to improve this - feel free to do better.- dave souza 17:39, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

revised version most impressive, and informative! - dave souza 21:04, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

"history reached scotland"

The sentence "Written history finally reached Scotland during Roman times." is rather suboptimal. It would be better if we had a sentence explaining what writing systems the pre-roman inhabitants had, and why what remains doesn't constitute a written history. So it'd read something like (note: strawman - no facts here) "Although the brythonic peoples used a simple foobar writing system, its use was limited to scatalogical limericks, and so the written history of Scotland essentially begins during Roman times". Thoughts? -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 21:35, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Could be tricky to phrase it right. I believe that writing existed (or had existed) and there were the occasional pre-Roman commemorative stones with some form of writing or symbols engraved upon them but the reason that there was no proper written history was because the Druids insisted that oral history was the way to go. Of course it worked beautifully until the Celtic societies were otherwise occupied by Christianity, wars, famine, etc, etc, and could no longer afford the luxury of properly trained bards... Derek Ross | Talk

Howsabout: "The written history of Scotland largely begins with the coming of the Roman empire. Although writing was occasionally used for commemorative purposes by pre-Romans, these societies favoured a strong oral history. With the loss of the druidic tradition (due to war, famine, and particularly the proscriptions of later Christian missionaries) much of this history was forgotten." ? -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 23:03, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

You're a master! Stick it in. -- Derek Ross | Talk

Numericals

It would wise to get rid of the numericals in the topics, to insure standard syntax throughtout wikipedia. --68.175.65.175 23:52, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Hmm, I'm not sure I know what you mean? If you mean the numbered section headers, those are automatically generated by the software, and their presence or absence is a user preference. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 23:58, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Well Done

Good work, guys! I would say that we came through linking from the Main Page pretty well. We managed to fend off the vandals and the American spellers fairly promptly and got in some pretty worthwhile improvements to the article as well, partly as a result of the extra exposure. This calls for an extra Tunnock's Caramel Wafer all round, so break them open! Cheers -- Derek Ross | Talk 05:22, 2004 Jul 31 (UTC)

I want mine deep fried - David Gerard 16:57, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Pointless. The wafer strips are made from blue asbestos, so you can fry it forever without it changing at all. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:19, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Careful what you say about the Caramel Wafer. I hear that the St Andrews Tunnocks Caramel Wafer Appreciation Society (http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~tunnock/) have a Provisional wing not noted for their sense of humour...

Rightly so. The Tunnocks Caramel Wafer is a legend in its own teabreak. It should not be dunked or trifled with. --Dumbo1 20:11, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

On the other hand for someone who does have a sense of humour when describing Tunnock's products (and those of many other biscuit manufacturers), I can heartily recommend http://www.nicecupofteaandasitdown.com even if you don't particularly like biscuits. -- Derek Ross | Talk

Well done, chaps - good to see this as a featured article. I hope to be able to add some detail (not necessarily here, but possibly in its own article) on the Scottish Lowlands over the next few months. Cheers, Bruce Agendum 09:46, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The British Civil Wars

I have changed the title, English Civil War to 'The British Civil Wars' because I have studied this topic and the current view is that the civil wars were not just about England but were a series of interelated conflicts throughout the whole of the British Isles. Also Scotland played a crucial role and it could even be argued that it was events in Scotland that actually triggered the civil war. The Civil wars are also seen as being caused by the problems of one king ruling over multiple kingdoms (which also had different religions such as Catholic Ireland, Protestant Scotland and England). Even though England, Scotland and Ireland were separate kingdoms they were all ruled by the same king and this caused many problems, especially when trying to implement a uniform religion on all of them. Also the king needed the support of all his kingdoms and trying to please everyone all of the time was impossible. Therefore the civil wars were the result of the very complex relationship between England Scotland and Ireland and the king. This is not to deny the traditional arguments about the English causes of the civil war but It is unlikely that such a huge conflict would have escalated to the degree it did without the involvement of troops from Ireland and Scotland and things such as the Scottish covenanters who actually started the wars in 1639 and the Irish confederates rebelling in 1641. Another description which has been suggested is 'The Wars of the Three kingdoms' although I think this might confuse people whereas 'British civil wars' is slightly more familar. although it probably shouldn't be called a 'civil' war at all as it involved conflicts between Ireland, Scotland and England. --Cap 13:28, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I think that most, if not all, of us are well aware of these facts. However the conflict is universally known as the English Civil War, and it is not up to us to create a new name for it. That sort of thing leads to confusion. For one thing the Jacobite conflict has as good a claim to be the British Civil War as the English Civil War does (in fact a better one to my mind). For another it is conceivable that some people could believe that there was a British Civil War and a separate English Civil War. To sidestep the issue I have renamed the section with a completely different but unambiguous title for the time period -- Derek Ross | Talk 15:04, 2004 Aug 24 (UTC)

I take your point that changing names can lead to confusion, however I just found it a bit strange that you included the events happening in Scotland under the title 'English civil war' when the focus of the article is on Scotland. it implies that events in Scotland triggered the 'English' civil war and that Scotland subsequently became involved with this English conflict. Which is rather misleading, when the conflict between the Scottish Covenanters and Charles I was the start of the civil wars and also triggered off a whole series of conflicts throughout the British Isles. Therefore it seems reasonable to think about a 'war of the three kingdoms' which would emphasise the specific conflict going on between the Covenanters and Charles I (and subsequent conflict in Scotland up until Charles' execution) as a conflict in its own right, while at the same time acknowledging the close interrelationship between this conflict and the civil war in England as well as in Ireland. (However don't take this as a criticism of your actual article which is excellent and does deal with all these issues, it was just the term English civil war that I was challenging which you've now changed anyway!)--Cap 21:30, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

hopefully this is coming together now in line with the articles about the parts of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, history seems to keep developing...dave souza 23:12, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

End of feudal duty

This seemed interesting enough to get mention somewhere, there's now a slightly expanded note on it added to Scots law so if this seems too minor to warrant appearing in this overall history it could be trimmed or deleted here...dave souza 23:12, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Outwith!

See Talk:Scotland#Outwith! -- Derek Ross | Talk 05:31, 2004 Dec 17 (UTC)

Sorry, Derek, have to agree with Susurrus on this one, though it's a term I like and may have added myself. The word is outwith my trusty Chambers Concise Dictionary, Edinburgh 1985, which is generally pretty good on common Scotticisms, but which, sadly, also omits the alternative "furth of". From Chambers Scots Dictionary it's defined as the rather clumsy "outside of", and while your acquaintance with our American cousins may persuade you that all should understand, I fear that those in other countries such as the USA will be baffled by a term undefined in usual references. From the talk:Scotland I can appreciate the advantage of keeping it, would a possible compromise be linking it to a new page explaining all to the uninitiated?..dave souza 00:49, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)..alternatively, put it to an arbiter (or in English, an arbitrator}...dave souza 09:58, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Dave, It looks to me as if Susurrus and the other guys who want to replace "outwith" have had no difficulty in understanding what it meant despite not having come across it before or being unable to find it in a dictionary. The context and its resemblance to "outside" mean that its general meaning is obvious, even though its specific meaning may be a little vague. However in this aspect it's no different from any other item of unfamiliar vocabulary (better than most in fact) and there are plenty of unfamiliar words for any general reader looking through the Wikipedia after all. By all means let's add an entry for it to the Wiktionary if it's uncommon in most dictionaries.

I can see the argument for not using "outwith" in the Simple English Wikipedia but I can't see it here. I believe that the main reason that people object to it is that they are used to seeing unfamiliar nouns or adjectives but not unfamiliar prepositions. I think that its inclusion can be seen as educational. Contrariwise, attempts to remove it or other unusual words like "contrariwise" can be seen as "dumbing articles down" unnecessarily. -- Derek Ross | Talk 18:07, 2004 Dec 18 (UTC)

Fair enough, I'll go along with that..dave souza 00:01, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I didn't realise that my small edit would have provoked such a controversy! I didn't mean to step on anybody's nationalist toes. If Scots want to use their own regional English words for their own regional articles, that's fine. People get very attached to the connotations of their own words. I still wouldn't want to see 'outwith' in a chemistry article or anything. But articles about America use American English and articles about Britain use British English. So to be consistent, articles about Scotland must be able to use Scottish English. --Susurrus 01:22, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Seems fair enough to me. Just a wee point, Scots language is arguably NOT "regional English", though that's an old argument..dave souza 02:21, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I define as regional anything that is not international. Same goes for British and American varieties of English. --Susurrus 02:46, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

OK, I've just read a bit of the Scots language article. I take the point that Scots language is arguably not a dialect of English. But I was not referring above to the Scots language, but to Scottish English. Scottish English is by definition regional English. --Susurrus 02:52, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

A quick Google search for "outwith" shows that, while it is more popular on sites with a Scottish connection, it is used on international sites from Brussels to Brisbane. Since, it appears to be international, it cannot, according to your logic, be regional. -- Derek Ross | Talk 05:53, 2005 Jan 18 (UTC)

If it is international, then I see no excuse for using it anywhere. "Outside" or "beyond" will do just fine. Never use an obscure word where a commonplace word will do. Claiming that the word is international would seem to me to work against your position, not for it. --Susurrus 05:08, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think that's a touché. Again, I have nothing against "outwith" as a Scottish regionalism. But I challenge ANYONE to give me one sentence where it would otherwise make more sense than a commonly recognised English word or phrase. --Susurrus 02:24, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Very well, I shall consider myself "cut to ribbons" ! (Or perhaps, like "outwith", that is too obscure or colourful a phrase for Wikipedia and I should just use a commonly recognised English word or phrase and consider myself "beat"). -- Derek Ross | Talk 03:53, 2005 Jan 20 (UTC)

Can you really make such a comparison?

1. I recognised "cut to ribbons" immediately and have seen it before. I never heard of "outwith" before.
2. The Google "define:" keyword works with "cut to ribbons". It does not work with "outwith".
3. The top-ranked Google page for "cut to ribbons" is its WordNet definition. For "outwith", it is a discussion page about its relative legitimacy. The title was "Outwith my Vocabulary". Quite a few of the contributors were sceptical about the word. One of them said that basically you could use "outside" everywhere you could use "outwith". Hence the rationale behind my previous edit.
4. Is anybody really confused about the phrase "cut to ribbons"? I know that people are genuinely confused about "outwith". I was confused by it when I first saw it in this article. The person in the discussion to which you link above was also confused by it.

You establish yourself as a Scot living in Canada. You say that you can say that word easily enough where you live. But I, as an Australian, could never get away with using it where I live, in Australia. First, nobody would know what I was talking about. Second, when they did find out what I was talking about, they would consider me pompous for talking in such affected speech. They'd take the Mickey out of me (if that is not too obscure an expression). Australians despise pretension. But if I were Scottish, I'm sure that people would let me use it because everybody is really politically correct these days.

I also do not appreciate the introduction of the phrase "or colourful". I never said that some language may be too "colourful" for the Wikipedia. Kindly do not insinuate otherwise.

On the other hand, this discussion is getting academic. First, "cut to ribbons" is a colloquialism. So it is undesirable in an encyclopaedia article anyway. Because "outwith" is not a colloquialism, it is already inappropriate to compare the two. Second, I already said that I would not remove "outwith" from the Scotland-related articles. Those already comprise the vast majority of articles that use the word, of course. A quick Google search reveals this clearly enough. Are you really going to argue this vociferously for "outwith" on articles about topics outwith Scotland? Even if you do, that discussion may also well turn out to be academic, at least for me. Those articles are so few and far between that I don't anticipate reading one anytime soon. But it will be interesting to see how you go in those discussions, in any case. --Susurrus 06:08, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

<sigh> ... but full marks for your use of "outwith" in a context where "outside" would have sounded more awkward. -- Derek Ross | Talk 07:10, 2005 Jan 20 (UTC)

I do not say that "outwith" is universally replaceable with "outside". If those were the only two choices, then "outwith" may often be better. But my first choice would probably have been "articles not specific to Scotland" anyway.

At first, I thought that this was a nationalistic stoush. Now it simply seems to me to be linguistic proselytism. In my singular case, then, you have already won. This debate has already burned the silly word into my brain so much that I am unlikely to forget its meaning anytime soon. So even if I see it in a neutral article, I will probably have little incentive to remove it anyway. I will leave that to the discretion of other people if they get confused. --Susurrus 23:38, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Other Scottish Civil Wars

Question. I wrote a article about the Scottish Civil War of the 1640s, but I see elsewhere that there was another Scottish civil war in the late 16th century. Anyone know anything? Jdorney

There are a few other Scottish civil wars -- some are clear cut and some you could argue about of course. The conflicts that closed Macbeth's reign or Mary's reign were definite civil wars for instance. And you could argue that the second War of Independence was a civil war too, although that is much less defensible. However I think that the one you are referring to would be Bonnie Dundee's Jacobite uprising of 1689 which is described in the Jacobite rising article. -- Derek Ross | Talk 15:40, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC)

No, I know about that one! In the "wars of the pike and age" page there's mention of a Scottish civil war in the 1580s. Is this just a mistake? Jdorney

Oops, I was a century out! Sorry about that. The 1580s would be during James VI's early reign which was a fairly turbulent period with the Presbyterian lords and the Catholic lords duking it out on a regular basis. It could arguably be seen as a time of civil war. Read the James VI of Scotland article for a bit more detail. -- Derek Ross | Talk 20:45, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC)

Ah I see, but not a rival candidate for title of THE Scottish Civil War, you wouldn't say? Jdorney

I don't think that it would be a candidate but then I'm not a professional historian, just someone with an interest. The trouble at the end of Mary's reign would be a better candidate but the thing about Scots is that we're a pretty fractious lot. Before the 19th century there was nearly always someone rebelling or raising an insurrection somewhere in the country, so much so that each new king tended to spend the early part, at least, of his reign putting down trouble of one sort or another. It was the normal course of events really. Trouble had to be pretty big in Scotland before you would call it "civil war". Otherwise you would just call it "business as usual". It might be an idea to have an article Civil wars in Scotland and cover all the conflicts which posed a serious internal threat to the Scottish monarchy. That would be a fair-sized project though. -- Derek Ross | Talk 16:10, Mar 4, 2005 (UTC)

Post-Roman Scotland

There's a new Edinburgh Uni Press History of Scotland coming out soon. Alex Woolf is doing "From Pictland to Alba: Scotland 789 to 1070". It's not out until next year (?). Woolf was interviewed by the Scotsman and is quoted as thinking that Kenny McA was a Pict: "There’s actually no hint at all that he was a Scot". Ewan Campbell's "Saints and Sea-Kings. The First Kingdom of the Scots" refers to "the flight to the East" of the Scots and makes the point that Dalriada was all but submerged in the Viking attacks. Then there's the fact that modern historians are rather disinclined to be so sure that the Scots did invade Scotland, see Doctor Campbell again. As it stands, this section reads as if it was written in Victorian times. Angus McLellan 22:42, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

If you want to add some more modern scholarship, please do. -- Derek Ross | Talk 04:00, Mar 6, 2005 (UTC)

I made a start on this, but only a start. I also had a bash at Picts. Assuming nobody goes mental over that I'll be doing more on it later. Angusmclellan 22:07, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Not at all, Angus. It looks pretty good to me. Cheers -- Derek Ross | Talk 22:30, Mar 13, 2005 (UTC)

I'm goin to edit the civil war section a little bit to explain how the Scots fitted in to the bigger picture. I'll try to be s clear as possible, because i know this is a very confusing period. Jdorney

Doc Glasgow's Edits

Does anyone else feel that these have been a little hasty and unilateral? For instance, in trhe Wars of the Three Kingdoms section, he said he was removing errors, but all he's actually done is removed the link to the Scottish Civil War (the main Scottish event of the period) and removed the very interesting paragraph about Scotland under the Commonwealth. I think it should be reverted, does anyone else feel the ssame about other edits? Jdorney

You have a fair point here - I may have cut too much in this section. I've put back the para on Scotland under the Common wealth. And expanded the sesion of the Scottish Civil War - I had removed the link only because it was dead. As to the errors, the original stated: "Montrose successfully raised Scottish clans opposed to the Covenanters and made Scotland the stronghold of support for the King". That's not so - as far as I can read up. Montrose was very successful, but few actually followed him. Even his own Gordon Clan would not. His army was always small and a good deal of it was Irish - hence the failure when the Irish returned home. At no point was "Scotland the stronghold of support for the King" during Montroses campaign. As far as I can make out, the Scots leadership only supported the King after 'the engagement'. Sorry, I should probably have offered explanations before. If I've got anything else wrong, I'm happy to be corrected. I hope that helps - --Doc Glasgow 15:35, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I must admit that I agree with JDorney. Although your edit summaries talked about fixing errors, the actual edits seemed to delete information, rewrite text for the sake of it and introduce spelling errors. I didn't like to change everything back with you being a new and enthusiastic editor and all that but it did cross my mind that it might not be a bad thing for the article. There may be a couple of points like Montrose where things needed changing but your edits seem to have gone well beyond that point. I mean we don't want to seem over-sensitive but this article has been a group effort over several years and we've managed to get it up to Featured Article status, which isn't that easy to do. You can understand why we get a bit uneasy when someone new comes in and makes big changes to the article without really adding anything new to it. So could you go through your changes, one section at a time, and discuss why you made them ? It might help us to understand a bit better. -- Derek Ross | Talk 00:24, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)

That is a fair point about the "stronghold" comment. The Scottish Civil War link isn't dead to my knowledge though and i'm not sure that much detail has to be put into the general article when its all there already in the Civil War article. No one has a problem with people who want to contribute, but its sometimes bettter to get a consensus first Jdorney 10:41, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I’ll respond to this, and then you folks do as you will. When I joined, I was encouraged to edit boldly - so I did. I confess I didn’t get the significance of the ‘talk’ ‘till later. Sorry if I steamrollered. Spelling errors? Yes, (used to a spell check), but I was trying to remove colloquialisms like ‘stymied’ and ‘bevy of claimants’ and more. If you want to revert, then you may like to consider the following, which are (IMO) errors or debatable (granted some are minor):

1) The contention that Margaret ‘restored’ the church to the rule of Rome is not NPOV. Was the Church ever under Rome before – maybe in parts, by that is at least debatable, and theologically contentious.

2) David I ‘had a large hand in the spread of Scots’ in Lowlands. Highly questionable (evidence?) implies that Scotland was largely Gaelic-speaking before that. I suspect the twooing and fro-ing between Strathclyde, Northumbria, Cumbria over the pervious 500 years had more to do with language mixes and Anglo-Saxon penetration of northern Briton – but I could be wrong.

3) David was ‘half English’ (i.e. Saxon?) – So what? So were many other Kings. His time at the Norman court of England was probably more influential than genetics.

4) Did David really ‘introduce’ the tension between the Highlands and the Lowlands??? Might the fact that the Lowlands had a different history and culture from the Picts and Scots have started this way before David?

5) Was Scotland really in the mainstream of European culture in Roman times. Much of it was outwith (sic) the Roman Empire?

6) The Kings were ‘Stewart’ (Steward) until Mary I, who introduced the French Stuart.

7) Did the Declaration of Arbroath nullify anything? Or rather assert (to the Vatican) Scotland’s claim to independence

8) Does speculation about a legal technicality that French citizenship was not repealed in Scotland merit mention in a brief overview of Scottish history? No-one, to my knowledge, has ever made an issued of it.

9) Knox didn’t convert the nation single-handedly, as implied, he was the key leader in a movement that began years before. Minor points: slightly more than the Highlands remained Roman Catholic and Knox preached Reformed/Calvinist doctrine not Presbyterianism (which is a type of church government not a theology).

10) Parliament adopted Presbyterian church government (and Reformed doctrine) in 1560. Queen did not immediately flee (as implied), indeed she only returned from France in 1561 – and fled in 1568.

11) Church of Scotland and Church of England ‘differed almost as much as two sects under that banner could’. (Sects is pejorative!) They differed greatly – but Anabaptists would have been far more different – so I think this is an overstatement (minor point)

12) The Church of Scotland and Church of England both consider(ed) themselves ‘Catholic’. So ‘Roman Catholic’ is required to differentiate those Christians that recognised Rome.

13) Presbyterians were not ‘sceptical’ of the priesthood and Pope’s authority, they rejected them altogether.

14) Presbyterianism is not democratic – and the claim that it is ‘in essence’ is at least disputable.

15) James II promoted episcopacy in Scotland not the Church of England.

16) Jenny Geddes is generally regarded as a legendry figure

17) Montrose – see my post above)

18) The Scottish Enlightenment was more philosophical and scientific than cultural, and Walter Scott, although a giant of literature, was not ‘pre-eminent’ in the Enlightenment – that award has to go to Hume, Smith or one of the scientists.

I now know, that I should have posted these points before correcting them, and some may be wrong or contentious – but please don’t revert without considering them. (The ‘Scottish Civil War’ link was red on my PC – it isn’t now – and I don’t understand that.) --Doc Glasgow 17:47, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanations. Those are reasonable points which we will definitely take account of for future edits. Cheers Derek Ross | Talk 21:57, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)

So are we keeping these edits are are we reverting it or not? The only section I know about and have contributed to is the CIvil Wars section. If we're keeping it, I'm going to do some editing of my own. If not , the nthe Doc can make some more sensitive edits as he sees fit. Jdorney

I don't think that we should just revert. I am prepared to go through and re-edit bearing his points in mind. I think it best if you do the same for the Civil war section. By doing that we should end up with a better article than we had before whereas reverting would just leave us with the same article as we had before. That would be a shame since it looks like it could be better. -- Derek Ross | Talk 02:22, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)

Right, I've done my edits, I've removed some detail, because I thought it was too much for this general article and its linked to a full article in the Scottish Civil War anyway. I've also reinserted some other details. Doc, if you want to add to this page, please go ahead. As a general rule though, adding new info won't annoy people, but deleting info and re-writing pages at random will. All the best Jdorney 08:35, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'll not interfere again, except to fix typos (here mine). I'll watch your progress with interest. Your changes are good - and I learned from them. --Doc Glasgow 08:51, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Request for references

Hi, I am working to encourage implementation of the goals of the Wikipedia:Verifiability policy. Part of that is to make sure articles cite their sources. This is particularly important for featured articles, since they are a prominent part of Wikipedia. Further reading is not the same thing as proper references. Further reading could list works about the topic that were not ever consulted by the page authors. If some of the works listed in the further reading section were used to add or check material in the article, please list them in a references section instead. The Fact and Reference Check Project has more information. Thank you, and please leave me a message (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:Taxman&action=edit&section=new) when you have added a few references to the article. - Taxman 19:58, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)