THE TRUE ROOTS AND ORIGIN OF THE SCOTS – (6)

By C.M.W.

A research summary and pointers toward further research

“Wherever the pilgrim turns his feet, he finds Scotsmen in the forefront of civilization and letters. They are the premiers in every colony, professors in every university, teachers, editors, lawyers, engineers and merchants – everything, and always at the front.” – English writer Sir Walter Besant

“The mystery of Keltic: thought has been the despair of generations of philosophers and aesthetes …He who approaches it must, I feel, not alone be of the ancient stock … but he must also have heard since childhood the deep and repeated call of ancestral voices urging him to the task of the exploration of the mysteries of his people …He is like a man with a chest of treasure who has lost the key”

(The Mysteries of Britain by L Spence)

SCOTTISH CHARACTER AND ATTRIBUTES

“If the Irish possess charm, the Welsh the gift of poetic utterance; and the English be noted for their composure and calmness of manner; the Scots, whether  dour  Lowlanders  or  lively  Highlanders,  are  the   most  loved characters in  the British Isles. Their influence has  gone far  beyond the border; far, far beyond these shores”.(42)

One major attribute are their deep religious convictions and in particular the concept of “covenanting” with God. So fiercely independent are these people that for centuries after the English church surrendered to Rome, the Scottish churches maintained their independence.

Presbyterian Church is a strange one, mixing more truth with error than most if not all other Protestant churches. Refer to the website The Covenanters for further information on the background to this denomination.(43)

Many do not realise that the term ‘Red Neck’ is of Scottish origin, referring to the supporters of the ‘National Covenant’ and ‘The Solemn League and Covenant’ (ie the “Covenanters”) which were Lowlanders, in the main, of Presbyterian heritage. Many fled Scotland to Ulster to escape persecution. But by 1638 and again in 1641, they declared that they preferred the Presbyterian form of church governance to that of the Church of England. They simply refused to accept the Anglican Church as their state religion.

Because many of them signed in their own blood and around their neck wore red cloth, the term ‘Red neck’ arose which was a slang word for dissenter. Because so many Ulster Scots were Presbyterian, this term was placed on their descendants in the southern states of the USA.

Indeed, it is these that have led the charge for centuries on behalf of the anti-Papists, screaming against the Roman Catholic Church and at one stage even planning to invade Europe to wipe out the Catholic Church.

These people have gone to the Old Testament and realised that it was not ‘done away’. But rather utilised it to the extent that they understood it, identifying themselves with Israel and banning  Christmas, Halloween, pilgrimages  to  holy  wells  and  such like.  The  Catholic Church was regarded as Babylon and Anti-Christ. Oppressors were likened to the Pharaoh, some leaders to Moses.

With the defeat of the Catholics was born the Orange Order which yielded immense political power. The Freemasons were also mainly Protestants and anti-Catholic, a boys club with strange, ancient traditions which they either didn’t  understand or attempted to provide ‘Christian’ interpretations to it. However, the differences between the Orange Order and Freemasons led to their occasional clashings.(44)

“Orangeism never reached the position in Australia which it held in certain Canadian provinces. There were lodges and Twelfth of July processions but little  of  the  political  influence  which the  Order  wielded  in  Ireland  and  in Canada.”(45)

According to Fry:

“a reading of scripture (Romans xi, 25-6) that the Second Coming would not occur till God’s chosen people were converted to Christianity, turned into a minor obsession of Scots”.(46)

“Some  citadels  of  global  capitalism  – Montreal,  Hong  Kong,  Calcutta, Singapore – owe their existence largely to Scots, who have seldom been absent from any of the others either … Some diaspora belongs to the history of  a people who have  always been inventive, energetic, adaptable and mobile”.(47)

“in 1899 one French monk, Father Louis Navarre, reported in apparent panic that by now all the island’s officials and traders were Scots, Presbyterians and freemasons of the Scottish rite, the most frenzied enemies of Rome”.(48) [emphasis mine]

Other characteristics include(49) :

• Strength
• Acuteness and inquisitiveness
• Inventive turn of mind
• Quick to find expedients
• Restless and nervous energy
• Dominant individualism/rugged individuals
• Highly developed sense of personal honour(50)
• “…comparatively  well-schooled  and  skilled,  with  a  tendency  to  practical  and commercial ability, with a liking for reading about foreign parts.”(51)
• Better educated than the English which was “based on a philosophy of common sense and was traditionally broad in scope … shaping the Scots as adaptable and practical, especially in handling money, and as articulate speakers”(52)
• “Scots are good with finance”(53)
• “stubbornness in pursuit of a principle(54)
• “rugged, dogged … determination … but could be generous”(55)

A highly  recommended reading is  God’s  Frontiersmen.  The Scots-Irish Epic by  Rory Fitzpatrick. According to the research of Fitzpatrick, during the American Old West, “the Scots-Irish people provided most of it’s pioneers … the American War of Independence … One contemporary summed up the whole revolution as ‘an Irish-Scotch Presbyterian Rebellion’ “(56)

“On each succeeding frontier to the Rocky Mountains, the Scots-Irish were prominent either as groups or as individuals. They spearheaded the thrusts through the Appalachians into Western Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Tennessee …  In both Australia and New Zealand educated Ulster Scots were providing a remarkable proportion of the professional people – doctors, lawyers, engineers – on which the new colonial societies were built … [they were] a distinct racial group … A people who in many ways were the epitome of mobility and change”.(57) [emphasis mine]

He goes on to describe the Scots as restless. (58) See Appendix 4 for more information on the Scots.

Even during the highland clearance campaign, the Highlanders survived and those that moved to North America were rather successful.(59)

A further characteristic of these people was their strong language (written and verbal), yet they were generally tolerant of other views which they engaged admirably with talented responses and insights.(60) Fitzpatrick continues:

“In the last quarter of the sixteenth century the corrupt and disorganized Roman Catholic Church in Scotland had been overturned by the fanatical zeal of Calvinist reformers like Andrew Melville and John Knox … a return to the primitive purity of Christ’s Apostolic Church … seventeenth-century Scots saw close comparisons with ancient Israel …

“The idea of a people sworn or covenanted to God and living according to his rules has been brilliantly expounded down the years by charismatic preachers, first to the Scots and then to the Scots-Irish peoples … It was this vision which engrained in the future Scots-Irish people their hunger for a Promised  Land.  This  land  has always  remained  beyond  the  next horizon but the words ‘Zion’,  ‘the land of Canaan’- and ‘Eden’ have appeared again  and  again  in  text  and  political  speech  throughout Scots-Irish history, whether in Ulster, on the Pennsylvanian frontier or in the early wilderness of Upper Canada.”(61)  [emphasis mine]

He continues to state that

“The certainty that God was watching over them was as strong with the new Scots settlers as with the Israelites of old”.(62) [emphasis mine]

“.. they were the most successful settlers … they could cope better … with frontier conditions …  The English settlers who had come earlier had, after their initial thrust, been unenterprising, clinging for over a century to the Atlantic coastlines and river estuaries. The Ulster people, on the other hand, penetrated  far  and  fast  into  the  wilderness,  having  little  fear  of  the unknown.“(63)  [emphasis mine]

Their style was fearless, quick and effective – more rapid than any other immigrant group. Another characteristic  was their “abiding hatred for totalitarian power”, as well as unfairness, inequity, bullying and abuse.

Michael Fry’s monumental work, The Scottish Empire, is one of several regaining the true attributes and contribution of the Scots to the world for the purpose of historical accuracy. As he noted, so much of Scottish history is inadequately presented and much of it not even published.(64)

His basic thesis is that the various experiences associated with the Reformation, union with England, the famous Scottish Enlightenment and their role in the Empire, were forces that contributed to forming the Scottish character and modern nation.

The 18th century Enlightenment which was led by universities at Glasgow and Edinburgh. The embodiment of the Enlightenment may be found in such names as thinkers as Adam Smith (modern capitalism), David Hume and Francis Hutcheson (rebellion against tyrants and political liberty).

The capacity, social forces and intellectual ability of the Scots developed independently of the English and pre-dated Union, as did, of course, the Scottish Enlightenment and industrialization. It was James Watt who perfected the steam engine which became necessary for the industrial revolution.

However, once Union with England occurred, they had an outlet for these immense pent-up energies. Now they had access to the Empire’s vast marketplace. Out of all proportion to their numbers, they supplied large numbers of sailors, soldiers, colonists, administrators and engineers for the Empire.

Yet, simultaneously, on American soil, they were most prominent in the rebellion against the Empire!

Another  recommended  work  is  David  Hackett  Fischer’s  Albion‘s   Seed:  Four  British Folkways in America.

His thesis is summarised by the following: the independence of the Scotch-Irish in the Appalachians may be traced to the centuries of warfare along the border of northern Ireland with the south and also the southern Scottish borderlands with England. It is from these areas that the settlers in the Appalachian chain settled in the mid-1600s.

The traditional suspicion of government and associated institutions as well as an intense loyalty to clan and tribe, led to a sense of social and cultural conservatism, clinging to folkways and traditions with very deep roots.

In addition, claims Fischer, this produced a passion for religion that was so zealous and evangelistic. However, the Scots were always like this – their American experience merely provided a further step in their religious zeal. (Appendix 16 contains further details)

This work is a highly recommended reading, putting for rest the notion that the Empire was English, for indeed it was British as its name suggests, including the Scots to a large degree and also the Welsh. As Fry points out, the Scottish basically ran the Empire.

Yair Davidy writing in The Tribes notes:

“The Scots are considered  amongst the most intelligent people on earth and many scientific breakthroughs  may be attributed to Scotsmen – the Jews  are  in  a  similar  position.  Scottish  individuals  are  amongst  the wealthiest and  most  influential  people  in  Britain  – the  Jews  in  many continental European countries once held a parallel status. Some modern Jews may descend from the Khazars whose national core derived from the Agathyrsi, a colony of whom had settled in Scotland.” (65) [emphasis mine]

The inventiveness of the Scots is becoming more and more known around the globe.

A recent book on the subject of Scottish genius and creativity, is Stewart Lamont’s When Scotland Ruled the World- a celebration of Scotland’s overwhelmingly dominant capacity for inventiveness and administration. Lamont argues that while the Scots are few in number, their influence has been absolutely massive on the world stage.

The book is arranged into chapters on men of science, their influence in North America, writers, pioneers, medicine, prime ministers and such like. Within each chapter he presents a biography of the major Scottish contributors to world civilization. In the final chapter The Scots Psyche, he makes some very interesting observations and I list some below:

• “Scots are fighters. Their belligerence may of may not take a violent or military form.It might simply be the wish to fight for rights or a principle”(66)
• “Scots are proud of being fighters, but they are also sentimental”(67)
• Scots have “a reputation for being quarrelsome over religion”(68)
• Their motto ‘Who dares meddle with me?’ “is more than an echo … in the motto ‘Who Dares, Wins’ adopted by the crack troops of the Special Air Service (SAS), founded by a Scot, David Stirling”(69)
• Their “fighting instincts are defensive rather than provocative, and he is at his best when fighting to defend a principle than to enlarge his power or dominion”(70)
• “We do not like money to be wasted, nor do we admire those who have it in abundance”(71)

Writing in The Celts, Jean Markale remarks that the Celts possessed:

“no fear of death [and consequently] they could envisage the future with serenity and devote their thoughts to imagining the world beyond …  With their well-developed sense of imagination the Celts had an extraordinary ability to fly above the real and even to despise it. No other race has ever refused so determinedly to confront the material realities besetting it.”(72)

In a landmark work How the Scots invented the Modern World. The True Story of how Western Europe‘s Poorest Nation Created our Modern World and Everything in it, Arthur Herman became famous because he “created the biggest stir on both sides of the Atlantic” according to The Scotsman newspaper.

Among his credentials, Herman is Coordinator of the Western Heritage Program at the world renowned Smithsonian Institution and a consulting historical editor for Time-Life Books.  He  was  also  associate professor of  history at  George  Mason  University and received his doctorate in history from John Hopkins University.

Herman, who says that he has no Scottish blood, points out that it was the Scots who invented the idea of ‘modernity’ in the late 1700s. The following century, due to their characteristic ‘traveling itch’, they took these concepts abroad. This was the basis for capitalism, fascination with technology, democracy, individualism – the Scots transformed the world into elections and free markets that we know today. America and the West still uphold these basic values to this day.

mous Scottish Americans such as Andrew Carnegie, Francis Scott Key, John Paul Jones changed their nationality but obviously maintained their ethnic character. What of Alexander Graham Bell, Simon MacTavish, Charles James Napier and so on? Inventors, warriors, diplomats, bureaucrats, engineers – you name it, the Scots either succeeded very well at these tasks or invented systems and technology which the world later enjoyed.

The book celebrates Scottish creative imagination and capacity to inventiveness and administrative leadership. It simply elucidates basic historical data, setting them out in a simple format that is easy to understand.

They prized the ideal of progress by utilizing the measure of “by how far we have come from where we once were”.

Don’t forget the Jews for there are many similarities between the Scots and Jews, among them include being very good with money, occupy chief banking circles, tremendous military capacity. Surely they are related?

Herman states that

“… This is the story of how the Scots created the basic idea of modernity. It will show how that idea transformed their own culture and society in the eighteenth century, and how they carried it with them wherever they went. Obviously, the Scots did not do everything by themselves: other nations­ Germans, French, English, Italians, Russians, and many others- have their place in the making of the modern world. But  it  is  the Scots  more  than anyone else who have created the lens through which  we see the final product. When  we  gaze  out  on  a  contemporary  world  shaped  by technology, capitalism, and  modern  democracy, and  struggle  to  find our place as individuals in it, we are in effect viewing the world  as the Scots   did   .. .  The  story  of  Scotland  in  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth centuries is one of hard-earned triumph and  heart-rending tragedy, spilled blood and ruined lives, as well as of great achievement.” [emphasis mine]

The Scots are also known as great travelers – always on the go and moving a lot.

Even the American Founding Fathers have a lot to be grateful to the Scots. In America’s Founding Secret. What the Scottish Enlightenment Taught Our Founding Fathers,  Robert W. Galvin argues that the contributions of Scottish migrants to America have been neglected. Their influence on America’s political culture is now, at last, being acknowledged.

He tracks their influence back to the Scottish Enlightenment which was based around the Glasgow and Edinburgh Universities. Galvin shows that both the people and works that came out of that Enlightenment found their way into American colonies which influenced greatly those that founded the new Republic. Indeed, many of their actual philosophies and words may be found in the constitutions of the United States and many of the State governments as well as in the Declaration of Independence.

End of part  six- to be continued

42    Court 1987: iii

43   The Covenanters website   http://www.tartans.com/articles/covmain.html.

44    Fitzpatrick 1989: 183

45    Fitzpatrick 1989: 239

46    Fry 2001: 390

47    Fry 2001: 489

48    Fry 2001 : 237

49    Fitzpatrick 1989: 123

50    In Beddoes’s Races of Britain we find the following attributes listed:

Quick in temper; Clear thinking; Fertile imaginations; “love the absolute in thought”; “dislike expediency and doubt”; “Sympathetic with the weak, patriotic, chivalrous”; “hopeful and sanguine”; “Often witty and eloquent”; “lovers of the animal kingdom”.

51   Prentis 1983: 22

52    ibid: 157

53   ibid: 157

54    ibid: 158

55   ibid: 159. For instance: “… the Scot has possibly a more marked character than many other peoples and may have retained more of the old than some other peoples. That he has kept so much of the old in spite of absorption in Britain is testimony to the strength of his type.” (Notestein 1946: 319)

56  Fitzpatrick 1989: 2. ‘Call it not an American Rebellion, it is nothing more nor less than an Irish-Scots Presbyterian Rebellion’ -Captain Johann Heinricks, German mercenary serving with the British c.1780

57   ibid:3

58  ibid:5

59   See the website on Highland Clearances   http://www.tartans.com/articles/highclearmemmain.html

60   cp ibid: 8

61    Fitzpatrick: 17

62    ibid: 22

63    ibid: 67

64    Fry 2001: vii. Note also “Though always a richer, more advanced and more powerful country, England has somewhat paradoxically  always had something to gain from Scotland” (Prentis 1983: 12)

65    Davidy 1993: 294

66   Lamot 2001: 233

67  ibid: 234

68   ibid: 235

69   ibid: 235

70  ibid: 236

71   ibid: 239

72   Markale 1978: 297