English Scots for YES

Jalima, you are right the Scots did play a prominent roll in Empire building and the political life of the union, Scottish ministers including Prime Ministers have been active in union politics up to the modern day. Past adventures in the caribbean as well as other parts of the globe, including, whether they like or not,the slave trade have been conducted by the Scots as well as as most other European countries but hey ho, it's only wicked old England who is constantly reviled and has to hang her head in shame. But that is in the past about which we can do nothing, except learn by it and hopefully, God willing, create a better future.

Yes, as I just pointed out !

Ruth Davidson is a lady to watch, a rising star indeed.

Yes the rest were English Jalima, they did not speak of the U.K., they only spoke of England, little wonder people in other countries think England is the UK

X posts.
NN I'm interested in your comment that somehow Scotland takes no responsibility for involvement in the slave trade. Could you let me have a reference as I'd like to follow that up?

What has the slave trade to do with it? It is the English rule over the other three countries ehich still cause anger

I had a guest house in York for ten years. I never noticed the Americans and Australians being surprised that Edinburgh was in Scotland. They all knew that. What surprised me was the number of Americans who had forebears in the borders, particularly Jedburgh. They knew that was in Scotland, let alone Edinburgh.

AB simply because there are times when posters make sweeping statements and it does no harm to follow through on them.
Realistically, we frequently deal with 'asides' on GN.
I also have in mind that my own family were heavily involved in British India and am interested to look at the wider issues.
This in no way diminishes my interest in the concerns we're presently discussing.

But mcem, the problem between the four countries is not caused by the British rule in India

I reiterate - nothing unusual when minor diversions or side questions appear on GN.
I have not in any way suggested that current attitudes are due to Scotland's involvement in the slave trade or to my grandparents' involvement in India!
My points were clearly directed to one specific poster and were in no way an attempt to divert the thread to the extent you've done.

Great (and timely) analysis Elegran. Not just SAAK but also Niggly whose family have fought and died for England.

I am sure the problem arises because England is simply too big to have an equal Union with the other, smaller countries in the UK. This is compounded by the seat of power being so far south that it feels out of reach and out of touch with the bulk of the Country. Further compounded by having The Bank of England and The Queen of England (which is one of her correct titles, as is the never used 'Queen of Scots')

Interestingly my lovely, Bradford born and raised SIL does not describe himself as an 'English Scot for YES'. He says he is a proud Yorkshire man, Scottish by choice.

I didn't say they denied responsibility for it just that they were as much involved as any other country in Europe, Arab countries, Africans selling Africans, (no Europeans could have survived the African interior in those days), England wasn't the only country heavily involved, but the only country now who is constantly made to feel guilty.

Wow, dj, you were a landlady! Respect. How many links did they get for breakfast? (smile)

jalima A roaring green dragon would be great and would send a strong message to the rest of the world that we roar as one.
p.s I had some really tasty Welsh dragon sausages once, best sausages i have ever eaten

Nationality is such a very difficult concept, isn't it? According to my family history research two of my four grandparents were of solid English peasant/yeoman descent, one had a mother with a Jewish surname (though her family seems to have been well established in England) and one was of mixed white British/African descent. I and my siblings were born and raised in England which I assume makes us English but my sister's children were born and raised in Scotland (BiL is English, too, BTW) and consider themselves to be Scottish. But are they?

I'm very wary of being too insistent on nationalism. Although it has been a force for good, as in, say, the 19th C unification of Italy and rejection of Austrian rule, it has also been the cause of some awful events. It gets especially toxic when conflated with notions of racial purity, as in Hitler's Germany. I think it needs a very light touch.

It is the English rule over the other three countries ehich still cause anger

Does no-one remember the Welsh, Scottish Prime Ministers, the politicians, empire builders, inventors etc etc etc? British one and all.

So, did having a Scottish Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer etc means that the Scots have ruled over us all at times in the past?
Politics has only become more English-centred since devolution.

For mcem(and anybody else who's interested in Scotland's involvement in the slave trade):

www.blackhistorymonth.org.uk/article/section/history-of-slavery/scotland-and-slavery/

Many Scots were plantation owners and the cotton and sugar traders of Glasgow were very wealthy. Just as in Liverpool, much of that wealth was recycled into new industries.

However, I'm not really sure it has anything to do with any hostility between Scotland and England.

A question for Scots on GN: How much did you learn about Scottish history at school? And how much English history (Henry VIII, Elizabeth I,etc.)?

Very little Scots history in Primary School and even less in Secondary. Fortunately my father had an avid interest in Scottish History and our house was full of books on that (and many other) subjects. I remember well the stooshie I caused in Primary around the time of the Coronation, when I refused to accept that Elizabeth the 1st was our greatest Queen - pointing out to the teacher that she had chopped off OUR Queen's head. I have a friend who remembers being pushed round in a pushchair concealing a tin of red paint while her father & Mother painted over the II after ER on post boxes. Somewhere - in the loft perhaps - I have a coronation mug issued free at school. My father removed the Golden II on that with a razor blade. Back then in the 50s you could get lines or the belt for using Scottish words in school (unless reciting Burns). The Higher English curriculum featured no Scottish Writers - very Shakespeare heavy and the choir sang Greensleeves and Jerusalem. All much improved nowadays. In the 80's my daughters both studied Lewis Grassic Gibbon's Sunset Song as their main book.

Vegetarian guest house, beam. Vegetarian sausages don't come in links.

Funnily enough, Granny23 my experience of Scottish education was quite different from yours.

When I was at school in Glasgow in the 1950s we had two history textbooks - a heafty tome called "The Story of Scotland" and a slim companion volume entitled "The Story of England".

The main fact I remember being taught was that in 1603 King James 6th, the son of Mary Queen of Scots, took over the throne of England. This was the start of the United Kingdom. I always thought we Scots were the top dogs.

I thought that was 1707? But my history of that period is shaky!

Shakespeare wrote Macbeth the way he did in favour of James 1st's ancestors. Shakespeare wrote it in 1605. That's how I remember roughly when James came to the throne.

1707 was the actual Act of Union. It took them over a hundred years to sort that out! How long do we have to extricate ourselves from the EU?

Yes that's what I meant