We have already visited Scotland's two major cities, Edinburgh and Glasgow, this is a look at the rest of Scotland.
When leaving Scotland once, the incongruity occurred to me that I had not seen a McDonald's. There are McDonald's restaurants in Scotland but I had not seen one. This is by far the best-known Scottish name yet it has nothing to do with Scotland. The founders of McDonald's were not even named McDonald, Ray Kroc bought a food stand that had been owned by the McDonald brothers and kept the name because people were familiar with it.
In medieval times, Scotland won independence from England but the "Union of the Crowns" took place in 1603 when James VI of Scotland also became James I of England. This was a so-called "personal union" where a king rules more than one country. But that does not necessarily mean that the two countries are fully united. A more recent personal union in Europe was the Austro-Hungarian Empire, ruled by emperor Franz Joseph, although the two countries were still separate with a citizen being either Austrian or Hungarian, but not both.
James I was the beginning of the House of Stuart in England. James I, king James VI of Scotland, had acceded to the throne of England also when his cousin, Elizabeth I of England, died childless. That was the end of the House of Tudor, the most famous king of which was Henry VIII and who was the father of Elizabeth I. The main event during the House of Tudor was the Reformation. The main events of the House of Stuart would be the inter-Protestant English Civil War between the Anglicans and the Puritans and then finally the actual union between England and Scotland in 1707.
James I of England is the king that is best-known today for having commissioned the King James Bible, which we saw in the posting on this blog "Hampton Court Palace And The King James Bible".
Unity between England and Scotland was driven by ending up on the same side of the Reformation. But independent Scotland had been an ally of France. The French crown was held by the House of Bourbon. There were also active junior lines. The final French monarchy had actually been the House of Orleans, which was deposed for good in the series of revolutions that swept Europe in 1848. This was even after the House of Bourbon had been reinstated after the time of Napoleon.
Another junior French royal line was the House of Guise. It never held power in France but is best-known for the fact that one of it's would-be princesses, Mary of Guise, would reign in Scotland by marriage to James V. Mary of Guise wanted to keep Scotland Catholic and separate from Protestant England but it would be her grandson, James VI of Scotland, that would become a Protestant and also reign as James I of England, and would commission the King James Bible.
Before joining England to form Britain, Scotland had it's own colony in what is now Panama and the name of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia means "New Scotland".
The area around Falkirk, south of the Firth of Forth and between Edinburgh and Glasgow, used to be Scotland's center of steel production. Scotland had both the iron ore and coal necessary for the first phase of the Industrial Revolution. Scotland's James Watt improved the steam engine that had earlier been invented in England and today the unit of electrical power is named for him. But the town has a long history dating back to the Middle Ages. The great steel mills are gone and here is a look at Falkirk now.
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The Firth of Forth is the water inlet that separates the northern (Highland) and southern parts of Scotland. In this photo of Edinburgh, from the travel photo blog of Europe, the stretch of water seen in the background is the Firth of Forth.
Here is a residential area of Dunfermline, which is just north of the Firth of Forth. This was the hometown of Andrew Carnegie, the steel magnate that we saw on our visit to "Pittsburgh". There is a well-known old abbey in Dunfermline that was the burial place of Scottish kings. An abbey was the church of a monastery, some of which were on the scale of cathedrals. The preaching of John Knox changed Scotland from a bastion of Catholicism into one of the most Protestant of nations, but the churches of former Catholic monasteries are still called abbeys.
(Note-Some abbeys that were in locations that were not suitable for active churches were simply abandoned after the Reformation. The ruins of such abbeys are seen in many places in Britain. Monasteries were a Catholic practice that was not used by Protestants. Remember that we saw Tintern Abbey in the posting on this blog, "The Reformation At 500").
Kirkcaldy is also on the north shore of the Firth of Forth, and is known as the birthplace of Adam Smith who was the developer of the modern economic theory of capitalism.
Dundee is about a thousand years old and, formerly known for textile production, is today considered as Scotland's center of education.
Aberdeen is a medieval city that is now Britain's center of oil production from the North Sea.
Iverness is Scotland's city of the far north and the Highlands. It is a medieval city but the castle is only from the Nineteenth Century, although it is on the site of previous castles.
Scotland has four "Ancient Universities". An amazing time was the Eighteenth-Century Scottish Enlightenment. Scotland has contributed to the world far and away out of proportion to it's population.
One story that must not be forgotten is that of Encyclopedia Britannica. This is the predominant encyclopedia in the English-speaking world in the days before Wikipedia. It was founded in Edinburgh as a way to categorize Scotland's relentless quest for knowledge.
The oldest of the Ancient Universities is St. Andrews University, which was founded in 1413. It is the Scottish version of Oxford or Cambridge.
The second oldest is the University of Glasgow. It was founded in 1451 but has been at it's present location since the Nineteenth Century. The papal bull that founded the university is famously missing, having been taken to Paris by a Catholic sympathizer when Scotland joined the Reformation, and it has never been found.
Remember that we saw the tower at the University of Glasgow on the travel photo blog of Europe.
The next is the University of Aberdeen, founded in 1495. Notice the steeple in the shape of a crown that is reminiscent of that on St. Giles Cathedral that we saw in our visit to "Edinburgh". St. Giles is the central church of Presbyterianism, which is Scotland's particular brand of Protestantism.
The final one of the "Ancient Universities" of Scotland is Edinburgh University. Unlike the other three, it was founded after Scotland joined the Reformation so that it began with a royal charter rather than a papal bull.
Scotland is also known for it's mountains. It is much more mountainous than England. The summit of Ben Nevis is the highest elevation point in Britain.
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