England’s colonisation of Scotland by force
Between 1100-1700 England’s obsession with establishing and maintaining dominance over Scotland was manifest in hostility and aggression routinely culminating in an invasion and occupation of parts of Scotland. But on each occasion Scots determination to fight back against the yoke of oppression forced the English army to prevent free movement of their forces in Scottish society and to instead concentrate their troops in castles and forts resulting in a failure to win the hearts and minds of the population and in consequence a harried withdrawl of the invading force back to England.
In the late fifteenth century the introduction and growth of protestantism in many parts of Scotland culminated with the Scottish Reformation in the early part of the sixteenth century formally imposing religious ideaolgy division on the population with Roman Catholicism being practiced by significant numbers of Scots based mainly in the North. Scots were divided.
In the same period Henry the Eighth of England disposed of papal authority and transferred leadership of the Church of England to the sovereign. Noteworthy is that the reformed church retained all Roman Catholic religious observances enabling its leadership to be returned to papal authority.
The sixteenth century brought with it a period of dual sovereignty with the kings and queens of England being gifted the position of Sovereign by Scots. A King of some interest to Scots was Dutchman, William, Son of William II, Prince of Orange, and Mary Stuart (daughter of Charles I) who was born in The Hague. He married a grandchild of Charles I, Mary II (daughter of James II). He was formally invited by seven senior political men (the Immortal Seven), representing English Protestants, to invade England in order to replace the unpopular Catholic King James II. This Glorious Revolution went extremely well: William and his army landed on 5 November 1688 in Devon, James quickly fled to France and William and Mary were crowned joint monarchs on 11 April 1689. His formal title was King William III of both Orange and of England, but he was only the second king William of Scotland.
King William exclusively served England’s agenda and actively plotted the assimilation of Scotland as a colony of England, preferably through the implementation of political and market attrition or by force if needed. Only his death in 1702 prevented this.
In 1702 English politicians acting for Queen Anne, William’s sister-in-law, took up negotiations with Scottish representatives seeking a union of the crowns of England and Scotland which ended in deadlock in 1704 when the Scottish parliament rejected the overtures. The English response was the immediate introduction of the “Alien Act” a wide ranging set of punative measures severely restricting Scottish trade with England and countries on the continent and the new world with the stated intention of bringing Scotland to its forcing its return to negotiations.
In June 1706 the sealed “Articles of Union” were presented to Queen Anne and in January 1707 they were ratified by the Scottish Parliament and became law in March 1707.
An uprising led by Bonnie Prince Charlie ended with the defeat of the largely catholic Jacobite army at the Battle of Culloden in 1746 following which the “Clan System” and all it stood for was dismantled by the English government through an an act of parliament.
Right is might and Scots will be freed from the oppression of English rule
The desire of Scots for independence reflects a long standing consciousness of injustice the consequence of English domination over Scotland from the time of the imposition of the 1707 Treaty of Union, which was illegally signed up to for financial gain by an unrepresentative cabal of Scottish leaders of society and businessmen without the agreement of Scots.
As predicted by many Scots this resulted in the brutal colonialization of Scotland and the imposition of economic and human exploitation, political control, occupation and the enforced transfer of ownership and control of large tracts of land previously settled and owned by native Scots for hundreds of years to a meritocratic elite planted by the monarchy and those empowered with political dominance of Scotland. The accompanying programme of directed cultural change was designed with evil intent and implemented over many years and resulted in the outright conquering of Scotland through racism, prejudice, fascism and finally violent force.
England’s imperial oppression of Scotland needs to be brought to an end but this will only be achieved by reversing the impact of the intentional obliteration of our culture and languages/dialects through the promotion of “National Consciousness” a major factor in our future acceptance on the world stage.
caltonjock 