The Alliterative Morte Arthure is a 4346-line Middle English alliterative poem , retelling the latter part of the legend of King Arthur . Dating from about 1400, it is preserved in a single copy in the 15th-century Lincoln Thornton Manuscript , now in Lincoln Cathedral Library .
179-512: The author of the Morte Arthure is unknown. In his history of Scotland , Andrew of Wyntoun mentions a poet called Huchoun ("little Hugh"), who he says made a "gret Gest of Arthure, / And þe Awntyr of Gawane, / Þe Pistil als of Suet Susane" [great history of Arthur, / And the Adventure of Gawain, / The Epistle also of Sweet Susan]. This "Gest of Arthure" has been claimed to be a reference to what
358-941: A referendum on devolution proposals in 1997 , the Scotland Act 1998 was passed by the British Parliament, which established a devolved Scottish Parliament and Scottish Government with responsibility for most laws specific to Scotland. The Scottish Parliament was reconvened in Edinburgh on 4 July 1999. The first to hold the office of first minister of Scotland was Donald Dewar , who served until his sudden death in 2000. The Scottish Parliament Building at Holyrood opened in October 2004 after lengthy construction delays and running over budget. The Scottish Parliament's form of proportional representation (the additional member system ) resulted in no one party having an overall majority for
537-423: A "supreme aesthetic accomplishment" ( William Carlin ). For a modern audience, his prose may feel better when modernised (and perhaps especially when also dramatically performed aloud) than as it reads in its original form. Other aspects of Malory's writing style include his abrupt abridging of much of the source material, especially in the early parts concerning Arthur's backstory and his rise to power (preferring
716-513: A Japanese team, who note that "the text is imperfect, as the manuscript lacks the first and last quires and few leaves. The most striking feature of the manuscript is the extensive use of red ink ." In his 1947 publication of The Works of Sir Thomas Malory , Vinaver argued that Malory wrote not a single book, but rather a series of Arthurian tales, each of which is an internally consistent and independent work. However, William Matthews pointed out that Malory's later tales make frequent references to
895-679: A Thomas Malory. The first of these named Malory a knight and applied to participants in a campaign in Northumberland in the North of England by members of the Lancastrian faction. Field interprets these pardon-exclusions to refer to Malory of Newbold Revel, suggesting that Malory changed his allegiance from York to Lancaster, and that he was involved in a conspiracy with Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick to overthrow King Edward. William Matthews, having given evidence of this candidate's advanced age at
1074-416: A different version himself for the use of his compositor, or used another version prepared by Malory. The Winchester manuscript does not appear to have been copied out by Malory himself; rather, it seems to have been a presentation copy made by two scribes who, judging from certain dialect forms which they introduced into the text, appear to have come from West Northamptonshire . Apart from these forms, both
1253-612: A distinctive Norse–Gaelic culture that saw many Old Norse loanwords enter the Scottish Gaelic spoken by islanders, and through successive generations the Norse would become almost completely assimilated into Gaelic culture and the Scottish clan system. After the conflict, Scotland had to affirm Norwegian sovereignty of the Northern Isles , but they were later integrated into Scotland in
1432-569: A full legal union be sought instead, a proposal to which the Scots Parliament would not assent, causing the king to withdraw the plan. Except for a short period under the Protectorate , Scotland remained a separate state in the 17th century, but there was considerable conflict between the crown and the Covenanters over the form of church government . The military was strengthened, allowing
1611-454: A giant or a dwarf," and "time does not work on the heroes of Malory." According to Charles W. Moorman III , Malory intended "to set down in English a unified Arthuriad which should have as its great theme the birth, the flowering, and the decline of an almost perfect earthy civilization." Moorman identified three main motifs going through the work: Sir Lancelot 's and Queen Guinevere 's affair;
1790-530: A group of raiders adopting a name from an Indo-European root , * skot , citing the parallel in Greek skotos ( σκότος ), meaning "darkness, gloom". The Late Latin word Scotia ("land of the Gaels") was initially used to refer to Ireland, and likewise in early Old English Scotland was used for Ireland. By the 11th century at the latest, Scotia was being used to refer to (Gaelic-speaking) Scotland north of
1969-578: A letter addressed to Adolf Hitler that detailed his intentions to open peace negotiations with the British. Pintsch delivered the letter to Hitler at the Berghof around noon on 11 May. Albert Speer later said Hitler described Hess's departure as one of the worst personal blows of his life, as he considered it a personal betrayal. Hitler worried that his allies, Italy and Japan, would perceive Hess's act as an attempt by Hitler to secretly open peace negotiations with
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#17329314392562148-402: A number of Scottish-born authors achieved international reputations, such as Robert Louis Stevenson , Arthur Conan Doyle , J. M. Barrie and George MacDonald . Scotland also played a major part in the development of art and architecture. The Glasgow School , which developed in the late 19th century, and flourished in the early 20th century, produced a distinctive blend of influences including
2327-460: A population of 4.8 million in 1911, Scotland sent over half a million men to the war, of whom over a quarter died in combat or from disease, and 150,000 were seriously wounded. Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig was Britain's commander on the Western Front. The war saw the emergence of a radical movement called " Red Clydeside " led by militant trades unionists. Formerly a Liberal stronghold,
2506-506: A previously unknown manuscript copy of the work in June 1934, during the cataloguing of the college's library. Newspaper accounts announced that what Caxton had published in 1485 was not exactly what Malory had written. Oakeshott published "The Finding of the Manuscript" in 1963, chronicling the initial event and his realization that "this indeed was Malory," with "startling evidence of revision" in
2685-525: A prose translation of the Alliterative Morte Arthure with the title Morte Arthur : Two Early English Romances . (J.M. Dent, 1912: ISBN 9781372591624 ) John Gardner published a prose translation of the Alliterative Morte Arthure with the title The Alliterative Morte Arthure, The Owl and the Nightingale, and Five Other Middle English Poems in a Modernized Version with Comments on
2864-606: A series of trials that culminates in his rescue of the Queen from the abduction by the renegade knight Maleagant (this is also the first time the work explicitly mentions the couple's sexual adultery). Writing it, Malory combined the established material from the Vulgate Cycle's early Prose Lancelot (including its abridged retelling of Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart ), and the early parts of
3043-462: A shift away from battlefield warfare towards a more mediated and virtuous form of violence. The fourth volume primarily deals with the adventures of the young Gareth ("Beaumains") in his long quest for the sibling ladies Lynette and Lioness . The youngest of Arthur's nephews by Morgause and King Lot , Gareth hides his identity as a nameless squire at Camelot as to achieve his knighthood in the most honest and honourable way. While this particular story
3222-673: Is 30,977 square miles (80,231 km ) with a land area of 30,078 square miles (77,901 km ), comparable to the size of the Czech Republic . Scotland's only land border is with England, and runs for 96 miles (154 km) between the basin of the River Tweed on the east coast and the Solway Firth in the west. The Atlantic Ocean borders the west coast and the North Sea is to the east. The island of Ireland lies only 13 miles (21 km) from
3401-526: Is a 15th-century Middle English prose reworking by Sir Thomas Malory of tales about the legendary King Arthur , Guinevere , Lancelot , Merlin and the Knights of the Round Table , along with their respective folklore. In order to tell a "complete" story of Arthur from his conception to his death, Malory compiled, rearranged, interpreted and modified material from various French and English sources. Today, this
3580-450: Is a more political and also flawed ruler, the story is not just based in a small realm but is always placed within a wider European situation and this Arthur is more clearly Christian than other versions. Arthur also has two legendary swords, the first being Excalibur (referred to as Caliburn, an earlier name of the sword), and the second one being Clarent , a formal sword, stolen by Mordred, with which Arthur receives his fatal blow close to
3759-585: Is abridged by more than half compared to Malory's manuscript. Vinaver theorized that Malory originally wrote this part first as a standalone work, while without knowledge of French romances. In effect, there is a time lapse that includes Arthur's war against King Claudas in France. Going back to a time before Book II, Malory establishes Lancelot , a young French orphan prince, as King Arthur's most revered knight through numerous episodic adventures, some of which he presented in comedic manner. Lancelot always adheres to
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#17329314392563938-647: Is also a major difference both in style and content in Malory's Book II (Caxton's Book V), describing the war with the Emperor Lucius, where Caxton's version is much shorter. In addition, the Winchester manuscript has none of the customary marks indicating to the compositor where chapter headings and so on were to be added. It has therefore been argued that the Winchester manuscript was not the copy from which Caxton prepared his edition; rather it seems that Caxton either wrote out
4117-538: Is based on Saint Aelred 's ideas from his book Spiritual Friendship . Christianity and the Church offer a venue through which the Pentecostal Oath can be upheld, whereas the strict moral code imposed by religion foreshadows almost certain failure on the part of the knights. For instance, Gawain refuses to do penance for his sins, claiming the tribulations that coexist with knighthood as a sort of secular penance. Likewise,
4296-650: Is broadly divided into three regions: the Highlands , a mountainous region in the north and north-west; the Lowlands , a flatter plain across the centre of the country; and the Southern Uplands , a hilly region along the southern border. The Highlands are the most mountainous region of the British Isles and contain its highest peak, Ben Nevis , at 4,413 feet (1,345 m). The region also contains many lakes, called lochs ;
4475-478: Is concerned specifically with the issues relating to the subject of Lancelot and Guinevere's adultery. Prior to Caxton's reorganization, Malory's work originally consisted of eight volumes (one of them was also divided into two parts). The following list uses Winchester Manuscript (Malory's "Syr" is usually rendered "Sir" today) as well as William Caxton's print edition and modern titles by Arthurian scholars Eugène Vinaver and P. J. C. Field: Moorman attempted to put
4654-643: Is demonstrated by sites such as the Callanish Stones on Lewis and the Maes Howe on Orkney , which were built in the third millennium BC. The first written reference to Scotland was in 320 BC by Greek sailor Pytheas , who called the northern tip of Britain "Orcas", the source of the name of the Orkney islands. Most of modern Scotland was not incorporated into the Roman Empire , and Roman control over parts of
4833-609: Is echoed in the place names of Dunkeld , Rohallion , and Schiehallion . The Great Conspiracy constituted a seemingly coordinated invasion against Roman rule in Britain in the later 4th century, which included the participation of the Gaelic Scoti and the Caledonians, who were then known as Picts by the Romans. This was defeated by the comes Theodosius ; but Roman military government
5012-665: Is modernised, it reads almost like Elizabethan English. Where the Canterbury Tales are in Middle English, Malory extends "one hand to Chaucer, and one to Spenser ," by constructing a manuscript that is hard to place in one category. His writing can be divisive today, often regarded by critics (including prominent scholars such as Vinaver, George Saintsbury , Robert Lumiansky , C.S Lewis , and E. K. Chambers ) as simplistic and unsophisticated from an artistic viewpoint. Conversely, there are also opposite opinions, even regarding it
5191-599: Is no indication in the will that he was himself a knight; he died within six weeks of the will being made. It has been suggested that the fact that he appears to have been brought up in Lincolnshire may account for the traces of Lincolnshire dialect in Le Morte Darthur . To date, this candidate has not commanded the attention of scholars as the Newbold-Revel knight has. The most recent contender for authorship emerged in
5370-571: Is not directly based on any existing text unlike most of the content of previous volumes, it resembles various Arthurian romances of the Fair Unknown type. A long collection of the tales about Tristan of Lyonesse as well as a variety of other knights such as Dinadan , Lamorak , Palamedes , Alexander the Orphan (Tristan's young relative abducted by Morgan), and " La Cote de Male Tayle ". After telling of Tristan's birth and childhood, its primary focus
5549-447: Is now known as the Alliterative Morte Arthure ; but the fact that the Morte Arthure seems to have been written in an East Midlands dialect , the fact that Huchoun may have been Scottish, and the dialect of the extant Epistle of Sweet Susan , which appears to be that of North Yorkshire, all argue against "Huchoun"'s authorship. The poem was probably written in the late 14th or early 15th century. The only surviving manuscript source for
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5728-561: Is on the doomed adulterous relationship between Tristan and the Belle Isolde , wife of his villainous uncle King Mark . It also includes the retrospective story of how Galahad was fathered by Lancelot to Princess Elaine of Corbenic , followed by Lancelot's years of madness. Based mainly on the French vast Prose Tristan , or its lost English adaptation (and possibly also the Middle English verse romance Sir Tristrem ), Malory's treatment of
5907-485: Is one of the best-known works of Arthurian literature . Many authors since the 19th-century revival of the legend have used Malory as their principal source. Apparently written in prison at the end of the medieval English era , Le Morte d'Arthur was completed by Malory around 1470 and was first published in a printed edition in 1485 by William Caxton . Until the discovery of the Winchester Manuscript in 1934,
6086-672: Is said to have invested in the Darien scheme . After another proposal from the English House of Lords was rejected in 1695, and a further Lords motion was voted down in the House of Commons in 1700, the Parliament of Scotland again rejected union in 1702. The failure of the Darien Scheme bankrupted the landowners who had invested, though not the burghs. Nevertheless, the nobles' bankruptcy, along with
6265-564: Is succeeded by Constantine, Malory provides a short epilogue about the later lives and deaths of Bedivere, Guinevere, and Lancelot and his kinsmen. Writing the eponymous final book, Malory used the version of Arthur's death derived primarily from parts of the Vulgate Mort Artu and, as a secondary source, from the English Stanzaic Morte Arthur (or, in another possibility, a hypothetical now-lost French modification of
6444-576: Is the servant of Jesus both day and night." As Elizabeth Bryan wrote of Malory's contribution to Arthurian legend in her introduction to a modern edition of Le Morte d'Arthur , "Malory did not invent the stories in this collection; he translated and compiled them. Malory in fact translated Arthurian stories that already existed in 13th-century French prose (the so-called Old French Vulgate romances ) and compiled them together with Middle English sources (the Alliterative Morte Arthure and
6623-525: Is typical of the north-west of Europe, although several of the larger mammals such as the lynx, brown bear, wolf, elk and walrus were hunted to extinction in historic times. There are important populations of seals and internationally significant nesting grounds for a variety of seabirds such as gannets . The golden eagle is something of a national icon. On the high mountain tops, species including ptarmigan , mountain hare and stoat can be seen in their white colour phase during winter months. Remnants of
6802-402: Is uncertainly regarded as either just another of these or possibly actually Malory's own work. His assorted other sources might have included a 5th-century Roman military manual, De re militari . Le Morte d'Arthur was completed in 1469 or 1470 ("the ninth year of the reign of King Edward IV"), according to a note at the end of the book. It is believed that Malory's original title intended
6981-496: Is viewed as a text in which Malory is attempting to define the concept of knighthood, then the tale of Tristan becomes its critique, rather than Malory attempting to create an ideal knight as he does in some of the other books. Malory's primary source for this long part was the Vulgate Queste del Saint Graal , chronicling the adventures of many Knights of the Round Table in their mostly separate, pilgrimage-like journeys to find
7160-465: Is “more interested in the fates of men than of armies,” and even Arthur himself transforms from a “prudent and virtuous king to cruel reckless tyrant.” The work's perspective is more critical of war in general than most Arthurian legends, showing mixed reactions toward the "pitiless genocides" surrounding the tale. Rather than an end rhyme, the Alliterative uses alliteration on metrical stresses, such as
7339-527: The Alliterative Morte Arthure with the title King Arthur’s Death: The Alliterative Morte Arthure . (Unbound, 2021: ISBN 9781783529087 ) Scotland – in Europe (green & dark grey) – in the United Kingdom (green) Scotland ( Scots : Scotland ; Scottish Gaelic : Alba ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom . It contains nearly one-third of
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7518-727: The Bruce dynasty and their long-term rivals of the House of Comyn and House of Balliol lasted until the middle of the 14th century. Although the Bruce faction was successful, David II's lack of an heir allowed his half-nephew Robert II , the Lord High Steward of Scotland , to come to the throne and establish the House of Stewart . The Stewarts ruled Scotland for the remainder of the Middle Ages . The country they ruled experienced greater prosperity from
7697-586: The Caledonians and the Maeatae . Other ancient authors used the adjective "Caledonian" to mean anywhere in northern or inland Britain, often mentioning the region's people and animals, its cold climate, its pearls, and a noteworthy region of wooded hills ( Latin : saltus ) which the 2nd century AD Roman philosopher Ptolemy , in his Geography , described as being south-west of the Beauly Firth . The name Caledonia
7876-672: The Celtic Revival the Arts and Crafts movement , and Japonism , which found favour throughout the modern art world of continental Europe and helped define the Art Nouveau style. Proponents included architect and artist Charles Rennie Mackintosh . Scotland played a major role in the British effort in the First World War . It especially provided manpower, ships, machinery, fish and money. With
8055-570: The Community Charge (widely known as the Poll Tax) one year before the rest of Great Britain, contributed to a growing movement for Scottish control over domestic affairs. On 21 December 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 exploded mid–air over the town of Lockerbie , killing all on board as well as eleven Lockerbie residents. It remains the deadliest terrorist attack in the United Kingdom . Following
8234-580: The Hebrides , which had been ruled by various Scottish clans following the death of Somerled in 1164. In 1266, Scotland fought the short but consequential Scottish-Norwegian War which saw the reclamation of the Hebrides after the strong defeat of King Haakon IV and his forces at the Battle of Largs . Up until that point, the Hebrides had been under Norwegian Viking control for roughly 400 years and had developed
8413-625: The Highland Boundary Fault , which runs from Arran to Stonehaven . This part of Scotland largely comprises ancient rocks from the Cambrian and Precambrian , which were uplifted during the later Caledonian orogeny . It is interspersed with igneous intrusions of a more recent age, remnants of which formed mountain massifs such as the Cairngorms and Skye Cuillins . In north-eastern mainland Scotland weathering of rock that occurred before
8592-545: The Holy Grail . Gawain is the first to embark on the search for the Grail, followed by others including Lancelot who likewise undergo the quest, traveling either in small groups of changing composition or alone. Their martial and spiritual exploits are intermingled with encounters with maidens and hermits who offer advice and interpret dreams along the way. It is ultimately achieved by Galahad and his final companions, Percival and Bors
8771-416: The House of Hanover from the British throne. The threat of the Jacobite movement to the United Kingdom and its monarchs effectively ended at the Battle of Culloden , Great Britain's last pitched battle . The passing of the Treaty of Union did not bring about immediate economic prosperity to Scotland as was widely speculated by the pamphleteer as a result of the little consideration given to prospects of
8950-449: The House of Stuart was resumed with the Restoration in Scotland in 1660. The Parliament of Scotland sought a commercial union with England in 1664; the proposal was rejected in 1668. In 1670 the Parliament of England rejected a proposed political union with Scotland. English proposals along the same lines were abandoned in 1674 and in 1685. The Scots Parliament rejected proposals for a political union with England in 1689. Jacobitism ,
9129-524: The Last Ice Age has shaped much of the landscape. A significant exception to the above are the fossil-bearing beds of Old Red Sandstones found principally along the Moray Firth coast. The Highlands are generally mountainous and the highest elevations in the British Isles are found here. Scotland has over 790 islands divided into four main groups: Shetland , Orkney , and the Inner Hebrides and Outer Hebrides . There are numerous bodies of freshwater including Loch Lomond and Loch Ness . Some parts of
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#17329314392569308-412: The Mesolithic period . It is believed the first post-glacial groups of hunter-gatherers arrived in Scotland around 12,800 years ago, as the ice sheet retreated after the last glaciation . At the time, Scotland was covered in forests, had more bog-land, and the main form of transport was by water. These settlers began building the first known permanent houses on Scottish soil around 9,500 years ago, and
9487-475: The Mort Artu was a common source of both of these texts ). In the words of George Brown , the book "celebrates the greatness of the Arthurian world on the eve of its ruin. As the magnificent fellowship turns violently upon itself, death and destruction also produce repentance, forgiveness, and salvation." Following the lapse of 182 years since the last printing, the year 1816 saw a new edition by Alexander Chalmers , illustrated by Thomas Uwins ( The History of
9666-480: The Moscow region in Russia , and the Kamchatka Peninsula on the opposite side of Eurasia . Temperatures are generally lower than in the rest of the UK, with the temperature of −27.2 °C (−17.0 °F) recorded at Braemar in the Grampian Mountains , on 11 February 1895, the coldest ever recorded anywhere in the UK. Winter maxima average 6 °C (43 °F) in the Lowlands, with summer maxima averaging 18 °C (64 °F). The highest temperature recorded
9845-473: The North Sea to the north-east and east, and the Irish Sea to the south. The population in 2022 was 5,439,842. Edinburgh is the capital and Glasgow is the largest of the cities of Scotland . The Kingdom of Scotland emerged as an independent sovereign state in the 9th century. In 1603, James VI succeeded to the thrones of England and Ireland , forming a personal union of the three kingdoms . On 1 May 1707, Scotland and England combined to create
10024-475: The Parliament of Great Britain , which succeeded both the Parliament of Scotland and the Parliament of England , which rejected proposals from the Parliament of Ireland that the third kingdom be incorporated in the union. Andrew Fletcher , a prominent Scottish patriot, argued that the ratification of the treaty would see Scotland "more like a conquered province", and by 1713, the former Lord Chancellor of Scotland , James Ogilvy, 4th Earl of Findlater , who
10203-467: The River Forth , alongside Albania or Albany , both derived from the Gaelic Alba . The use of the words Scots and Scotland to encompass all of what is now Scotland became common in the Late Middle Ages . Prehistoric Scotland , before the arrival of the Roman Empire , was culturally divergent. Repeated glaciations, which covered the entire land mass of modern Scotland, destroyed any traces of human habitation that may have existed before
10382-409: The River Tay , flows for a distance of 117 miles (188 km). The whole of Scotland was covered by ice sheets during the Pleistocene ice ages and the landscape is much affected by glaciation. From a geological perspective, the country has three main sub-divisions: the Highlands and Islands, the Central Lowlands, and the Southern Uplands. The Highlands and Islands lie to the north and west of
10561-431: The Roman army in the Severan campaign were placed near those established by Agricola and were clustered at the mouths of the glens in the Highlands, the Caledonians were again in revolt in 210–211 and these were overrun. To the Roman historians Tacitus and Cassius Dio , the Scottish Highlands and the area north of the River Forth was called Caledonia . According to Cassius Dio, the inhabitants of Caledonia were
10740-416: The Scots Confession , which signalled the Scottish Reformation 's sharp break from papal authority and Roman Catholic teaching. The Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots, was forced to abdicate in 1567 . In 1603, James VI, King of Scots inherited the thrones of the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Ireland in the Union of the Crowns , and moved to London. This was a personal union as despite having
10919-670: The Stanzaic Morte Arthur ) to create this text." Within his narration, Malory refers to drawing it from a singular "Freynshe booke", in addition to also unspecified "other bookis". In addition to the vast Vulgate Cycle in its different variants, as well as the English poems Morte Arthur and Morte Arthure , Malory's other original source texts were identified as several French standalone chivalric romances , including Érec et Énide , L'âtre périlleux , Perlesvaus , and Yvain ou le Chevalier au Lion (or its English version, Ywain and Gawain ), as well as John Hardyng 's English Chronicle . The English poem The Weddynge of Syr Gawen
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#173293143925611098-441: The Wars of Scottish Independence , until Robert the Bruce was crowned king of Scotland in 1306. Victory at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314 proved the Scots had regained control of their kingdom. In 1320 the world's first documented declaration of independence, the Declaration of Arbroath , won the support of Pope John XXII , leading to the legal recognition of Scottish sovereignty by the English Crown. A civil war between
11277-428: The beaver and wild boar . Today, much of the remaining native Caledonian Forest lies within the Cairngorms National Park and remnants of the forest remain at 84 locations across Scotland. On the west coast, remnants of ancient Celtic Rainforest remain, particularly on the Taynish peninsula in Argyll , these forests are particularly rare due to high rates of deforestation throughout Scottish history. The flora of
11456-452: The " Dark Ages " times of Arthur as a familiar, High -to- Late Medieval style world of armored knights and grand castles taking place of the Post-Roman warriors and forts. Malory further modernized the legend by conflating the Celtic Britain with his own contemporary Kingdom of England (for example explicitly identifying Logres as England , Camelot as Winchester , and Astolat as Guildford ) and, completely ahistorically, replacing
11635-402: The 1485 edition was considered the earliest known text of Le Morte d'Arthur and that closest to Malory's original version. Modern editions under myriad titles are inevitably variable, changing spelling, grammar and pronouns for the convenience of readers of modern English, as well as often abridging or revising the material. The exact identity of the author of Le Morte d'Arthur has long been
11814-471: The 14th century is now a crown dependency outside of the United Kingdom; the island groups Orkney and Shetland , which were acquired from Norway in 1472; and Berwick-upon-Tweed , lost to England in 1482 The geographical centre of Scotland lies a few miles from the village of Newtonmore in Badenoch . Rising to 4,413 feet (1,345 m) above sea level, Scotland's highest point is the summit of Ben Nevis , in Lochaber , while Scotland's longest river,
11993-410: The 15th century, Le Morte d'Arthur was highly influenced by French writings, but Malory blends these with other English verse and prose forms. The Middle English of Le Morte d'Arthur is much closer to Early Modern English than the Middle English of Geoffrey Chaucer 's Canterbury Tales (the publication of Chaucer's work by Caxton was a precursor to Caxton's publication of Malory); if the spelling
12172-401: The 15th century. Scandinavian culture in the form of the Norn language survived for a lot longer than in the Hebrides, and would strongly influence the local Scots dialect on Shetland and Orkney . Later, a system of feudalism was consolidated, with both Anglo-Norman incomers and native Gaelic chieftains being granted land in exchange for serving the king. The relationship with England
12351-415: The 1870s, and the Fortingall Yew may be 5,000 years old and is probably the oldest living thing in Europe. Although the number of native vascular plants is low by world standards, Scotland's substantial bryophyte flora is of global importance. Le Morte d%27Arthur Le Morte d'Arthur (originally written as le morte Darthur ; Anglo-Norman French for "The Death of Arthur")
12530-415: The 1st century have been found as far north as the Moray Firth . By the reign of the Roman emperor Trajan ( r. 98–117 ), Roman control had lapsed to Britain south of a line between the River Tyne and the Solway Firth . Along this line, Trajan's successor Hadrian ( r. 117–138 ) erected Hadrian's Wall in northern England and the Limes Britannicus became the northern border of
12709-493: The British. After 1945, Scotland's economic situation worsened due to overseas competition, inefficient industry, and industrial disputes. Only in recent decades has the country enjoyed something of a cultural and economic renaissance. Economic factors contributing to this recovery included a resurgent financial services industry, electronics manufacturing , (see Silicon Glen ), and the North Sea oil and gas industry. The introduction in 1989 by Margaret Thatcher's government of
12888-587: The Caxton edition. This manuscript is now in the British Library's collection. Malory scholar Eugène Vinaver examined the manuscript shortly after its discovery. Oakeshott was encouraged to produce an edition himself, but he ceded the project to Vinaver. Based on his initial study of the manuscript, Oakeshott concluded in 1935 that the copy from which Caxton printed his edition "was already subdivided into books and sections." Vinaver made an exhaustive comparison of
13067-522: The Knights of the Round Table , 1858) and Ernest Rhys ( Malory's History of King Arthur and the Quest of The Holy Grail: From The Morte D'Arthur , 1886), were also based on that by Stansby. William Upcott 's edition directly based on then-newly rediscovered Morgan copy of the first print Caxton version was published as Malory's Morte d'Arthur with Robert Southey 's introduction and notes including summaries of
13246-682: The Moost Noble and Worthy Prince Kyng Arthur Somtyme Kyng of Grete Brytayne Now Called Englande ) by Wynkyn de Worde who succeeded to Caxton's press. Three more editions were published before the English Civil War : William Copland's The Story of the Most Noble and Worthy Kynge Arthur (1557), Thomas East 's The Story of Kynge Arthur, and also of his Knyghtes of the Rounde Table (1585), and William Stansby 's The Most Ancient and Famous History of
13425-546: The Orphan), and III (takes place between Alexander the Orphan and the Tournament of Surluse); Lancelot meets Bliant after the Tournament of Lonezep towards the end of Lancelot and Elaine section; the section of Sir Palomides takes place after Lancelot returns to Arthur's court; and finally Books VI, VII, and VIII in a straightforward sequence beginning with the closing part of Book V (the conclusion section). Like other English prose in
13604-406: The Pentecostal Oath, assisting ladies in distress and giving mercy for honourable enemies he has defeated in combat. However, the world Lancelot lives in is too complicated for simple mandates and, although Lancelot aspires to live by an ethical code, the actions of others make it difficult. Lancelot's character had previously appeared in the chronologically later Book II, fighting for Arthur against
13783-557: The Pictish language went extinct as its speakers shifted to Gaelic. From a base in eastern Scotland north of the River Forth and south of the River Spey , the kingdom expanded first southwards, into the former Northumbrian lands, and northwards into Moray . Around the turn of the millennium, there was a centralization in agricultural lands and the first towns began to be established. In
13962-459: The Poems and Notes . (Southern Illinois University Press, 1971: ISBN 9780809304868 ) Valerie Krishna published a verse translation of the Alliterative Morte Arthure with the title The Alliterative Morte Arthure: A New Verse Translation . (University Press of America, 1983: ISBN 9780819130365 ) Brian Stone published a prose translation of the Alliterative Morte Arthure with
14141-524: The Renowned Prince Arthur King of Britaine (1634), each of which contained additional changes and errors. Stansby's edition, based on East's, was also deliberately censored. Thereafter, the book went out of fashion until the Romanticist revival of interest in all things medieval. The British Library summarizes the importance of Malory's work thus: "It was probably always a popular work: it
14320-651: The Renowned Prince Arthur, King of Britain; with His Life and Death, and All His Glorious Battles. Likewise, the Noble Acts and Heroic Deeds of His Valiant Knights of the Round Table ), as well as another one by Joseph Haslewood ( La Mort D'Arthur: The Most Ancient and Famous History of the Renowned Prince Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table ); both of these were based on the 1634 Stansby's version. Several other modern editions, including these by Thomas Wright ( La Morte D'Arthure: The History of King Arthur and of
14499-608: The Roman Empire. The Roman influence on the southern part of the country was considerable, and they introduced Christianity to Scotland. The Antonine Wall was built from 142 at the order of Hadrian's successor Antoninus Pius ( r. 138–161 ), defending the Roman part of Scotland from the unadministered part of the island, north of a line between the Firth of Clyde and the Firth of Forth . The Roman invasion of Caledonia 208–210
14678-527: The Romans. In Book III, based on parts of the French Prose Lancelot (mostly its 'Agravain' section, along with the chapel perilous episode taken from Perlesvaus ), His character is widely regarded as of central importance to the entire work, representing "the very paradigm of Malorian knighthood". Malory attempts to turn the focus of courtly love from adultery to service by having Lancelot dedicate doing everything he does for Queen Guinevere,
14857-439: The Round Table , 1884) would also censor their versions for the same reason. The first "standard" popular edition, based on Caxton was Heinrich Oskar Sommer's Le Morte Darthur by Syr Thomas Malory published in 1890 with an introduction and glossary as well as an essay on Malory's prose style, followed by these by John Rhys in 1893 (Everyman's Library) and Israel Gollancz in 1897 (Temple Classics). Modernized editions update
15036-874: The Round Table fellowship as all swear to the Pentecostal Oath as a guide for knightly conduct. It also includes the tale of Balyn and Balan (a lengthy section which Malory called a "booke" in itself), as well as some other episodes, such as King Pellinore 's hunt for the Questing Beast and the treason of Arthur's sorceress half-sister Queen Morgan le Fay in the plot involving her lover Accolon . Furthermore, it tells of begetting of Arthur's incestuous son Mordred by one of his other royal half-sisters, Morgause (though Arthur did not know her as his sister). On Merlin's advice, Arthur then takes away every newborn boy in his kingdom and all of them but Mordred (who miraculously survives and eventually indeed will kill his father in
15215-470: The Scottish Enlightenment is traditionally considered to have concluded toward the end of the 18th century, disproportionately large Scottish contributions to British science and letters continued for another 50 years or more, thanks to such figures as the physicists James Clerk Maxwell and Lord Kelvin , and the engineers and inventors James Watt and William Murdoch , whose work was critical to
15394-826: The Scottish Parliament after the referendum, following cross-party talks in the Smith Commission . Since the 2014 referendum, events such as the UK leaving the European Union, despite a majority of voters in Scotland voting to remain a member, have led to calls for a second independence referendum . In 2022, the Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain argued the case for the Scottish Government to hold another referendum on
15573-566: The Scottish economy. Campaigners for the union between Scotland and England believed that there would be economic advantages to Scotland as a result of the failed Darien scheme which left the Kingdom of Scotland bankrupt. Eventually however, with trade tariffs with England abolished, trade blossomed, especially with Colonial America . The clippers belonging to the Glasgow Tobacco Lords were
15752-657: The Southern Uplands is Merrick with an elevation of 843 m (2,766 ft). The Southern Uplands is home to Scotland's highest village, Wanlockhead (430 m or 1,411 ft above sea level). The climate of most of Scotland is temperate and oceanic , and tends to be very changeable. As it is warmed by the Gulf Stream from the Atlantic, it has much milder winters (but cooler, wetter summers) than areas on similar latitudes, such as Labrador , southern Scandinavia ,
15931-459: The United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjacent islands , principally in the archipelagos of the Hebrides and the Northern Isles . To the south-east, Scotland has its only land border , which is 96 miles (154 km) long and shared with England ; the country is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west,
16110-468: The Vulgate Mort Artu , with his own creations (the episodes "The Great Tournament" and "The Healing of Sir Urry"). A key theme emphasised at the end of each of the book's five tales is forgiveness . A disaster strikes when King Arthur's bastard son Mordred and his half-brother Agravain succeed in revealing Queen Guinevere's adultery and Arthur sentences her to burn. Lancelot's rescue party raids
16289-466: The Winchester manuscript and the Caxton edition show some more northerly dialect forms which, in the judgement of the Middle English dialect expert Angus McIntosh are closest to the dialect of Lincolnshire. McIntosh argues, however, that this does not necessarily rule out the Warwickshire Malory as the possible author; he points out that it could be that the Warwickshire Malory consciously imitated
16468-507: The Younger . After the confusion of the secular moral code he manifested within the previous book, Malory attempts to construct a new mode of chivalry by placing an emphasis on religion, albeit somewhat less than his French sources did, the degree of difference depending on an interpretation. As in the Queste , the framework for the interactions between the Grail knights (Galahad, Percival, and Bors)
16647-553: The area fluctuated over a rather short period. The first Roman incursion into Scotland was in 79 AD, when Agricola invaded Scotland; he defeated a Caledonian army at the Battle of Mons Graupius in 83 AD. After the Roman victory, Roman forts were briefly set along the Gask Ridge close to the Highland line , but by three years after the battle, the Roman armies had withdrawn to the Southern Uplands . Remains of Roman forts established in
16826-493: The army and navy, trade, economics, colonial enterprises and other areas across the nascent British Empire . Historian Neil Davidson notes "after 1746 there was an entirely new level of participation by Scots in political life, particularly outside Scotland." Davidson also states "far from being 'peripheral' to the British economy, Scotland – or more precisely, the Lowlands – lay at its core." The Scottish Reform Act 1832 increased
17005-537: The author was Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel , Warwickshire , son of Sir John Malory. According to the timeline proposed by P.J.C. Field, Sir Thomas of Newbold Revel inherited the family estate in 1434, but by 1450 he was fully engaged in a life of crime. As early as 1433, he had been accused of theft, but the more serious allegations against him included that of the attempted murder of Humphrey Stafford, 1st Duke of Buckingham , an accusation of at least two rapes, and that he had attacked and robbed Coombe Abbey . Malory
17184-457: The banks of the Tamar . An example of the differing style of the alliterative version of the story is the treatment of Mordred . He is not simply the villain of the piece as he is in other poems but is a complex character with a varying personality. One mark of the prevalence of Christian morality in the poem is that even Mordred cries and seems to be repentant around line 3886. The Alliterative Morte
17363-638: The book as a history rather than as a work of fiction, therefore making it a model of order for Malory's violent and chaotic times during the Wars of the Roses , arguably resembling his contemporary John Vale's Book . The opening of the second volume finds Arthur and his kingdom without an enemy. His throne is secure, and his knights including Griflet and Tor as well as Arthur's own nephews Gawain and Ywain (sons of Morgause and Morgan, respectively) have proven themselves in various battles and fantastic quests as told in
17542-405: The book, arguably an essential reading due to how Malory foreshadows and prepares for the rest of his work by developing or forecasting a variety of characters, themes, and tales found in the later books. It can be seen as an exploration of secular chivalry and a discussion of earthly "worship" (in the meaning of glory and reputation) when it is founded in a sense of shame and honor. If Le Morte
17721-571: The books of the Winchester Manuscript in chronological order. In his analysis, Malory's intended chronology can be divided into three parts: Book I followed by a 20-year interval that includes some events of Book V (Lancelot and Elaine - from the meeting of the two to the madness of Lancelot); the 15-year-long period of Book V, also spanning Books IV (takes place after the adventure of the Cote de Mal Tale), II (takes place between King Mark and Alexander
17900-611: The central belt of the country. Perhaps the most significant air raid in Scotland was the Clydebank Blitz of March 1941, which intended to destroy naval shipbuilding in the area. 528 people were killed and 4,000 homes totally destroyed. Perhaps Scotland's most unusual wartime episode occurred in 1941 when Rudolf Hess flew to Renfrewshire, possibly intending to broker a peace deal through the Duke of Hamilton . Before his departure from Germany, Hess had given his adjutant, Karlheinz Pintsch ,
18079-451: The coastline consist of machair , a low-lying dune pasture land. The Central Lowlands is a rift valley mainly comprising Paleozoic formations. Many of these sediments have economic significance for it is here that the coal and iron-bearing rocks that fuelled Scotland's industrial revolution are found. This area has also experienced intense volcanism, Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh being
18258-444: The country is varied incorporating both deciduous and coniferous woodland as well as moorland and tundra species. Large-scale commercial tree planting and management of upland moorland habitat for the grazing of sheep and field sport activities like deer stalking and driven grouse shooting impacts the distribution of indigenous plants and animals. The UK's tallest tree is a grand fir planted beside Loch Fyne , Argyll in
18437-426: The earlier alliterative work, although Malory alters the tragic ending of the Alliterative Morte Arthure into a triumphant ending. Malory's contextualization of this tale early in his collection of Arthurian tales seems to indicate Arthur's heroic potential which will deepen the irony of his eventual fall through his own pride, and the wrath and lust that are allowed to run rampant in his court. Andrew Boyle published
18616-419: The earlier events, suggesting that he had wanted the tales to cohere better but had not sufficiently revised the whole text to achieve this. This was followed by much debate in the late 20th-century academia over which version is superior, Caxton's print or Malory's original vision. Caxton's edition differs from the Winchester manuscript in many places. As well as numerous small differences on every page, there
18795-631: The end of the 14th century through the Scottish Renaissance to the Reformation , despite the effects of the Black Death in 1349 and increasing division between Highlands and Lowlands . Multiple truces reduced warfare on the southern border. The Treaty of Perpetual Peace was signed in 1502 by James IV of Scotland and Henry VII of England . James married Henry's daughter, Margaret Tudor . James invaded England in support of France under
18974-529: The end) perish at sea; this is mentioned matter-of-factly, with no apparent moral overtone. The narrative of the first book is mainly based on the Prose Merlin in its version from the Post-Vulgate Suite du Merlin (possibly the manuscript Cambridge University Library, Additional 7071 ). Malory addresses his contemporary preoccupations with legitimacy and societal unrest, which will appear throughout
19153-606: The execution of the Scottish king at Whitehall in 1649, amid the Wars of the Three Kingdoms and its events in Scotland , Oliver Cromwell , the victorious Lord Protector , imposed the British Isles' first written constitution – the Instrument of Government – on Scotland in 1652 as part of the republican Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland . The Protectorate Parliament was the first Westminster parliament to include representatives nominally from Scotland. The monarchy of
19332-401: The execution, killing several loyal knights of the Round Table, including, unwittingly, Gawain's younger brothers Gareth and Gaheris . Gawain, bent on revenge, prompts Arthur into a long and bitter civil war with Lancelot. After they leave to pursue Lancelot in France, where Gawain is mortally injured in a duel with Lancelot (and later finally reconciles with him on his death bed), Mordred seizes
19511-426: The family unit and had sharp divisions in wealth, although the vast majority were poor and worked full-time in subsistence agriculture . The Picts kept slaves (mostly captured in war) through the ninth century. Gaelic influence over Pictland and Northumbria was facilitated by the large number of Gaelic-speaking clerics working as missionaries. Operating in the sixth century on the island of Iona , Saint Columba
19690-626: The famous Agincourt campaign by 1414 or 1415; confirming Dugdale's original record and placing this knight's birth around 1393. Some late 20th-century researchers cast a doubt that this would make the Newbold Revel knight far too old to have written Le Morte : in prison in his mid-70s to early 80s, when, in Matthews' words, "the medieval view was that by sixty a man was bean fodder and forage, ready for nothing but death's pit." Because no other contemporary Thomas Malory had been shown to have been knighted,
19869-739: The fastest ships on the route to Virginia . Until the American War of Independence in 1776, Glasgow was the world's premier tobacco port, dominating world trade. The disparity between the wealth of the merchant classes of the Scottish Lowlands and the ancient clans of the Scottish Highlands grew, amplifying centuries of division. In the Highlands, clan chiefs gradually started to think of themselves more as commercial landlords than leaders of their people. These social and economic changes included
20048-647: The first phase of the Highland Clearances and, ultimately, the demise of clanship. The Scottish Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution turned Scotland into an intellectual, commercial and industrial powerhouse — so much so Voltaire said "We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilisation." With the demise of Jacobitism and the advent of the Union, thousands of Scots, mainly Lowlanders, took up numerous positions of power in politics, civil service,
20227-604: The first three Scottish parliament elections. The pro- independence Scottish National Party led by Alex Salmond achieved an overall majority in the 2011 election , winning 69 of the 129 seats available. The success of the SNP in achieving a majority in the Scottish Parliament paved the way for the September 2014 referendum on Scottish independence . The majority voted against the proposition, with 55% voting no to independence. More powers, particularly concerning taxation, were devolved to
20406-403: The first villages around 6,000 years ago. The well-preserved village of Skara Brae on the mainland of Orkney dates from this period. Neolithic habitation, burial, and ritual sites are particularly common and well preserved in the Northern Isles and Western Isles , where a lack of trees led to most structures being built of local stone. Evidence of sophisticated pre-Christian belief systems
20585-504: The first volume. Seeking more glory, Arthur and his knights then go to the war against (fictitious) Emperor Lucius who has just demanded Britain to resume paying tribute . Departing from Geoffrey of Monmouth 's literary tradition in which Mordred is left in charge (as this happens there near the end of the story), Malory's Arthur leaves his court in the hands of Constantine of Cornwall and sails to Normandy to meet his cousin Hoel . After that,
20764-440: The flawed Lancelot, for all his sincerity, is unable to completely escape his adulterous love of Guinevere, and is thus destined to fail where Galahad will succeed. This coincides with the personification of perfection in the form of Galahad, a virgin wielding the power of God. Galahad's life, uniquely entirely without sin, makes him a model of a holy knight that cannot be emulated through secular chivalry. Nevertheless, in contrast to
20943-414: The imposition of royal authority on the western Highland clans. The 1609 Statutes of Iona compelled the cultural integration of Hebridean clan leaders. In 1641 and again in 1643, the Parliament of Scotland unsuccessfully sought a union with England which was "federative" and not "incorporating", in which Scotland would retain a separate parliament. The issue of union split the parliament in 1648. After
21122-756: The industrial districts switched to Labour by 1922, with a base among the Irish Catholic working-class districts. Women were especially active in building neighbourhood solidarity on housing issues. The "Reds" operated within the Labour Party with little influence in Parliament and the mood changed to passive despair by the late 1920s. During the Second World War, Scotland was targeted by Nazi Germany largely due to its factories, shipyards, and coal mines. Cities such as Glasgow and Edinburgh were targeted by German bombers, as were smaller towns mostly located in
21301-543: The issue, with the Supreme Court later ruling against the argument. Following the Supreme Court decision, the Scottish Government stated that it wished to make amendments to the Scotland Act 1998 that would allow a referendum to be held in 2023. The mainland of Scotland comprises the northern third of the land mass of the island of Great Britain, which lies off the northwest coast of Continental Europe . The total area
21480-575: The late Middle English spelling, update some pronouns, and re-punctuate and re-paragraph the text. Others furthermore update the phrasing and vocabulary to contemporary Modern English . The following sentence (from Caxton's preface, addressed to the reader) is an example written in Middle English and then in Modern English: Since the 19th-century Arthurian revival, there have been numerous modern republications, retellings and adaptations of Le Morte d'Arthur . A few of them are listed below (see also
21659-418: The later adventures of the knights), apparently acting on an authorial assumption that the reader knows the story already and resulting in the problem of omitting important things "thereby often rendering his text obscure", and how he would sometimes turn descriptions of characters into proper names. Because there is so much lengthy ground to cover, Malory uses "so—and—then", often to transition his retelling of
21838-410: The leaderless Britain when he removes the fated sword from the stone in the contest set up by Merlin, which proves his birthright that he himself had not been aware of. The newly crowned King Arthur and his followers including King Ban and King Bors go on to fight against rivals and rebels, ultimately winning the war in the great Battle of Bedegraine . Arthur prevails due to his military prowess and
22017-458: The legend and the story focuses more on Arthur's skill as a warrior king. The stress placed on chivalric duty in the contemporary Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is in the Morte Arthure of a more practical nature and has more to do with personal loyalty. Also the Morte Arthure is less clearly part of the romance genre than Sir Gawain and other Arthurian poems and more like a chronicle of
22196-584: The legend of the young Cornish prince Tristan is the centerpiece of Le Morte d'Arthur as well as the longest of his eight books, constituting a third of the entire work. The variety of episodes, and the alleged lack of structural coherence in the Tristan narrative, raised questions about its role in Malory's text. Vinaver condemned it as "long and monotonous" and suggested it to be left for the last, his view shared by much of classic scholarship. Others, conversely, have since praised or at very least partially approved of
22375-459: The legend's Saxon invaders with the Ottoman Turks in the role of King Arthur 's foreign pagan enemies. Malory hearkens back to an age of knighthood, with chivalric codes of honour and jousting tournaments, and as noted by Ian Scott-Kilvert , characters which "consist almost entirely of fighting men, their wives or mistresses, with an occasional clerk or an enchanter, a fairy or a fiend,
22554-421: The long blood feud between the families of King Lot and King Pellinore ; and the mystical Grail Quest . Each of these plots would define one of the causes of the downfall of Arthur's kingdom, namely "the failures in love, in loyalty, in religion." Beverly Kennedy opined that the central theme of the work is that of adultery , from the begetting of Arthur to the cause of his fall. Much of the Malory scholarship
22733-478: The manuscript with Caxton's edition and reached similar conclusions. Microscopic examination revealed that ink smudges on the Winchester manuscript are offsets of newly printed pages set in Caxton's own font, which indicates that the Winchester Manuscript was in Caxton's print shop. The manuscript is believed to be closer on the whole to Malory's original and does not have the book and chapter divisions for which Caxton takes credit in his preface. It has been digitised by
22912-671: The mid-20th century: Thomas Malory of Hutton Conyers and Studley Royal in Yorkshire . This claim was put forward in 1966 in The Ill-Framed Knight: A Skeptical Inquiry into the Identity of Sir Thomas Malory by William Matthews. Matthews' primary arguments in favor of the Yorkshire Malory were the northerly dialect of the Morte ; the likelihood that this is the Malory who was excluded from
23091-465: The most widely spoken languages in the country , existing on a dialect continuum with each other. Scottish Gaelic speakers can be found all over Scotland, however the language is largely spoken natively by communities within the Hebrides . The number of Gaelic speakers numbers less than 2% of the total population, though state-sponsored revitalisation attempts have led to a growing community of second language speakers. The mainland of Scotland
23270-405: The native Scots pine forest exist and within these areas the Scottish crossbill , the UK's only endemic bird species and vertebrate , can be found alongside capercaillie , Scottish wildcat , red squirrel and pine marten . Various animals have been re-introduced, including the white-tailed eagle in 1975, the red kite in the 1980s, and there have been experimental projects involving
23449-516: The new Kingdom of Great Britain , with the Parliament of Scotland subsumed into the Parliament of Great Britain . In 1999, a Scottish Parliament was re-established, and has devolved authority over many areas of domestic policy . The country has its own distinct legal system , education system and religious history , which have all contributed to the continuation of Scottish culture and national identity . Scottish English and Scots are
23628-412: The ninth century, the Norse threat allowed a Gael named Kenneth I (Cináed mac Ailpín) to seize power over Pictland, establishing a royal dynasty to which the modern monarchs trace their lineage, and marking the beginning of the end of Pictish culture. The kingdom of Cináed and his descendants, called Alba, was Gaelic in character but existed on the same area as Pictland. By the end of the tenth century,
23807-458: The number of Scottish MPs and widened the franchise to include more of the middle classes. From the mid-century, there were increasing calls for Home Rule for Scotland and the post of Secretary of State for Scotland was revived. Towards the end of the century prime ministers of Scottish descent included William Gladstone , and the Earl of Rosebery . In the late 19th century the growing importance of
23986-618: The original French material from the Vulgate tradition in 1817. Afterwards, Caxton became the basis for many subsequent editions until the 1934 discovery of the Winchester Manuscript. The first mass-printed modern edition of Caxton was published in 1868 by Edward Strachey as a book for boys titled Le Morte Darthur: Sir Thomas Malory's Book of King Arthur and His Noble Knights of the Round Table , highly censored in accordance to Victorian morals. Many other 19th-century editors, abridgers and retellers such as Henry Frith ( King Arthur and His Knights of
24165-510: The pardon by Edward IV in 1468; and the fact that the Newbold Revel knight was far too old to be writing the Morte in the late 1460s. Matthews' interpretation was not widely accepted, primarily because he could not find evidence that the Yorkshireman was a knight. Cecelia Lampp Linton, however, has provided extensive detail about the Malorys of Yorkshire and offered evidence that Thomas of Yorkshire
24344-410: The poet using other works such as Wace 's Roman de Brut or Layamon 's Brut , the first texts to mention the Round Table. Some parts do not have a clear source and may have originated with the poet. Compared to many of the other depictions of Arthur's story, the Alliterative Morte Arthure is a relatively realistic version of events. There are few of the fantastical elements which often surround
24523-617: The political support for the exiled Catholic Stuart dynasty, remained a threat to the security of the British state under the Protestant House of Orange and the succeeding House of Hanover until the defeat of the Jacobite rising of 1745 . In 1698, the Company of Scotland attempted a project to secure a trading colony on the Isthmus of Panama . Almost every Scottish landowner who had money to spare
24702-669: The prophetic and magical counsel of Merlin (later eliminated and replaced by the sorceress Nimue ), further helped by the sword Excalibur that Arthur received from a Lady of the Lake . With the help of reconciled rebels, Arthur also crushes a foreign invasion in the Battle of Clarence . With his throne secure, Arthur marries the also young Princess Guinevere and inherits the Round Table from her father, King Leodegrance . He then gathers his chief knights, including some of his former enemies who now joined him, at his capital Camelot and establishes
24881-697: The question remained unresolved. The second candidate to receive scholarly support as the possible author of Le Morte Darthur is Thomas Mallory of Papworth St Agnes in Huntingdonshire , whose will, written in Latin and dated 16 September 1469, was described in an article by T. A. Martin in the Athenaeum magazine in September 1897. This Mallory was born in Shropshire in 1425, the son of Sir William Mallory, although there
25060-525: The remnant of a once much larger volcano. This area is relatively low-lying, although even here hills such as the Ochils and Campsie Fells are rarely far from view. The Southern Uplands is a range of hills almost 125 miles (200 km) long, interspersed with broad valleys. They lie south of a second fault line (the Southern Uplands fault) that runs from Girvan to Dunbar . The geological foundations largely comprise Silurian deposits laid down some 400 to 500 million years ago. The high point of
25239-405: The rest of Le Morte d'Arthur . His concern reflects the 15th-century England , where many were claiming their rights to power through violence and bloodshed. According to Helen Cooper in Sir Thomas Malory: Le Morte D'arthur – The Winchester Manuscript , the prose style, which mimics historical documents of the time, lends an air of authority to the whole work. This allowed contemporaries to read
25418-411: The same monarch the kingdoms retained their separate parliaments, laws and other institutions. The first Union Jack was designed at James's behest, to be flown in addition to the St Andrew's Cross on Scots vessels at sea. James VI and I intended to create a single kingdom of Great Britain, but was thwarted in his attempt to do so by the Parliament of England , which supported the wrecking proposal that
25597-408: The sangreal, & in thende the dolorous deth & departynge out of this worlde of them al." Caxton separated Malory's eight books into 21 books, subdivided the books into a total of 506 chapters, and added a summary of each chapter as well as a colophon to the entire book. In his preface, Caxton also discussed the subject of the historicity of King Arthur . The first printing of Malory's work
25776-443: The south-western peninsula of Kintyre ; Norway is 190 miles (305 km) to the northeast and the Faroe Islands , 168 miles (270 km) to the north. The territorial extent of Scotland is generally that established by the 1237 Treaty of York between Scotland and the Kingdom of England and the 1266 Treaty of Perth between Scotland and Norway. Important exceptions include the Isle of Man , which having been lost to England in
25955-403: The stories that become episodes instead of instances that can stand on their own. Arthur is born to the High King of Britain (Malory's "England") Uther Pendragon and his new wife Igraine , and then taken by the wizard Merlin to be secretly fostered by Arthur's uncle Ector in the country in turmoil after the death of Uther. Years later, the now teenage Arthur suddenly becomes the ruler of
26134-521: The story details Arthur's march on Rome through Almaine (Germany) and Italy. Following a series of battles resulting in the great victory over Lucius and his allies, and the Roman Senate 's surrender, Arthur is crowned a Western Emperor but instead arranges a proxy government and returns to Britain. This book is based mostly on the first half of the Middle English heroic poem Alliterative Morte Arthure (itself heavily based on Geoffrey's pseudo-chronicle Historia Regum Britanniae ). Caxton's print version
26313-443: The striking condemnation and humiliation of Lancelot's character in the Queste , Malory's version of the Knight of the Lake continues to be the paragon of, at least, earthly honor. Following the quest for the Holy Grail, Lancelot tries to maintain his knightly virtues but finds himself drawn back into his illicit romance with Guinevere. He stays true to her, tragically rejecting the desperate love of Elaine of Ascolat , and completes
26492-541: The style and vocabulary of romance literature typical of the period. Most of the events take place in a historical fantasy version of Britain and France at an unspecified time (on occasion, the plot ventures farther afield, to Rome and Sarras , and recalls Biblical tales from the ancient Near East ). Arthurian myth is set during the 5th to 6th centuries; however, Malory's telling contains many anachronisms and makes no effort at historical accuracy–even more so than his sources. Earlier romance authors have already depicted
26671-420: The subject of speculation, as at least six historical figures bore the name of "Sir Thomas Malory" (in various spellings) during the late 15th century. In the work, the author describes himself as "Knyght presoner Thomas Malleorre" ("Sir Thomas Maleore" according to the publisher William Caxton ). Historically, this has been taken as supporting evidence for the identification most widely accepted by scholars: that
26850-412: The technological developments of the Industrial Revolution throughout Britain. In literature, the most successful figure of the mid-19th century was Walter Scott . His first prose work, Waverley in 1814, is often called the first historical novel. It launched a highly successful career that probably more than any other helped define and popularise Scottish cultural identity. In the late 19th century,
27029-407: The term is also applied to the many saltwater inlets along the country's deeply indented western coastline. The geography of the many islands is varied. Some, such as Mull and Skye , are noted for their mountainous terrain, while the likes of Tiree and Coll are much flatter. Scotland comes from Scoti , the Latin name for the Gaels . Philip Freeman has speculated on the likelihood of
27208-446: The terms of the Auld Alliance and became the last monarch in Great Britain to die in battle, at Flodden in 1513. The war with England during the minority years of Mary, Queen of Scots between 1543 and 1551 is known as the Rough Wooing . In 1560, the Treaty of Edinburgh brought an end to the Siege of Leith and recognized the Protestant Elizabeth I as Queen of England. The Parliament of Scotland met and immediately adopted
27387-412: The text is the Lincoln Thornton Manuscript , written sometime in the mid-15th century by Robert Thornton , who copied an older text, now lost, which presumably derived from south-west Lincolnshire . The story is adapted from books IX and X of Geoffrey of Monmouth 's History of the Kings of Britain . It contains numerous episodes which are not in Geoffrey's work such as the Round Table and suggests
27566-513: The threat of an English invasion, played a leading role in convincing the Scots elite to back a union with England. On 22 July 1706, the Treaty of Union was agreed between representatives of the Scots Parliament and the Parliament of England . The following year, twin Acts of Union were passed by both parliaments to create the united Kingdom of Great Britain with effect from 1 May 1707 with popular opposition and anti-union riots in Edinburgh , Glasgow , and elsewhere. The union also created
27745-407: The throne and takes control of Arthur's kingdom. At the bloody final battle between Mordred's followers and Arthur's remaining loyalists in England, Arthur kills Mordred but is himself gravely wounded. As Arthur is dying, the lone survivor Bedivere casts Excalibur away, and Morgan and Nimue come together to take Arthur to Avalon . Following the disappearance and presumed passing of King Arthur, who
27924-412: The time of the Northumberland campaign and living much further to the South, interprets this record as referring to his own proposed candidate for authorship. Field proposed that it was during a final stint at Newgate Prison in London that he wrote Le Morte d'Arthur , and that Malory was released in October 1470 when Henry VI returned to the throne, dying only five months later. This Warwickshire knight
28103-425: The times. It contains little of the magic and symbolism of these other works, with no mention of Merlin , although it does use the literary device of the dream vision common in courtly romance and Chaucer . (In this case, however, the dream vision of a dragon (representing Arthur) fighting a monster is more clearly derived from the Dream of Mordecai in one of the longer Greek versions of the Book of Esther .) Arthur
28282-411: The title King Arthur's Death : Alliterative Morte Arthure and Stanzaic Le Morte Arthur . (Penguin, 1988: ISBN 9780140444452 ) Simon Armitage , the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom , published a verse translation of the Alliterative Morte Arthure with the title The Death of King Arthur . (Faber, 2012: ISBN 978-0571249480 ) Michael Smith published a verse translation of
28461-641: The twelfth and thirteenth centuries, much of Scotland was under the control of a single ruler. Initially, Gaelic culture predominated, but immigrants from France, England and Flanders steadily created a more diverse society, with the Gaelic language starting to be replaced by Scots; and a modern nation-state emerged from this. At the end of this period, war against England started the growth of a Scottish national consciousness . David I (1124–1153) and his successors centralised royal power and united mainland Scotland, capturing regions such as Moray, Galloway , and Caithness , although he could not extend his power over
28640-418: The wettest, with annual rainfall in a few places exceeding 3,000 mm (120 in). In comparison, much of lowland Scotland receives less than 800 mm (31 in) annually. Heavy snowfall is not common in the lowlands, but becomes more common with altitude. Braemar has an average of 59 snow days per year, while many coastal areas average fewer than 10 days of lying snow per year. Scotland's wildlife
28819-419: The wife of his lord and friend Arthur, but avoid (for a time being) to committing to an adulterous relationship with her. Nevertheless, it is still her love that is the ultimate source of Lancelot's supreme knightly qualities, something that Malory himself did not appear to be fully comfortable with as it seems to have clashed with his personal ideal of knighthood. Although a catalyst of the fall of Camelot, as it
28998-488: The wooden sailing vessels of both the merchant fleets and the battle fleets of the world. It became the world's pre-eminent shipbuilding centre. The industrial developments, while they brought work and wealth, were so rapid that housing, town planning, and provision for public health did not keep pace with them, and for a time living conditions in some of the towns and cities were notoriously bad, with overcrowding, high infant mortality, and growing rates of tuberculosis. While
29177-412: The work of a knight of the church than a secular repeat offender, as evidenced by Malory's own conclusion (rendered in Modern English): "... pray for me while I am in life that God send me good deliverance, and when I am dead I pray you all pray for my soul; for this book was ended the ninth year of the reign of King Edward the Fourth by Sir Thomas Maleore, knight, as Jesus help him by his great might, as he
29356-500: The working classes was marked by Keir Hardie 's success in the Mid Lanarkshire by-election, 1888 , leading to the foundation of the Scottish Labour Party , which was absorbed into the Independent Labour Party in 1895, with Hardie as its first leader. Glasgow became one of the largest cities in the world and known as "the Second City of the Empire " after London. After 1860, the Clydeside shipyards specialised in steamships made of iron (after 1870, made of steel), which rapidly replaced
29535-402: The “grete glorious God through grace of Himselven” (li 4) and a parataxis style of short, simple sentences similar to those seen in Iliad and Beowulf . Although the majority of Thomas Malory 's Le Morte d'Arthur is closer to the style of Gawain and French versions of the legend, the second part of Malory's work, King Arthur's war against the Romans , is primarily a translation of
29714-461: Was 35.1 °C (95.2 °F) at Floors Castle , Scottish Borders on 19 July 2022. The west of Scotland is usually warmer than the east, owing to the influence of Atlantic ocean currents and the colder surface temperatures of the North Sea . Tiree , in the Inner Hebrides, is one of the sunniest places in the country: it had more than 300 hours of sunshine in May 1975. Rainfall varies widely across Scotland. The western highlands of Scotland are
29893-431: Was a Knight Hospitaller , a militant of the Catholic Church . She has also examined the provenance of some of the known sources of the Morte and has demonstrated that this Malory would have had ready access to these documents. Accepting Linton's evidence would remove the primary objection to his authorship, making the contradictions presented by the Newbold Revel knight irrelevant. The Morte itself seems to be much more
30072-445: Was a prominent supporter for the Treaty of Union between Scotland and England had changed his position on the treaty, and unsuccessfully advocated for the treaty to be reversed. The deposed Jacobite Stuart claimants had remained popular in the Highlands and north-east, particularly among non- Presbyterians , including Roman Catholics and Episcopalian Protestants . Two major Jacobite risings launched in 1715 and 1745 failed to remove
30251-490: Was complex during this period: Scottish kings tried several times, sometimes with success, to exploit English political turmoil, followed by the longest period of peace between Scotland and England in the mediaeval period: from 1217–1296. The death of Alexander III in March 1286 broke the succession line of Scotland's kings. Edward I of England arbitrated between various claimants for the Scottish crown. In return for surrendering Scotland's nominal independence, John Balliol
30430-484: Was first arrested and imprisoned in 1451 for the ambush of Buckingham, but was released early in 1452. By March, he was back in the Marshalsea prison and then in Colchester , escaping on multiple occasions. In 1461, he was granted a pardon by King Henry VI , returning to live at his estate. After 1461, however, few records survive which scholars agree refer to Malory of Newbold Revel. In 1468–1470, King Edward IV issued four more general pardons which specifically excluded
30609-419: Was first printed by William Caxton (...) and has been read by generations of readers ever since. In a literary sense, Malory's text is the most important of all the treatments of Arthurian legend in English language, influencing writers as diverse as Edmund Spenser , Alfred, Lord Tennyson , Mark Twain and John Steinbeck ." An assistant headmaster at Winchester College , Walter Fraser Oakeshott discovered
30788-416: Was in the French romantic prose cycle tradition, the moral handling of the adultery between Lancelot and Guinevere in Le Morte implies their relationship is true and pure, as Malory focused on the ennobling aspects of courtly love. Other issues are demonstrated when Morgan enchants Lancelot, which reflects a feminization of magic, and in how the prominence of jousting tournament fighting in this tale indicates
30967-497: Was made by Caxton in 1485, becoming one of the first books to be ever printed in England. Only two copies of this original printing are known to exist, in the collections of the Morgan Library & Museum in New York and the John Rylands Library in Manchester. It proved popular and was reprinted in an illustrated form with some additions and changes in 1498 ( The Boke of Kyng Arthur Somtyme Kynge of Englande and His Noble Actes and Feates of Armes of Chyvalrye ) and 1529 ( The Boke of
31146-399: Was one of the earliest and best-known missionaries. The Vikings began to raid Scotland in the eighth century. Although the raiders sought slaves and luxury items, their main motivation was to acquire land. The oldest Norse settlements were in northwest Scotland, but they eventually conquered many areas along the coast. Old Norse entirely displaced Pictish in the Northern Isles . In
31325-424: Was pronounced king in 1292. In 1294, Balliol and other Scottish lords refused Edward's demands to serve in his army against the French. Scotland and France sealed a treaty on 23 October 1295, known as the Auld Alliance . War ensued, and John was deposed by Edward who took personal control of Scotland. Andrew Moray and William Wallace initially emerged as the principal leaders of the resistance to English rule in
31504-443: Was to be The hoole booke of kyng Arthur & of his noble knyghtes of the rounde table , and only its final section to be named Le Morte Darthur . At the end of the work, Caxton added: "Thus endeth this noble & joyous book entytled le morte Darthur, Notwythstondyng it treateth of the byrth, lyf, and actes of the sayd kynge Arthur; of his noble knyghtes of the rounde table, theyr meruayllous enquestes and aduentures, thachyeuyng of
31683-438: Was undertaken by emperors of the imperial Severan dynasty in response to the breaking of a treaty by the Caledonians in 197, but permanent conquest of the whole of Great Britain was forestalled by Roman forces becoming bogged down in punishing guerrilla warfare and the death of the senior emperor Septimius Severus ( r. 193–211 ) at Eboracum ( York ) after he was taken ill while on campaign. Although forts erected by
31862-508: Was widely accepted as the author of the Morte until the publication of Matthews' research in 1966. This identification was widely accepted through most of the 20th century based on the assumption that this candidate was born around 1416. The 1416 date was proposed by Field, contradicting the original record of this knight's military service record by Dugdale. In 1966, Matthews published original research demonstrating that Malory of Newbold Revel had in fact been an officer under King Henry V in
32041-638: Was withdrawn from the island altogether by the early 5th century, resulting in the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain and the immigration of the Saxons to southeastern Scotland and the rest of eastern Great Britain. Beginning in the sixth century, the area that is now Scotland was divided into three areas: Pictland , a patchwork of small lordships in central Scotland; the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria , which had conquered southeastern Scotland; and Dál Riata , which included territory in western Scotland and northern Ireland, and spread Gaelic language and culture into Scotland. These societies were based on
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