Siol nan Gaidheal forum

In PDF form, available from here.

Part 1 - The Prelude: The last Celtic King? Background
http://www.celticleague.net/wp-content/ ... 202009.pdf

Part 2 - The 13 Claimants and Other Competitors, William Wallace etc
http://www.celticleague.net/wp-content/ ... y-2010.pdf

Part 3 - Robert the Bruce, the Stone of Destiny, Declaration of Arbroath etc, the Aftermath and Gaeldom
http://www.celticleague.net/wp-content/ ... 202010.pdf

_________________
"The thistle rises and forever will" - MacDiarmid

NB - I am not the same person as the poster "Scottish republic".

Part I

The Last Celtic King?

Above Aberdour, not far from the Forth
Bridge, is an unassuming memorial to
Alexander III, which it describes as “the last
Celtic king of Scotland”. In 1286, that King
Alexander and his party were riding above
the cliffs here, when fog scattered the party,
and Alexander and his horse fell to their
deaths. It has been claimed that he was
murdered, but this has never been proven
satisfactorily and probably never will be.
Alexander had a successful reign which had
effectively ended the power of the Norse in
Scotland at the Battle of Largs (Na
Leargaidh Gallda) in 1263. But Alexander’s
death led to chaos. He had one heir,
Margaret, the “Maid of Norway”. Margaret
was an infant, and died before reaching
Scotland. No fewer than 13 Competitors
claimed the Crown of Scotland, and the
resultant chaos led to English intervention.

It is debatable whether Alexander III really
was the last Celtic King of Scots; rather he
was the last of the Dunkeld or Canmore
(Ceann Mòr) dynasty. The Stewarts were the
last rulers of an independent Scotland, and
they have as good a claim as any. Their
family origins lay in the Fitz Alans, who
were Stewards of Scotland, and who came
from Breton origins. We know from the
testimony of Pedro Ayala, the Spanish
ambassador to the court of James IV (1488-
1513) that the King spoke the language of
the “Wild Scots”, and he is presumably the
last one, although it’s been claimed, with
little evidence that his son, James V (1513-
42) could also speak the language. Lastly,
although much of Scotland was rapidly
being Normanised and Anglicised,
especially in the burghs, there was in fact a
degree of intermarriage between the native
and Norman nobilities.

What constitutes a “Celtic king” is as
complicated a question as what exactly the
word “Celtic” means. In the case of the
Stewarts (later Stuarts), the Gaelic claim
never evaporated fully, even when the rulers
were oppressing the Highlands, and were de-
Gaelicised themselves. It crops up in
Jacobitism. Both Charles Edward Stuart
(Bonnie Prince Charlie) and his father James
exploited it to the full in order to win over
the clans, and Gaelic poetry of the 18th
century often mentions their remote, semilegendary
Gaelic ancestors. (It is possible
that Charles picked up at least some of the
language on his sojourns across northern
Scotland, and he was also considered the
legitimate king by some people.)

The Background
In the early middle ages, Scotland was a
multilingual country, like its neighbours. The
Gaelic language was spoken over a much
wider area, including almost all the
Lowlands outside the cities. During the
1200s, there would have been Gaels in areas
such as Buchan, Fife, Galloway,
Dumfriesshire, and even some of the more
rugged parts of the Lothians. The remnants
of Brythonic and Norse populations still
remained

Scotland itself had started in the merger of
the Gaelic kingdom of Dalriada, with
Pictland, and Brythonic Strathclyde, and the
Hebrides were later conquered from Norway.
Up until the Battle of Largs, there had been
regular Norse attacks, and for centuries there
were attacks from Anglo-Saxon Northumbria
and England. The Scots conquered
Northumbria down to the Tweed in 1018,
which was partly Anglo-Saxon, but also
partly Brythonic. Gaelic influence on all of
these areas predated political union, and the
similarity of Brythonic and Goidelic at this
time, meant that Scottish Gaelic’s structure
and vocabulary were irreversibly changed by
this contact, and many place names, such as
Aberdour, Penicuik and Tranent (Trenant)
come from it. Brythonic and Goidelic names
can be found in all parts of mainland
Scotland, with Norse names mostly in the
coastal areas, and islands, and Anglo-Saxon
names in the far south east.

The first major blow to Gaelic culture in
Scotland came with Malcolm Canmore’s
second wife, Margaret, known as St Margaret
to her supporters and Mairead nam Mallachd
(Accursed Margaret) in Gaelic. Margaret was
an Anglo-Saxon who had been raised in
Hungary – she never bothered to learn
Gaelic, but on the other hand, there is no
clear evidence she spoke English either.
Because of the Norman conquest of England
in 1066, a flood of English refugees came
into Scotland. Her main legacy was to
mainstream the church, bringing in English
and Norman clerics. Her stepchildren bore
Celtic names, but her own children by
Malcolm generally bore Anglo-Saxon and
continental names, such as Edgar.

Davidian "Revolution"?
David I (1084-1153) was one of Margaret’s
offspring, and a noted reformer. Many of his
reforms were necessary, for example, he
minted Scotland’s very first coins. However,
many of the reforms involved copying
English examples wholesale, installing
Norman families, and the policy of
“civilising” the country by planting merchant
burghs, which were mainly filled with
Anglo-Normans, Flemings and English to
improve trade. (Unlike England, Wales or
Ireland, the Normans were originally invited
into Scotland.) David also started the policy
of Scottish kings being feudal lords in
England, taking manors in 11 English
counties. This meant that he had to swear
loyalty to the King of England, who was then
Henry I. The Kings of Scots saw this as
fealty for the manorial holdings in England,
but the Kings of England saw this as
applying to the realm of Scotland as well.
This policy led to much confusion,
particularly as the Scots would also conquer
large swathes of England, particularly after
the Norman Conquest – at one point David’s
capital was Carlisle, and the border was the
River Ribble south of Blackpool. Like
traditional Scotland, this portion of Cumbria
contained Norse, Brythons and English, and
even a few Gaels. Alexander III was David
I’s great-great-grandson, or more succinctly,
fionn-ogha as the Gaelic has it.
The policy of Anglicisation/Normanisation
was not wholly successful, at least not to
begin with. Many of the Norman families
would “go native”, as they did in Ireland.

The burghs were successful in trading with
the continent, but they were effectively
islands. The largest, Edinburgh was less than
a square mile in extent. This was by no means
unusual in European history. The Russians
had planted towns full of foreigners (mainly
Germans, French and English) throughout
their empire, in order to “civilise” it. In War
and Peace Tolstoy mentions a character
called Golitsin, who can speak French, but
not Russian, despite being Russian himself –
which gets him into great trouble during the
French invasion. Likewise central and
eastern Europe had many German speaking
towns, surrounded by a
Slavic/Hungarian/Romanian speaking
countryside. Even England was not immune,
as its ruling class spoke a form of French.
Coincidentally, it was only during the rule of
Edward I, that English gained any official
recognition. Even before 1066, some of the
rulers and nobles of England were Norse
speakers, such as Canute. However, England
was more successful at combining its native
and Norman traditions than Scotland. A
strange kind of Creole/pidgin had emerged, a
compromise between Anglo-Saxon and
Norman French, with some Norse thrown in.
It would evolve into the language, which I
am writing in now.

_________________
"The thistle rises and forever will" - MacDiarmid

NB - I am not the same person as the poster "Scottish republic".

Part 2

Background

In 1286, Scotland fell into chaos, with the
death of Alexander III. His heir, the infant
Margaret, Maid of Norway, died before
setting foot on Scottish soil – or being
crowned. 13 Competitors claimed the
throne, amongst them Robert the Bruce, and
John Balliol. William Wallace did not,
although as “Guardian of Scotland” he
became effective national leader at one
point. Since Margaret had married Malcolm
Canmore, there had been regular attempts to
undermine Scotland’s Gaelic culture.

William Wallace

First a word about the Wallace, perhaps
one of the least Gaelic of the major figures
in the Wars of Independence. Blind Harry
says he wore an “Erse mantle” in Biggar,
but there is little else to go on. Perhaps we
can use the old Scottish legal verdict of
“guilty not proven”. He probably picked
some up in his travels throughout Scotland.
Perhaps he spoke Brythonic. Braveheart is
inaccurate in the extreme, but it’s worth
mentioning that Mel Gibson’s character can
be heard shouting “Alba gu bràth!” in the
film.

The 13 Competitors

The more exotic claimants were King
Erik II of Norway and Florent V, Count of
Holland. They remind us that Scotland’s
world didn’t always revolve around
England. Scotland had strong trading links
with the eastern shore of the North Sea. Erik
was closely related to the Maid of Norway.
Perhaps he relied on the strong links
between Scotland and Norway, such as the
Bishopric of Trondheim, which controlled
the Hebrides and northern Scotland – the
last stronghold of Gaeldom today.

Robert the Bruce had no claim through
primogeniture. His claim was based on
something more Celtic – tanistry
(tanaistearachd). This was a form of elective
kingship in mediaeval Gaeldom, also
paralleled amongst the Welsh princes.
James VI (I of England) abolished tanistry
in Scotland. Unlike Ireland, Scottish tanistry
adopted the Pictish custom of matrilinear
succession – Bruce’s claim was via his
mother. In modern Ireland, tánaiste means
deputy prime minister.

Kings and High Kings

Like Ireland, early medieval Scotland had
kings (rìghrean), and high kings (àrd-rìghrean).
It is likely that Edward I was
aware of this, exploited it, and perhaps even
saw himself as high king. The notion of high
and low kings, persisted amongst Highland
clans into the mid-18th century. The
struggles of Clann Dòmhnall and Siol
Dhiarmaid (Clan Campbell) are well known
in the English-speaking world. Both these
clans backed Bruce in his darkest hour, and
gained in power as he did. In the Wars of
Independence, at least, the Caimbeulaich
were not the villains.

Many other families traditionally claimed
the high kingship; some more obviously
Gaelic than the 13 Competitors. Amongst
these were the Clann Dòmhnall (Clan
Donald), the Lords of the Isles, and also
Clann Griogair (the MacGregors) whose
motto is “Is rioghail mo dhream” (royal is
my tribe) to this very day.

Two powerful sub-royal families in the
13th century were those of Galloway and
Moray, at opposite ends of the country.
Early on, they called themselves “kings”,
later “lords”. The Galloway line maintained
its claim through John Balliol, and was a
rival of the Bruces. They had long
maintained a dual identity – for example one
of the line was known by the similar, but
unrelated, names of Roland and Lochlann,
depending on what the context was.
Moireabh (Moray) had its own line, the
Meic Uilleim (MacWilliams), named after
Uilleam mac Donnchada, a son of Duncan
II. The last of them was murdered in Forfar
c. 1230. Moireabh remained distinct though,
and one of Wallace’s commanders was
Andrew de Moray/Murray (Anndra
Moireach). Murray is still a common name
in Scotland.

The Quarrel begins

John Balliol is often unfairly derided by
Scots as “Toom Tabard” (the empty
surcoat). His policies were misguided but
not without logic. He gives the impression,
as a King, that his main aim was to appease
Edward I, and/or to keep the massive
English army out of Scotland. If anyone
qualifies for the title of Quisling, it would be
his son, Edward, not John himself.

John Balliol fought the Battle of Roslin
(near the chapel of Da Vinci Code fame)
against Edward I, alongside the Comyns. In
casualty terms, this was harder on the
English than the Scots, and proves that
Balliol was not merely a pushover. Some
people also think this battle was as pivotal as
Bannockburn, and there is a big campaign
running just now to have a proper memorial
there.

Both Balliol and Robert the Bruce were
Lowlanders from the far south west, and
both were born to mothers who were proud
Gaels. In Balliol’s case, Dervorguilla
(Dearbhfhorgaill/Dearghal), came from
Galloway’s own royal family. Galloway was
Gaelic speaking until the 18th, possibly 19th
century, and lies between Ulster, Argyll, and
the Isle of Man. Balliol College in Oxford is
named for Dearghal.

In 1295, John Balliol conducted a military
treaty with Phillip IV of France, which has
become known as the “Auld Alliance”. It
meant they would come to one another’s aid
in the event of an English invasion.
Mediaeval Scotland had a strong French
influence, particularly in architecture, and
Scots would fight for the French at battles
such as Agincourt. Likewise the Lion
Rampant flag of Scotland still contains the
Fleur de Lys.

Edward I’s retaliation routed John’s
forces. Balliol was put in the Tower of
London, later ending up in Picardy. His son,
Edward Balliol returned a few years later,
with the “Disinherited”, nobles evicted by
Robert the Bruce – some possibly unjustly.
Just as that group of Cuban exiles, who tried
to unseat Castro centuries later, these
Scottish exiles were backed by their
country’s traditional enemy. Both failed, and
partly because they had the wrong ally.
Eventually, the Kings of England gave up on
the Balliols – in 1356, Edward III pensioned
Edward off to live with dad.

The dishonour was great. Bruce and
Stewart are common surnames. But I’ve
never met a Balliol. On the other hand, there
are a lot of “Baillies”. According to
tradition, this is no coincidence

_________________
"The thistle rises and forever will" - MacDiarmid

NB - I am not the same person as the poster "Scottish republic".

Part 3

Background

In Part I, I discussed the constitutional crisis
brought about by the death of Alexander III,
and the de-Gaelicisation of the Lowlands.
For a number of reasons, Alexander III was
not the “last Celtic king”. In Part II, I looked
at some of the 13 pretenders to the throne,
including the Meic Uilleim, and attempted to
show that traditional villains such as John
Balliol and Clan Campbell actually made a
positive contribution to the Wars of
Independence. I also discussed Wallace
briefly.

Robert the Gael

Robert the Bruce has consistently been the
national hero of the Scots down the years,
and it is perhaps only since the arrival of
Braveheart that William Wallace began to
eclipse him. As a child, I was much more
aware of the Bruce than Wallace, rightly or
wrongly, and there can be few Scots who
have not heard various stories about him, if
only the one about him and the spider. In the
same way, there are dozens of places which
claim a connection with him, but the greatest
of these is Bannockburn near Stirling, where
the Scots gained a crushing victory over
Edward II’s forces, and more or less secured
three hundred years of independence. Many
Scots know that Bruce was a Norman. Few
know that he was a Gael as well. Bruce’s
home was Carrick (Carraig), an area of South
Ayrshire, which was to hold onto Gaelic until
the 18th, maybe even 19th century. Like
Balliol, his mother, Marjorie (Marsaili), was
a Gaelic noble from the local area. We also
know that he held a parliament, entirely in
Gaelic, at Cardross near Dunbarton (Dùn
Bhreatainn). We also know that he spent a lot
of time in Ireland, Argyll, and parts of the
southern Highlands – although it is
anachronistic to talk of the Highlands and
Lowlands at this time. He and his brother
were also involved in the fight against the
English in Ireland and the Isle of Man, but
that is probably for another article.

I suspect that half of Bruce’s successes as
a warrior, and later a king, were down to his
combination of Norman and Gaelic
influences. He could appeal to local leaders
of both backgrounds, and could also apply
the best of both worlds on the battlefield. He
perhaps more than anyone else helped secure
Scottish independence for centuries, even if
some people have questioned his motives, or
the fact that he changed sides.

Lia Fail

During the Wars of Independence, Edward I
stole the Scottish coronation chair (Lia Fail)
and took it to Westminster where it remained
until a few years ago. Or at least that’s the
official version, many Scots maintain the
Westminster Stone is a fake. But that’s
another story. The origin of the stone is far
more origin. The translation “Stone of
Destiny” is misleading, since it loses the
ambiguity of “fail”. This element can mean
variously “destiny” (as in Fianna Fail, the
Irish political party) cognate with” fatal” and
“mark” (implying it was engraved or incised,
which the British stone certainly isn’t). It is
also said to have been one of three treasures
taken by the ancestors of the Gaels from the
mythical land of Faileas, which is also
related to the name. The most common story
of its origin, is that it was Jacob’s Pillow, a
favourite with British Israelitists. It has also
been said, variously to be Columba’s
portable altar, and a meteorite. It was
supposed to sing when the rightful King of
Scots sat upon it. I don’t think the
Westminster stone ever sings when Queen
Elizabeth sits on it.

As an aside, it is worth mentioning that
one of the people who helped steal the
Westminster Stone in the 1950s was Kay
Mathieson, who was a native Gaelic speaker,
and activist.

Declaration of Arbroath
The Declaration of Arbroath is dated to April
1320, and is addressed to the Pope, asking
him to support Scottish document. It is a
remarkable document for its time, but this is
not the place to discuss most of that. On the
surface, it is not particularly Gaelic. It was
written in Latin, and the names of the
signatories are anglicised, and/or appear
Norman. Common forenames of Gaelic
origin appear e.g. Patrick, Fergus, Duncan
etc, and a couple of surnames – Cameron
(Camshron) and Campbell (Caimbeul). Like
many Lowlanders today, some of the
surnames are of Gaelic origin, but are in fact
derived from place names – these include
Wemyss (which is pronounced “weemz” and
comes from “uamhan” meaning place of
caves), Dunbar, Menteith and Murray. In this
way we can see the strong Gaelic influence
on Scottish culture, but we can’t know in
most cases if they spoke the language for sure.

More interestingly, the Declaration alludes
to some of the Gaelic origin myths of
Scotland, mentioning that the ancestors of
the Scots “journeyed from Greater Scythia
by way of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Pillars
of Hercules, and dwelt for a long course of
time in Spain among the most savage tribes”
This comes directly from the ancient stories
about the settlements of Ireland. Although
not mentioned by name in the document, the
stories of the mythical Egyptian princess
Scota, and that of Gaythelos (Gàidheal Glas)
were in wide circulation at the time, and
stood in direct opposition to the Biblical
myths promulgated by Edward I to justify
English dominance of the British Isles.

The Aftermath and Gaeldom

The Wars of Independence hit the peasantry
particularly hard, often destroying their
crops and homes. In addition, there were
some particularly virulent plagues, spread,
no doubt, by the large movements of
population at the time.

Despite the best efforts of earlier kings,
Gaelic culture persisted in Scotland into
modern times. However, in the 15th century,
there emerged a new, strange combination,
Anglo-Normans who were fiercely
“Scottish”, but at the same time, extremely
anti-Gaelic. They derided anything Gaelic as
“Erischry” (Irishness), and the Anglo-Saxon
tongue of Scotland went from being “Inglis”
to being called “Scottis”, or Scottish. Some
very fine poetry was composed in this
tongue, but the emphasis tended to be on
Classical, English and Continental
influences, rather than the ancient Celtic
sources. They had created the Scottish
equivalent of the Irish Pale – only in this
case, it was Scotland’s government who was
behind it.

But the division was never as clear-cut as
some would have it. We know from The
Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy, that Walter
Kennedy was a Gael from the modern
Lowlands. His opponent, William Dunbar
from the Lothians, may deride the “Ersche”
language, but even so he is engaging in a
“flyting”, a kind of bardic fight which has its
origins in Gaelic culture, and both Dunbar
and Kennedy have surnames of some kind of
Gaelic origin. For all the apparent vitriol in
this poem, Dunbar laments the death of “Gud
Maister Walter Kennedy”, in Timor Mortis
Conturbat Me, and lists him as amongst
other great Lowland poets who have passed
away.

[b]Postscript[b]
If you are interested in the Scottish Wars of
Independence, there are plenty of books
which give a general overview. However,
most of them omit the Gaelic element
altogether. This series of articles is an
attempt to redress the balance.

_________________
"The thistle rises and forever will" - MacDiarmid

NB - I am not the same person as the poster "Scottish republic".

thanks very much fur that sr

very much appreciated.

I wish i could remember where i read it , but i remember reading about bruces army at bannockburn was majority gaidhlig speaking with some norman french thrown in and a few old english speakers.

Funny how these things are never mentioned.

_________________
abair ach beagan agus abair gu math e

Most of us spoke Gaidhlig then.

_________________
><

Chan eil mise nam Bhreatannach

Funny also, how the people who complain about Culloden being simplified into a battle between the Scots and the English, turn it into a Highland-Lowland conflict, without bothering to mention that there were Highlander and Lowlanders on both sides! (Or that the Jacobite Army was actually majority Lowland, and Episcopalian from the north east. Or that both armies contained Irish and English... although not so many English on the Jacobite side admittedly!)

_________________
"The thistle rises and forever will" - MacDiarmid

NB - I am not the same person as the poster "Scottish republic".

Topping in regard to recent thread. "Scotland comes to terms with its political past"

_________________
"The thistle rises and forever will" - MacDiarmid

NB - I am not the same person as the poster "Scottish republic".

Very true, the whole Highland and Lowland divide (ethnic not geographic of course) is a myth. Back 'in the day' so to speak all across the globe anyone would fight for anyone regardless of cultural ties so long as the price was right. Nationalism as we know it today didn't really start to take off until the 18th/19th centuries in the romantic sense of the word.

I'm from the North East of Scotland and I'll admit I'm not fully aware of the existence of many Southern Scottish towns and villages but browsing through Wikipedia (I know never a reliable source but still) and reading up on places in and around Edinburgh and further South East I noticed many if not most had names derived from Gaelic, Brythonic and Pictish. I'm new to this site and I have a strong feeling that everything I just wrote is irrelevant to the topic but I have had a few strong Belgian beers.

_________________
Is fheàrr Gàidhlig bhriste na Gàidhlig sa chiste.

welcome tae ye an deamhan

hope ye enjoyed thay belgian beers

_________________
abair ach beagan agus abair gu math e

especizally among the celtic nations , with their lack of a centralised state.

It was all about the local community and tribe so to speak.

This is where the sassunnach had us by the balls , with their imposed centralised state , the might of england against the fractured scots , irish and welsh , sowing the seeds of discontent amongst the uneasy alliance of the various celts.

I read a quote from a roman general , taliking about the celts 2000 years ago.

It was something like fighting individually , they were completely beaten.

had they been inseparable , they would have been invincible.

something like that.

just about sums the celts up , too busy fighting each other to be fighting the real enemy.

_________________
abair ach beagan agus abair gu math e

As long as we are talking about conventional warfare with large scale stand-up, shoot-down battles then you are right. Flick the conditions to guerilla warfare and it's a whole different ball game. Celts rampant individualism then becomes a major advantage. What did Robert I do after losing the battles of Methven and Dalrigh?

_________________
><

Chan eil mise nam Bhreatannach

Topping because of Copperknickers thread.

_________________
"The thistle rises and forever will" - MacDiarmid

NB - I am not the same person as the poster "Scottish republic".