Scotland: A Concise History, by Fitzroy Maclean

It cannot be denied that the history recorded in this volume is a deeply melancholy one. According to the witty and canny but also patriotic author of this book, in this history which begins in the mists of antiquity, in Roman attempts at invasion and subjugation, and that continues to the late 1900’s, as this book was first published in 1970 (the particular version I read was published in 2000), the history of Scotland is one where many of the same patterns reveal themselves over and over again, weak and often corrupt central government, political and military weakness in the large scale counterbalanced by a rich cultural and intellectual life, proud nationalism and ferocious individual courage counterbalanced by weak social cohesion and deep divides between Pict, Scot, Strathclyde Celt and Angle, and later between Highlander and Lowlander, and between Protestant and Catholic, leading to tragedy in the face of the more unified English to the south, and repeated long regencies where for two centuries scarcely two Scottish kings died peacefully in their beds. Given such death and dispossession and division, this book cannot help but be melancholy and also possessed of a certain flinty courage that values a man for dying bravely where living successfully is such a challenge. And so it is.

In terms of its organization and structure, the book is written as a narrative history, with a large amount of maps and images ranging from photographs of politicians for independence and devolution to some strikingly Assyrian-looking Pictish reliefs from the era before the Scottish kingdom was unified under Dal Raida/Scot rule. After briefly discussing the origins of the Scottish kingdom, with a focus on political history, most of the book is spent discussing the period between the attacks of Edward I and the predictable defeats of the Jacobite revolts in 1715 and 1745. All of the chapters have as their title quotations from the chapters that relate to the contents, some of them quotes from Scots themselves, some of them quotes from observers or from laws, starting from a ruler ‘polished from the rust of Scottish barbarity’ through the gloomy observation that ‘they spend all their time in wars and when there is no war they fight each other’ to toasts to ‘the king over the water’ to the lats chapter, contributed by Magnus Linklater about ‘the settled will of the Scottish people’ with the possession of their own Parliament. The book closes with a cautious hope: “One thing, however, was clear. A turn had been taken which would change fundamentally not only the country itself, but its place in the world. For the first time since 1707 the Scots had charge of their own affairs. It was now up to them to make the best use of it (231).”

This book lives up to its name, as a concise history designed for people who are interested in Scottish history, and likely Scottish themselves in either ancestry or loyalty. The author is honest, painfully so, about the way that feuds and internecine struggles have weakened the Scottish people, the way that Scotland has preserved its own identity despite the long amount of time under English rule where they were a permanent minority within the British political system, a welcome source of troops but a backwoods plantation that was denied its political freedom, and frequently dependent on vulnerable single industries like sheep raising and cotton-based manufacturing. Although this is certainly not a happy book, with its gloomy look at battles lost and oppression suffered, the book and its discussion is a tribute to the tenacity of Scottish identity and to the worth of its contributions to the world, written by someone who is clearly proud to be a Scot.