with the North Sea to the east, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the south-west. In addition to the mainland, the country is made up of more than 790 islands,[14]including the Northern Isles and the Hebrides.
Edinburgh, the country's capital and second-largest city, was the hub of the Scottish Enlightenment of the 18th century, SONY VAIO VGN-C2S Series Laptop Keyboard
which transformed Scotland into one of the commercial, intellectual, and industrial powerhouses of Europe. Glasgow, Scotland's largest city,[15] was once one of the world's leading industrial cities and now lies at the centre of theGreater Glasgow conurbation. Scottish waters consist of a large sector of the North Atlantic and the North Sea,[16] SAMSUNG N150 Laptop Keyboard
containing the largest oil reserves in the European Union. This has given Aberdeen, the third-largest city in Scotland, the title of Europe's oil capital.[17]
The Kingdom of Scotland emerged as an independent sovereign state in the Early Middle Ages and continued to exist until 1707. HP Pavilion DV9243EA Laptop Keyboard
Having entered into a personal union with the kingdoms of England and Ireland following James VI's succession to the English and Irish thrones in 1603, Scotland subsequently entered into a political union with England on 1 May 1707 to create a single Kingdom of Great Britain.[18][19] FUJITSU Lifebook E8110 Laptop Keyboard
This union resulted from the Treaty of Union agreed in 1706 and enacted by the twin Acts of Union passed by the Parliaments of both countries, despite popular opposition and anti-union riots in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and elsewhere.Great Britain itself subsequently entered into a political union with Ireland on 1 January 1801 to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Lenovo 3000 Y500 Laptop Keyboard
Scotland's legal system has remained separate from those of England and Wales and Northern Ireland, and Scotland constitutes a distinct jurisdiction in public and private law.[22] The continued existence of legal, educational and religious institutions distinct from those in the remainder of the UK have all contributed to the continuation of Scottish culture and national identity since the 1707 Union. HP Pavilion DV8310CA Laptop Keyboard
In 1999, a devolved legislature, the Scottish Parliament, was reconvened with authority over many areas of home affairs following a referendum in 1997. In May 2011, the Scottish National Party won an overall majority in the Scottish Parliament. As a result, a referendum on independence will take place on 18 September 2014.[24][25] Lenovo 0A62039 Laptop Keyboard
Scotland is a member nation of the British–Irish Council,[26] and the British–Irish Parliamentary Assembly and also participates within the Common Travel Area agreement.[27] Scotland is represented in the European Union and the European Parliament with six MEPs.
"Scotland" comes from Scoti, the Latin name for the Gaels. FUJITSU Amilo Mini Ui 3520 Laptop Keyboard
The Late Latin word Scotia ("land of the Gaels") was initially used to refer to Ireland.[29] By the 11th century at the latest, Scotia was being used to refer to (Gaelic-speaking) Scotland north of the river Forth, alongside Albania or Albany, both derived from the Gaelic Alba.[30] The use of the words Scots and Scotland to encompass all of what is now Scotland became common in the Late Middle Ages. DELL Vostro 3450 Laptop Keyboard
Repeated glaciations, which covered the entire land mass of modern Scotland, destroyed any traces of human habitation that may have existed before the Mesolithic period. It is believed the first post-glacial groups of hunter-gatherersarrived in Scotland around 12,800 years ago, as the ice sheet retreated after the last glaciation.TOSHIBA Mini NB 505-SP0160 Laptop Keyboard
Groups of settlers began building the first known permanent houses on Scottish soil around 9,500 years ago, and the first villages around 6,000 years ago. The well-preserved village of Skara Brae on the mainland of Orkney dates from this period. Neolithic habitation, burial and ritual sites are particularly common and well preserved in the Northern Islesand Western Isles, where a lack of trees led to most structures being built of local stone. Lenovo 3000 G530 4151 Laptop Keyboard
The discovery in Scotland of a 4000-year-old tomb with burial treasures at Forteviot, near Perth, the capital of aPictish Kingdom in the 8th and 9th centuries AD, is unrivalled anywhere in Britain. It contains the remains of an early Bronze Age ruler laid out on white quartz pebbles and birch bark. It was also discovered for the first time early Bronze Age people placed flowers in their graves. SAMSUNG N150 Laptop Keyboard
Scotland may have been part of a Late Bronze Age maritime trading culture called the Atlantic Bronze Age, which included other Celtic nations, and the areas that became England, France, Spain, and Portugal.
In the winter of 1850, a severe storm hit Scotland, causing widespread damage and over 200 deaths. HP G61-400SP Laptop Keyboard
In the Bay of Skaill, the storm stripped the earth from a large irregular knoll, known as "Skerrabra". When the storm cleared, local villagers found the outline of a village, consisting of a number of small houses without roofs.[40][41] William Watt of Skaill, the local laird, began an amateur excavation of the site, but after uncovering four houses, the work was abandoned in 1868.[41] COMPAQ Presario CQ40-133TU Laptop Keyboard
The site remained undisturbed until 1913, when during a single weekend the site was plundered by a party with shovels who took away an unknown quantity of artefacts.[40] In 1924, another storm swept away part of one of the houses and it was determined the site should be made secure and more seriously investigated.[40] HP 317443-001 Laptop Keyboard
The job was given toUniversity of Edinburgh's Professor Vere Gordon Childe who travelled to Skara Brae for the first time in mid-1927.The written protohistory of Scotland began with the arrival of the Roman Empire in southern and central Great Britain, when the Romans occupied what is now England and Wales, administering it as a province called Britannia. HP HDX18-1200 CTO Laptop Keyboard
Roman invasions and occupations of southern Scotland were a series of brief interludes.
According to the Roman historian Tacitus, the Caledonians "turned to armed resistance on a large scale", attacking Roman forts and skirmishing with their legions. In a surprise night-attack, the Caledonians very nearly wiped out the whole 9th Legion until it was saved by Agricola's cavalry.DELL Vostro 1014 Laptop Keyboard
In AD 83–84, the General Gnaeus Julius Agricola defeated the Caledonians at the Battle of Mons Graupius. Tacitus wrote that, before the battle, the Caledonian leader, Calgacus, gave a rousing speech in which he called his people the "last of the free" and accused the Romans of "making the world a desert and calling it peace" (freely translated).[42] SONY Vaio PCG-K215S Laptop Keyboard
After the Roman victory, Roman forts were briefly set along the Gask Ridge close to the Highland line (only Cawdor near Inverness is known to have been constructed beyond that line). Three years after the battle, the Roman armies had withdrawn to the Southern Uplands.[43]
The Romans erected Hadrian's Wall to control tribes on both sides of the wall,[44] TOSHIBA Mini NB 300 Series Laptop Keyboard
and the Limes Britannicus became the northern border of the Roman Empire, although the army held the Antonine Wall in the Central Lowlands for two short periods – the last of these during the time of Emperor Septimius Severus from 208 until 210.[45]
The Roman military occupation of a significant part of what is now northern Scotland lasted only about 40 years, TOSHIBA K000098730 Laptop Keyboard
although their influence on the southern section of the country, occupied by Brythonic tribes such as the Votadini and Damnonii, would still have been considerable between the first and fifth centuries. The Welsh term Hen Ogledd ("Old North") is used by scholars to describe what is now the North of England and the South of Scotland during its habitation by Brittonic-speaking people around AD 500 to 800.[44] GATEWAY NV-54 Laptop Keyboard
According to writings from the 9th and 10th centuries, the Gaelic kingdom of Dál Riata was founded in the 6th century in western Scotland.[46][47] The 'traditional' view is that settlers from Ireland founded the kingdom, bringing Gaelic language and culture with them. Lenovo 3000 G530 4151 Laptop Keyboard
However, recently some archaeologists have argued against this view, saying there is no archaeological or placename evidence for a migration or a takeover by a small group of elites.
The Kingdom of the Picts (based in Fortriu by the 6th century) was the state that eventually became known as "Alba" or "Scotland".SONY VAIO VGN-SZ750N/C Laptop Keyboard
The development of "Pictland", according to the historical model developed by Peter Heather, was a natural response to Roman imperialism.[49]Another view places emphasis on the Battle of Dun Nechtain, and the reign of Bridei m. Beli (671–693), with another period of consolidation in the reign of Óengus mac Fergusa (732–761).[50] Lenovo 45N2106 Laptop Keyboard
The Kingdom of the Picts as it was in the early 8th century, when Bede was writing, was largely the same as the kingdom of the Scots in the reign of Alexander I (1107–1124). However, by the tenth century, the Pictish kingdom was dominated by what we can recognise as Gaelic culture, SAMSUNG R522 laptop keyboard
and had developed a traditional story of an Irish conquest around the ancestor of the contemporary royal dynasty, Cináed mac Ailpín (Kenneth MacAlpin).
From a base of territory in eastern Scotland north of the River Forth and south of the River Oykel, the kingdom acquired control of the lands lying to the north and south. Lenovo 45N2141 laptop keyboard
By the 12th century, the kings of Alba had added to their territories the English-speaking land in the south-east and attained overlordship of Gaelic-speaking Galloway and Norse-speaking Caithness; by the end of the 13th century, the kingdom had assumed approximately its modern borders. However, processes of cultural and economic change beginning in the 12th century ensured Scotland looked very different in the later Middle Ages. HP Pavilion dv6-2133ee laptop keyboard
The push for this change was the reign of David I and the Davidian Revolution. Feudalism, government reorganisation and the first legally recognised towns (called burghs) began in this period. These institutions and the immigration of French and Anglo-French knights and churchmen facilitated cultural osmosis, HP COMPAQ NX6320 laptop keyboard
whereby the culture and language of the low-lying and coastal parts of the kingdom's original territory in the east became, like the newly acquired south-east, English-speaking, while the rest of the country retained the Gaelic language, apart from the Northern Isles of Orkney and Shetland, which remained under Norse rule until 1468.[ ASUS X85S laptop keyboard
The Scottish state entered a largely successful and stable period between the 12th and 14th centuries, there was relative peace with England, trade and educational links were well developed with the Continent and at the height of this cultural flowering John Duns Scotus was one of Europe's most important and influential philosophers. SONY VAIO VGN-N31Z/W laptop keyboard
The death of Alexander III in March 1286, followed by that of his granddaughter Margaret, Maid of Norway, broke the centuries-old succession line of Scotland's kings and shattered the 200-year golden age that began with David I. Edward I of England was asked to arbitrate between claimants for the Scottish crown, ASUS X85S laptop keyboard
and he organised a process known as the Great Cause to identify the most legitimate claimant. John Balliol was pronounced king in the Great Hall of Berwick Castle on 17 November 1292 and inaugurated at Scone on 30 November, St. Andrew's Day. Edward I, who had coerced recognition as Lord Paramount of Scotland, SONY VAIO VGN-N31Z/W laptop keyboard
the feudal superior of the realm, steadily undermined John's authority.[57] In 1294, Balliol and other Scottish lords refused Edward's demands to serve in his army against the French. Instead the Scottish parliament sent envoys to France to negotiate an alliance. Scotland and France sealed a treaty on 23 October 1295, known as the Auld Alliance (1295–1560). ASUS X53S laptop keyboard
War ensued and King John was deposed by Edward who took personal control of Scotland. Andrew Moray and William Wallace initially emerged as the principal leaders of the resistance to English rule in what became known as the Wars of Scottish Independence (1296–1328).[58]
The nature of the struggle changed significantly when Robert the Bruce, LENOVO AEQA1STU010 laptop keyboard
Earl of Carrick, killed his rival John Comyn on 10 February 1306 at Greyfriars Kirk in Dumfries.[59] He was crowned king (as Robert I) less than seven weeks later. Robert I battled to restore Scottish Independence as King for over 20 years, beginning by winning Scotland back from the Norman English invaders piece by piece. ASUS X53S laptop keyboard
Victory at theBattle of Bannockburn in 1314 proved the Scots had regained control of their kingdom. In 1315, Edward Bruce, brother of the King, was briefly appointed High King of Ireland during an ultimately unsuccessful Scottish invasion of Ireland aimed at strengthening Scotland's position in its wars against England. Lenovo 3000 G530 4151 laptop keyboard
In 1320 the world's first documented declaration of independence, the Declaration of Arbroath, won the support of Pope John XXII, leading to the legal recognition of Scottish sovereignty by the English Crown.
However, war with England continued for several decades after the death of Bruce. COMPAQ Presario CQ40-133TU laptop keyboard
A civil war between the Bruce dynasty and their long-term Comyn-Balliol rivals lasted until the middle of the 14th century. Although the Bruce dynasty was successful, David II's lack of an heir allowed his half-nephew Robert II to come to the throne and establish the Stewart Dynasty.[55][60] The Stewarts ruled Scotland for the remainder of the Middle Ages. Lenovo 3000 Y500 laptop keyboard
The country they ruled experienced greater prosperity from the end of the 14th century through the Scottish Renaissance to the Reformation. This was despite continual warfare with England, the increasing division between Highlands and Lowlands, and a large number of royal minorities.[60][61]
This period was the height of the Franco-Scottish alliance. HP Mini 110-3519la laptop keyboard
The Scots Guard – la Garde Écossaise – was founded in 1418 by Charles VII of France. The Scots soldiers of the Garde Écossaise fought alongside Joan of Arc against England during the Hundred Years War.[62] In March 1421, a Franco-Scots force under John Stewart, 2nd Earl of Buchan, and Gilbert de Lafayette, defeated a larger English army at the Battle of Baugé. HP COMPAQ 486654-001 laptop keyboard
Three years later, at the Battle of Verneuil, the French and Scots lost around 7000 men.[63] The Scottish intervention contributed to France's victory in the war.
In 1502, James IV of Scotland signed the Treaty of Perpetual Peace with Henry VII of England. He also married Henry's daughter, Margaret Tudor, setting the stage for the Union of the Crowns. SONY VAIO VGN-C2S Series laptop keyboard
For Henry, the marriage into one of Europe's most established monarchies gave legitimacy to the new Tudor royal line.[64] A decade later, James made the fateful decision to invade England in support of France under the terms of the Auld Alliance. He was the last British monarch to die in battle, at the Battle of Flodden.[65] SONY VAIO VGN-CS17G/R laptop keyboard
Within a generation the Auld Alliance was ended by the Treaty of Edinburgh. France agreed to withdraw all land and naval forces. In the same year, 1560, John Knoxrealised his goal of seeing Scotland become a Protestant nation and the Scottish parliament revoke papal authority in Scotland.[66] TOSHIBA Satellite L755-S5357 laptop keyboard
Mary, Queen of Scots, a Catholic and former queen of France, was forced to abdicate in 1567.[67]
In 1603, James VI, King of Scots inherited the thrones of the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Ireland, and became King James I of England and Ireland, and left Edinburgh for London.[68] SONY N860-7676-T101 laptop keyboard
With the exception of a short period under the Protectorate, Scotland remained a separate state, but there was considerable conflict between the crown and the Covenanters over the form of church government. The Glorious Revolution of 1688–89 saw the overthrow of the King James VII of Scotland and II of England by the English Parliament in favour ofWilliam and Mary.
DELL E141395 laptop keyboard
As late as the 1690s, Scotland experienced famine, which reduced the population of parts of the country by at least 20 per cent.[69]
In 1698, the Scots attempted an ambitious project to secure a trading colony on the Isthmus of Panama. Almost every Scottish landowner who had money to spare is said to have invested in the Darien scheme. HP 518965-001 laptop keyboard
Its failure bankrupted these landowners, but not the burghs. Nevertheless, the nobles' bankruptcy, along with the threat of an English invasion, played a leading role in convincing the Scots elite to back a union with England.[70][71]
On 22 July 1706, the Treaty of Union was agreed between representatives of the Scots Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E520 laptop keyboard
Parliament and the Parliament of England and the following year twin Acts of Union were passed by both parliaments to create the united Kingdom of Great Britain with effect from 1 May 1707.
With trade tariffs with England now abolished, trade blossomed, especially with Colonial America. The clippers belonging to the Glasgow Tobacco Lords were the fastest ships on the route to Virginia. LENOVO IdeaPad S10 20015 laptop keyboard
Until the American War of Independence in 1776, Glasgow was the world's premier tobacco port, dominating world trade.[72]The disparity between the wealth of the merchant classes of the Scottish Lowlands and the ancient clans of the Scottish Highlands grew, amplifying centuries of division. DELL Inspiron N4050 laptop keyboard
The deposed Jacobite Stuart claimants had remained popular in the Highlands and north-east, particularly amongst non-Presbyterians, including Roman Catholics and Episcopalian Protestants. However, two major Jacobite Risings launched in 1715 and 1745 failed to remove the House of Hanover from the British throne. HP Mini 1151NR laptop keyboard
The threat of the Jacobite movement to the United Kingdom and its monarchs effectively ended at the Battle of Culloden, Great Britain's last pitched battle. This defeat paved the way for large-scale removals of the indigenous populations of the Highlands and Islands, known as the Highland Clearances. SONY KFRMBA220A laptop keyboard
The Scottish Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution made Scotland into an intellectual, commercial and industrial powerhouse[73]–so much so Voltaire said "We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilisation."[74] With the demise of Jacobitism and the advent of the Union, thousands of Scots, mainly Lowlanders, took up numerous positions of power in politics, HP Pavilion DV7-3078nr laptop keyboard
civil service, the army and navy, trade, economics, colonial enterprises and other areas across the nascent British Empire. Historian Neil Davidson notes "after 1746 there was an entirely new level of participation by Scots in political life, particularly outside Scotland." Davidson also states "far from being 'peripheral' to the British economy, Scotland – or more precisely, the Lowlands – lay at its core." Toshiba Satellite L550-20W CPU Fan
The Scottish Reform Act 1832 increased the number of Scottish MPs and widened the franchise to include more of the middle classes.[76] From the mid-century there were increasing calls for Home Rule for Scotland and the post of Secretary of State for Scotland was revived.[77] Towards the end of the century Prime Ministers of Scottish descent included William E. Gladstone,[7SONY Vaio VPC-EB3E1R/BQ CPU Fan
8] andthe Earl of Rosebery.[79] In the later 19th century the growing importance of the working classes was marked by Keir Hardie's success in the Mid Lanarkshire by-election, 1888, leading to the foundation of the Scottish Labour Party, which was absorbed into the Independent Labour Party in 1895, with Hardie as its first leader.[80] Dell Precision M4500 CPU Fan
Glasgow became one of the largest cities in the world, and known as "the Second City of the Empire" after London.[81] After 1860 the Clydeside shipyards specialised in steamships made of iron (after 1870, made of steel), which rapidly replaced the wooden sailing vessels of both the merchant fleets and the battle fleets of the world. HP G71-340US CPU Fan
It became the world's pre-eminent shipbuilding centre.[82]The industrial developments, while they brought work and wealth, were so rapid that housing, town-planning, and provision for public health did not keep pace with them, and for a time living conditions in some of the towns and cities were notoriously bad, with overcrowding, high infant mortality, and growing rates of tuberculosis. Toshiba Satellite L675D-S7016 CPU Fan
While the Scottish Enlightenment is traditionally considered to have concluded toward the end of the 18th century,[84] disproportionately large Scottish contributions to British science and letters continued for another 50 years or more, thanks to such figures as the physicists James Clerk Maxwell and Lord Kelvin, and the engineers and inventors James Watt and William Murdoch, HP Pavilion dv5-2135dx CPU Fan
whose work was critical to the technological developments of the Industrial Revolution throughout Britain.[85] In literature the most successful figure of the mid-19th century was Walter Scott. His first prose work, Waverley in 1814, is often called the first historical novel.[86] It launched a highly successful career that probably more than any other helped define and popularise Scottish cultural identity.[87] HP Envy 17-3000er CPU Fan
In the late 19th century, a number of Scottish-born authors achieved international reputations, such as Robert Louis Stevenson, Arthur Conan Doyle, J. M. Barrie and George MacDonald.[88] Scotland also played a major part in the development of art and architecture. The Glasgow School, HP Envy 17 Series CPU Fan
which developed in the late 19th century, and flourished in the early 20th century, produced a distinctive blend of influences including theCeltic Revival the Arts and Crafts Movement, and Japonisme, which found favour throughout the modern art world of continental Europe and helped define the Art Nouveau style. HP 532614-001 CPU Fan
Proponents included architect and artist Charles Rennie Mackintosh.[89]
This period saw a process of rehabilitation for Highland culture. In the 1820s, as part of the Romantic revival, tartan and the kilt were adopted by members of the social elite, not just in Scotland, but across Europe, prompted by the popularity of Macpherson's Ossiancycleand then Walter Scott's Waverley novels.HP Envy 17-3000er CPU Fan
However, the Highlands remained very poor and traditional.[95] The desire to improve agriculture and profits led to the Highland Clearances, in which much of the population of the Highlands suffered forced displacement as lands were enclosed, principally so that they could be used for sheep farming. HP 532614-001 CPU Fan
The clearances followed patterns of agricultural change throughout Britain, but were particularly notorious as a result of the late timing, the lack of legal protection for year-by-year tenants under Scots law, the abruptness of the change from the traditional clan system, and the brutality of many evictions.[96] HP 532614-001 CPU Fan
One result was a continuous exodus from the land—to the cities, or further afield to England, Canada, America or Australia.[97] The population of Scotland grew steadily in the 19th century, from 1,608,000 in the census of 1801 to 2,889,000 in 1851 and 4,472,000 in 1901.[98] Even with the development of industry there were not enough good jobs. HP KSB06105HA CPU Fan
As a result, during the period 1841–1931, about 2 million Scots migrated to North America and Australia, and another 750,000 Scots relocated to England.
After prolonged years of struggle in the Kirk, in 1834 the Evangelicals gained control of the General Assembly and passed the Veto Act, which allowed congregations to reject unwanted "intrusive" presentations to livings by patrons. HP 493001-001 CPU Fan
The following "Ten Years' Conflict" of legal and political wrangling ended in defeat for the non-intrusionists in the civil courts. The result was a schism from the church by some of the non-intrusionists led by Dr Thomas Chalmers, known as the Great Disruption of 1843. Roughly a third of the clergy, mainly from the North and Highlands, formed the separate Free Church of Scotland.[10Toshiba BFB0605HA CPU Fan
0] In the late 19th century growing divisions between fundamentalist Calvinists and theological liberals resulted in a further split in the Free Church as the rigid Calvinists broke away to form the Free Presbyterian Church in 1893.[101] Catholic Emancipation in 1829 and the influx of large numbers of Irish immigrants, HP Pavilion dv5-1174ca CPU Fan
particularly after the famine years of the late 1840s, mainly to the growing lowland centres like Glasgow, led to a transformation in the fortunes of Catholicism. In 1878, despite opposition, a Roman Catholic ecclesiastical hierarchy was restored to the country, and Catholicism became a significant denomination within Scotland.[101] Toshiba Satellite A110-101 CPU Fan
Industrialisation, urbanisation and the Disruption of 1843 all undermined the tradition of parish schools. From 1830 the state began to fund buildings with grants; then from 1846 it was funding schools by direct sponsorship; and in 1872 Scotland moved to a system like that in England of state-sponsored largely free schools, run by local school boards.[10HP Pavilion dv5-1174ca CPU Fan
2] The historic University of Glasgow became a leader in British higher education by providing the educational needs of youth from the urban and commercial classes, as opposed to the upper class.[103] The University of St Andrews pioneered the admission of women to Scottish universities. From 1892 Scottish universities could admit and graduate women and the numbers of women at Scottish universities steadily increased until the early 20th century. HP 535442-001 CPU Fan
No comments:
Post a Comment