222-572: Scottish literature is literature written in Scotland or by Scottish writers . It includes works in English , Scottish Gaelic , Scots , Brythonic , French , Latin , Norn or other languages written within the modern boundaries of Scotland. The earliest extant literature written in what is now Scotland, was composed in Brythonic speech in the sixth century and has survived as part of Welsh literature . In
444-941: 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
666-556: A "Prayer for Protection" (attributed to St Mugint), c. mid-sixth century and Altus Prosator ("The High Creator", attributed to St Columba), c. 597. What is arguably the most important medieval work written in Scotland, the Vita Columbae , by Adomnán , abbot of Iona (627/8–704), was also written in Latin. The next most important piece of Scottish hagiography, the verse Life of St. Ninian ,
888-560: A "plausible vector for the spread of early Celtic languages into Britain". There was much less migration into Britain during the subsequent Iron Age, so it is more likely that Celtic reached Britain before then. Barry Cunliffe suggests that a branch of Celtic was already being spoken in Britain and that the Bronze Age migration introduced the Brittonic branch. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , which
1110-450: A "three-tier system, with Gaelic at the bottom and English at the top". The loss of the court as a centre of patronage in 1603 was a major blow to Scottish literature. A number of Scottish poets, including William Alexander, John Murray and Robert Aytoun accompanied the king to London, where they continued to write, but they soon began to anglicise their written language. James's characteristic role as active literary participant and patron in
1332-518: A bard . The medieval Welsh form of Latin Britanni was Brython (singular and plural). Brython was introduced into English usage by John Rhys in 1884 as a term unambiguously referring to the P-Celtic speakers of Great Britain, to complement Goidel ; hence the adjective Brythonic refers to the group of languages. " Brittonic languages " is a more recent coinage (first attested in 1923 according to
1554-435: A centre of royal patronage the tradition of Scots poetry subsided. It was revived after union with England in 1707 by figures including Allan Ramsay and James Macpherson . The latter's Ossian Cycle made him the first Scottish poet to gain an international reputation. He helped inspire Robert Burns , considered by many to be the national poet, and Walter Scott , whose Waverley Novels did much to define Scottish identity in
1776-587: A collection that included many major poetic works of the Stewart period. He led the trend for pastoral poetry, helping to develop the Habbie stanza , which would be later be used by Robert Burns as a poetic form . His Tea-Table Miscellany (1724–37) contained poems old Scots folk material, his own poems in the folk style and "gentilizings" of Scots poems in the English neo-classical style. His pastoral opera The Gentle Shepherd
1998-619: A distinct Brittonic culture and language. Britonia in Spanish Galicia seems to have disappeared by 900 AD. Wales and Brittany remained independent for a considerable time, however, with Brittany united with France in 1532, and Wales united with England by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542 in the mid 16th century during the rule of the Tudors (Y Tuduriaid), who were themselves of Welsh heritage on
2220-612: 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
2442-403: A fifteen-year period (1887–1901) and, although they cannot be described as members of a single school they all pursued an exploration of identity, rejecting nostalgia and parochialism and engaging with social and political issues. This period saw the emergence of a tradition of popular or working class theatre. Hundreds of amateur groups were established, particularly in the growing urban centres of
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#17331065376182664-473: A form of Synthetic Scots that combined different regional dialects and archaic terms. Other writers that emerged in this period, and are often treated as part of the movement, include the poets Edwin Muir and William Soutar , the novelists Neil Gunn , George Blake , Nan Shepherd , A. J. Cronin , Naomi Mitchison , Eric Linklater and Lewis Grassic Gibbon , and the playwright James Bridie . All were born within
2886-569: 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
3108-628: A group of Glasgow writers focused around meetings in the house of critic, poet and teacher Philip Hobsbaum . Also important in the movement was Peter Kravitz , editor of Polygon Books . Members of the group that would come to prominence as writers included James Kelman , Alasdair Gray , Liz Lochhead , Tom Leonard and Aonghas MacNeacail . In the 1990s major, prize winning, Scottish novels that emerged from this movement included Irvine Welsh 's Trainspotting (1993), Warner's Morvern Callar (1995), Gray's Poor Things (1992) and Kelman's How Late It Was, How Late (1994). These works were linked by
3330-578: 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
3552-619: 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 the Roman Empire. The Roman influence on the southern part of the country was considerable, and they introduced Christianity to Scotland. The Antonine Wall
3774-592: A major classical text in the Scots language and the first successful example of its kind in any Anglic language . It was finished in 1513, but overshadowed by the disaster at Flodden . Dutch Renaissance and Golden Age As a patron of poets and authors James V (r. 1513–42) supported William Stewart and John Bellenden , who translated the Latin History of Scotland compiled in 1527 by Hector Boece , into verse and prose. David Lyndsay (c. 1486–1555), diplomat and
3996-580: A major area of growth with the success of novelists including Val McDermid , Frederic Lindsay , Christopher Brookmyre , Quintin Jardine , Denise Mina and particularly the success of Edinburgh's Ian Rankin and his Inspector Rebus novels. Scottish play writing became increasingly internationalised, with Scottish writers such as Liz Lochhead and Edwin Morgan adapting classic texts, while Jo Clifford and David Greig investigated European themes. This period also saw
4218-671: A new tradition of vernacular Gaelic poetry began to emerge. While Classical poetry used a language largely fixed in the twelfth century, the vernacular continued to develop. In contrast to the Classical tradition, which used syllabic metre , vernacular poets tended to use stressed metre . However, they shared with the Classic poets a set of complex metaphors and role, as the verse was still often panegyric. A number of these vernacular poets were women, such as Mary MacLeod of Harris (c. 1615–1707). The tradition of neo-Latin poetry reached its fruition with
4440-402: 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
4662-422: A popular religious allegory and the first book published by a woman in Scotland. Anna Hume , daughter of David Hume of Godscroft, adapted Petrarch 's Triumphs as Triumphs of Love: Chastitie: Death (1644). This was the period when the ballad emerged as a significant written form in Scotland. Some ballads may date back to the late medieval era and deal with events and people that can be traced back as far as
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#17331065376184884-460: 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,
5106-536: A printing press under royal patent in 1507 would begin to make it easier to disseminate Scottish literature and was probably aimed at bolstering Scottish national identity. The first Scottish press was established in Southgait in Edinburgh by the merchant Walter Chepman (c. 1473–c. 1528) and the bookseller Andrew Myllar (f. 1505–08). Although the first press was relatively short lived, beside law codes and religious works,
5328-517: A ribald satire on the morals of the Presbyterian kirk, circulating in manuscript, but not published until 1722, helping to secure the association between Jacobitism and professional drama that discouraged the creation of professional theatre. After the Union in 1707 and the shift of political power to England, the use of Scots was discouraged by many in authority and education. Nevertheless, Scots remained
5550-555: A shareholder in the Theatre Royal , Edinburgh. Baillie's Highland themed The Family Legend was first produced in Edinburgh in 1810 with the help of Scott, as part of a deliberate attempt to stimulate a national Scottish drama. Scott also wrote five plays, of which Hallidon Hill (1822) and MacDuff's Cross (1822), were patriotic Scottish histories. Adaptations of the Waverley novels, largely first performed in minor theatres, rather than
5772-458: A small theatre in Carruber's Close in Edinburgh, but the passing of the 1737 Licensing Act made their activities illegal and the theatre soon closed. A new theatre was opened at Cannongate in 1747 and operated without a licence into the 1760s. In the later eighteenth century, many plays were written for and performed by small amateur companies and were not published and so most have been lost. Towards
5994-449: A sometimes overtly political reaction to Thatcherism that explored marginal areas of experience and used vivid vernacular language (including expletives and Scots). Gray and Iain Banks led a wave of fantasy, speculative and science-fiction writing with notable authors including Ken MacLeod , Andrew Crumey , Michel Faber , Alice Thompson and Frank Kuppner . Scottish crime fiction has been
6216-600: A sub-kingdom of Calchwynedd may have clung on in the Chilterns for a time. Novant , which occupied Galloway and Carrick, was soon subsumed by fellow Brittonic-Pictish polities by 700 AD. Aeron , which encompassed modern Ayrshire , was conquered by the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria by 700 AD. Some Brittonic kingdoms were able to successfully resist these incursions: Rheged (encompassing much of modern Northumberland and County Durham and areas of southern Scotland and
6438-784: A wide range of European languages. He was also the first Scots Makar (the official national poet), appointed by the inaugural Scottish government in 2004. The shift to drama that focused on working class life in the post-war period gained momentum with Robert McLeish's The Gorbals Story and the work of Ena Lamont Stewart , Robert Kemp and George Munro. Many major Scottish post-war novelists, such as Muriel Spark , James Kennaway , Alexander Trocchi , Jessie Kesson and Robin Jenkins spent much or most of their lives outside Scotland, but often dealt with Scottish themes, as in Spark's Edinburgh-set The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961) and Kennaway's script for
6660-473: A wider tradition of secular writing outside of Court and Kirk now largely lost. Before the advent of printing in Scotland, writers such as Robert Henryson , William Dunbar , Walter Kennedy and Gavin Douglas have been seen as leading a golden age in Scottish poetry . In the late fifteenth century, Scots prose also began to develop as a genre. Although there are earlier fragments of original Scots prose, such as
6882-619: 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
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7104-520: Is 96 miles (154 km) long and shared with England ; the country is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, 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 most populous of the cities of Scotland . The Kingdom of Scotland emerged as an independent sovereign state in
7326-449: Is a vernacular Scots comedy of errors, probably designed for court performance for Mary, Queen of Scots or James VI. The same system of professional companies of players and theatres that developed in England in this period was absent in Scotland, but James VI signalled his interest in drama by arranging for a company of English players to erect a playhouse and perform in 1599. Having extolled
7548-541: Is often sung at Hogmanay (the last day of the year), and " Scots Wha Hae " served for a long time as an unofficial national anthem of the country. Burns's poetry drew upon a substantial familiarity with and knowledge of Classical , Biblical , and English literature , as well as the Scottish Makar tradition. Burns was skilled in writing not only in the Scots language but also in the Scottish English dialect of
7770-428: Is referred to as the father of Scots poetry, holding a similar place to his contemporary Chaucer in England. In the early fifteenth century these were followed by Andrew of Wyntoun 's verse Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland and Blind Harry 's The Wallace , which blended historical romance with the verse chronicle . They were probably influenced by Scots versions of popular French romances that were also produced in
7992-672: 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
8214-609: Is some Norse literature from areas of Scandinavian settlement, such as the Northern Isles and the Western Isles . The famous Orkneyinga Saga however, although it pertains to the Earldom of Orkney , was written in Iceland . In addition to French, Latin too was a literary language, with works that include the "Carmen de morte Sumerledi", a poem which exults triumphantly the victory of the citizens of Glasgow over Somairle mac Gilla Brigte and
8436-525: 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
8658-671: The Oxford English Dictionary ). In the early Middle Ages , following the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain , the Anglo-Saxons called all Britons Bryttas or Wealas (Welsh), while they continued to be called Britanni or Brittones in Medieval Latin . From the 11th century, they are more often referred to separately as the Welsh , Cumbrians , Cornish , and Bretons , as they had separate political histories from then. From
8880-624: The Auchinleck Chronicle , the first complete surviving work includes John Ireland 's The Meroure of Wyssdome (1490). There were also prose translations of French books of chivalry that survive from the 1450s, including The Book of the Law of Armys and the Order of Knychthode and the treatise Secreta Secretorum , an Arabic work believed to be Aristotle's advice to Alexander the Great . The establishment of
9102-521: The British Isles , particularly Welsh people , suggesting genetic continuity between Iron Age Britain and Roman Britain, and partial genetic continuity between Roman Britain and modern Britain. On the other hand, they were genetically substantially different from the examined Anglo-Saxon individual and modern English populations of the area, suggesting that the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain left
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9324-727: 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
9546-548: The Castalian Band , which included William Fowler (c. 1560–1612), John Stewart of Baldynneis (c. 1545–c. 1605), and Alexander Montgomerie (c. 1550–98). They translated key Renaissance texts and produced poems using French forms, including sonnets and short sonnets, for narrative, nature description, satire and meditations on love. Later poets that followed in this vein included William Alexander (c. 1567–1640), Alexander Craig (c. 1567–1627) and Robert Ayton (1570–1627). By
9768-672: 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
9990-570: The Channel Islands . There they set up their own small kingdoms and the Breton language developed from Brittonic Insular Celtic rather than Gaulish or Frankish . A further Brittonic colony, Britonia , was also set up at this time in Gallaecia in northwestern Spain . Many of the old Brittonic kingdoms began to disappear in the centuries after the Anglo-Saxon and Scottish Gaelic invasions; Parts of
10212-604: The Classical epics . Fingal written in 1762 was speedily translated into many European languages, and its deep appreciation of natural beauty and the melancholy tenderness of its treatment of the ancient legend did more than any single work to bring about the Romantic movement in European, and especially in German, literature, influencing Herder and Goethe . Eventually it became clear that
10434-404: 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
10656-446: The Davidian Revolution of the thirteenth century a flourishing French language culture predominated, while Norse literature was produced from areas of Scandinavian settlement. The first surviving major text in Early Scots literature is the fourteenth-century poet John Barbour 's epic Brus , which was followed by a series of vernacular versions of medieval romances. These were joined in the fifteenth century by Scots prose works. In
10878-547: The Farne Islands fell to the Anglo-Saxons in 559 AD and Deira became an Anglo-Saxon kingdom after this point. Caer Went had officially disappeared by 575 AD becoming the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of East Anglia . Gwent was only partly conquered; its capital Caer Gloui ( Gloucester ) was taken by the Anglo-Saxons in 577 AD, handing Gloucestershire and Wiltshire to the invaders, while the westernmost part remained in Brittonic hands, and continued to exist in modern Wales. Caer Lundein , encompassing London , St. Albans and parts of
11100-411: The Fifth Crusade . In the thirteenth century, French flourished as a literary language , and produced the Roman de Fergus , the earliest piece of non-Celtic vernacular literature to survive from Scotland. Many other stories in the Arthurian Cycle , written in French and preserved only outside Scotland, are thought by some scholars including D. D. R. Owen, to have been written in Scotland. There
11322-431: 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
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#173310653761811544-458: 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
11766-482: The Home Counties , fell from Brittonic hands by 600 AD, and Bryneich, which existed in modern Northumbria and County Durham with its capital of Din Guardi (modern Bamburgh ) and which included Ynys Metcaut ( Lindisfarne ), had fallen by 605 AD becoming Anglo-Saxon Bernicia. Caer Celemion (in modern Hampshire and Berkshire) had fallen by 610 AD. Elmet, a large kingdom that covered much of modern Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Cheshire and likely had its capital at modern Leeds,
11988-416: 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
12210-449: 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 ,
12432-524: 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
12654-480: 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
12876-411: 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 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
13098-689: The Old English of the Anglo-Saxons, and Scottish Gaelic , although this was likely a gradual process in many areas. Similarly, the Brittonic colony of Britonia in northwestern Spain appears to have disappeared soon after 900 AD. The kingdom of Ystrad Clud (Strathclyde) was a large and powerful Brittonic kingdom of the Hen Ogledd (the 'Old North') which endured until the end of the 11th century, successfully resisting Anglo-Saxon, Gaelic Scots and later also Viking attacks. At its peak it encompassed modern Strathclyde, Dumbartonshire , Cumbria , Stirlingshire , Lanarkshire , Ayrshire , Dumfries and Galloway , Argyll and Bute , and parts of North Yorkshire ,
13320-475: 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
13542-479: The Pretanoí or Bretanoí . Pliny 's Natural History (77 AD) says the older name for the island was Albion , and Avienius calls it insula Albionum , "island of the Albions". The name could have reached Pytheas from the Gauls . The Latin name for the Britons was Britanni . The P-Celtic ethnonym has been reconstructed as * Pritanī , from Common Celtic * kʷritu , which became Old Irish cruth and Old Welsh pryd . This likely means "people of
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#173310653761813764-504: The Restoration comedies Courtship A-la-Mode (1700) and Love at First Sight (1704). These developed the character of the stage Scot, often a clown, but cunning and loyal. Newburgh Hamilton (1691–1761), born in Ireland of Scottish descent, produced the comedies The Petticoat-Ploter (1712) and The Doating Lovers or The Libertine (1715). He later wrote the libretto for Handel's Samson (1743), closely based on John Milton 's Samson Agonistes . James Thomson's plays often dealt with
13986-409: 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
14208-413: 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 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
14430-416: 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
14652-661: The Scottish Borders ) survived well into the 8th century AD, before the eastern part peacefully joined with the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Bernicia – Northumberland by 730 AD, and the west was taken over by the fellow Britons of Ystrad Clud . Similarly, the kingdom of Gododdin , which appears to have had its court at Din Eidyn (modern Edinburgh ) and encompassed parts of modern Northumbria , County Durham , Lothian and Clackmannanshire , endured until approximately 775 AD before being divided by fellow Brittonic Picts, Gaelic Scots and Anglo-Saxons. The Kingdom of Cait , covering modern Caithness , Sutherland , Orkney , and Shetland ,
14874-454: 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 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
15096-441: 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
15318-428: 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
15540-464: 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 the Caledonians and the Maeatae . Other ancient authors used the adjective "Caledonian" to mean anywhere in northern or inland Britain, often mentioning
15762-423: The indigenous Celtic people who inhabited Great Britain from at least the British Iron Age until the High Middle Ages , at which point they diverged into the Welsh , Cornish , and Bretons (among others). They spoke Common Brittonic , the ancestor of the modern Brittonic languages . The earliest written evidence for the Britons is from Greco-Roman writers and dates to the Iron Age. Ancient Britain
15984-427: The "Inchcolm Antiphoner", a hymn in praise of St. Columba. In the late Middle Ages, early Scots , often simply called English, became the dominant language of the country. It was derived largely from Old English, with the addition of elements from Gaelic and French. Although resembling the language spoken in northern England, it became a distinct dialect from the late fourteenth century onwards. It began to be adopted by
16206-628: 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,
16428-447: The 1550s, in the reign of Mary, Queen of Scots (r. 1542–67) and the minority of her son James VI (r. 1567–1625), cultural pursuits were limited by the lack of a royal court and by political turmoil. The Kirk, heavily influenced by Calvinism , also discouraged poetry that was not devotional in nature. Nevertheless, poets from this period included Richard Maitland of Lethington (1496–1586), who produced meditative and satirical verses in
16650-498: 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
16872-530: 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. Britons (historical) The Britons ( * Pritanī , Latin : Britanni , Welsh : Brythoniaid ), also known as Celtic Britons or Ancient Britons , were
17094-575: The 20th century. Celtic Britain was made up of many territories controlled by Brittonic tribes . They are generally believed to have dwelt throughout the whole island of Great Britain , at least as far north as the Clyde – Forth isthmus . The territory north of this was largely inhabited by the Picts ; little direct evidence has been left of the Pictish language , but place names and Pictish personal names recorded in
17316-480: The 2nd century AD and the 4th century AD during the period of Roman Britain . Six of these individuals were identified as native Britons. The six examined native Britons all carried types of the paternal R1b1a2a1a and carried the maternal haplogroups H6a1a , H1bs , J1c3e2 , H2 , H6a1b2 and J1b1a1 . The indigenous Britons of Roman Britain were genetically closely related to the earlier Iron Age female Briton, and displayed close genetic links to modern Celts of
17538-613: 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 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
17760-584: The Ancient British seem to have had generally similar cultural practices to the Celtic cultures nearest to them on the continent. There are significant differences in artistic styles, and the greatest period of what is known as the "Insular La Tène" style, surviving mostly in metalwork, was in the century or so before the Roman conquest, and perhaps the decades after it. The carnyx , a trumpet with an animal-headed bell,
17982-603: The British Isles after arriving from the continent in the 7th century BC. The language eventually began to diverge; some linguists have grouped subsequent developments as Western and Southwestern Brittonic languages . Western Brittonic developed into Welsh in Wales and the Cumbric language in the Hen Ogledd or "Old North" of Britain (modern northern England and southern Scotland), while
18204-493: 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
18426-464: The Britons and Caledonians in the north remained unconquered and Hadrian's Wall became the edge of the empire. A Romano-British culture emerged, mainly in the southeast, and British Latin coexisted with Brittonic. It is unclear what relationship the Britons had with the Picts , who lived outside of the empire in northern Britain, however, most scholars today accept the fact that the Pictish language
18648-409: The Brittonic state of Kernow . The Channel Islands (colonised by Britons in the 5th century) came under attack from Norse and Danish Viking attack in the early 9th century AD, and by the end of that century had been conquered by Viking invaders. The Kingdom of Ce , which encompassed modern Marr , Banff , Buchan , Fife , and much of Aberdeenshire , disappeared soon after 900 AD. Fortriu ,
18870-589: The Cumbrians of the Hen Ogledd ("Old North") in southern Scotland and northern England, and the remnants of the Pictish people in northern Scotland. Common Brittonic developed into the distinct Brittonic languages: Welsh , Cumbric , Cornish and Breton . In Celtic studies , 'Britons' refers to native speakers of the Brittonic languages in the ancient and medieval periods, "from the first evidence of such speech in
19092-799: The Discovery , a play about the restoration of a legitimate dynasty in Florence after many years of civil war. It was performed at the Tennis-Court Theatre at Holyrood Palace before the parliamentary high commissioner John Leslie, Earl of Rothes . Thomas Sydsurf's Tarugo's Wiles or the Coffee House , was first performed in London in 1667 and then in Edinburgh the year after and drew on Spanish comedy . A relative of Sydsurf, physician Archibald Pitcairne (1652–1713) wrote The Assembly or Scotch Reformation (1692),
19314-437: The English court made him a defining figure for English Renaissance poetry and drama, which would reach a pinnacle of achievement in his reign, but his patronage for the high style in his own Scottish tradition largely became sidelined. The only significant court poet to continue to work in Scotland after the king's departure was William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585–1649). As the tradition of classical Gaelic poetry declined,
19536-561: The English language. Some of his works, such as "Love and Liberty" (also known as "The Jolly Beggars"), are written in both Scots and English for various effects. His themes included republicanism , Radicalism , Scottish patriotism , anticlericalism , class inequalities, gender roles , commentary on the Scottish Kirk of his time, Scottish cultural identity , poverty, sexuality , and the beneficial aspects of popular socialising. Other major literary figures connected with Romanticism include
19758-587: The Heroic in History (1841), profoundly influenced philosophy and literature of the age. In the late 19th century, a number of Scottish-born authors achieved international reputations. Robert Louis Stevenson 's work included the urban Gothic novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), and played a major part in developing the historical adventure in books like Kidnapped and Treasure Island . Arthur Conan Doyle 's Sherlock Holmes stories helped found
19980-517: The Iron Age individuals were markedly different from later Anglo-Saxon samples, who were closely related to Danes and Dutch people . Martiano et al. (2016) examined the remains of a female Iron Age Briton buried at Melton between 210 BC and 40 AD. She was found to be carrying the maternal haplogroup U2e1e . The study also examined seven males buried in Driffield Terrace near York between
20202-641: The Isles of Scilly and Brittany are Brittonic, and Brittonic family and personal names remain common. During the 19th century, many Welsh farmers migrated to Patagonia in Argentina , forming a community called Y Wladfa , which today consists of over 1,500 Welsh speakers. In addition, a Brittonic legacy remains in England, Scotland and Galicia in Spain, in the form of often large numbers of Brittonic place and geographical names. Examples of geographical Brittonic names survive in
20424-616: The Lothians and the Scotiish Borders in the south-east. To these Christianisation, particularly from the sixth century, added Latin as an intellectual and written language. Modern scholarship, based on surviving placenames and historical evidence, indicates that the Picts spoke a Brythonic language, but none of their literature seems to have survived into the modern era. However, there is surviving literature from what would become Scotland in Brythonic, Gaelic, Latin and Old English . Much of
20646-511: The Lowlands, including Thompson's Seasons , which helped inspire a new form of nature poetry in Gaelic, which was not focused on their relations to human concerns. James Macpherson was the first Scottish poet to gain an international reputation, claiming to have found poetry written by Ossian , he published translations that acquired international popularity, being proclaimed as a Celtic equivalent of
20868-774: The Lowlands. Amateur companies encouraged native playwrights, including Robert McLellan . Some writers that emerged after the Second World War followed MacDiarmid by writing in Scots, including Robert Garioch and Sydney Goodsir Smith . Others demonstrated a greater interest in English language poetry, among them Norman MacCaig , George Bruce and Maurice Lindsay . George Mackay Brown from Orkney, and Iain Crichton Smith from Lewis, wrote both poetry and prose fiction shaped by their distinctive island backgrounds. The Glaswegian poet Edwin Morgan became known for translations of works from
21090-557: 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
21312-623: The Reformation. Buchanan was major influence on Continental theatre with plays such as Jepheths and Baptistes , which influenced Pierre Corneille and Jean Racine and through them the neo-classical tradition in French drama, but his impact in Scotland was limited by his choice of Latin as a medium. The anonymous The Maner of the Cyring of ane Play (before 1568) and Philotus (published in London in 1603), are isolated examples of surviving plays. The latter
21534-572: The Roman Empire invaded Britain. The British tribes opposed the Roman legions for many decades, but by 84 AD the Romans had decisively conquered southern Britain and had pushed into Brittonic areas of what would later become northern England and southern Scotland. During the same period, Belgic tribes from the Gallic-Germanic borderlands settled in southern Britain. Caesar asserts the Belgae had first crossed
21756-676: 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 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
21978-425: The Scots language as a medium for serious literature. Members of the movement were followed by a new generation of post-war poets including Edwin Morgan , who would be appointed the first Scots Makar by the inaugural Scottish government in 2004. From the 1980s Scottish literature enjoyed another major revival, particularly associated with writers including James Kelman and Irvine Welsh . Scottish poets who emerged in
22200-470: 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
22422-775: 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
22644-682: The Scottish court, a less highly regarded order of bards took over the functions of the filidh and they would continue to act in a similar role in the Highlands and Islands into the eighteenth century. They often trained in bardic schools, of which a few, like the one run by the MacMhuirich dynasty, who were bards to the Lord of the Isles , existed in Scotland and a larger number in Ireland, until they were suppressed from
22866-515: 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
23088-657: 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 ,
23310-572: The Southwestern dialect became Cornish in Cornwall and South West England and Breton in Armorica. Pictish is now generally accepted to descend from Common Brittonic, rather than being a separate Celtic language. Welsh and Breton survive today; Cumbric and Pictish became extinct in the 12th century. Cornish had become extinct by the 19th century but has been the subject of language revitalization since
23532-434: The ancestry of subsequent Iron Age people in this area, but not in northern Britain. The "evidence suggests that rather than a violent invasion or a single migratory event, the genetic structure of the population changed through sustained contacts between mainland Britain and Europe over several centuries, such as the movement of traders, intermarriage, and small-scale movements of family groups". The authors describe this as
23754-442: 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
23976-611: 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 ,
24198-510: The channel as raiders, only later establishing themselves on the island. 122 AD, the Romans fortified the northern border with Hadrian's Wall , which spanned what is now Northern England . In 142 AD, Roman forces pushed north again and began construction of the Antonine Wall , which ran between the Forth–Clyde isthmus, but they retreated back to Hadrian's Wall after only twenty years. Although
24420-399: 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
24642-536: The contest between public duty and private feelings, included Sophonisba (1730), Agamemnon (1738) and Tancrid and Sigismuda (1745), the last of which was an international success. David Mallet 's (c. 1705–65) Eurydice (1731) was accused of being a coded Jacobite play and his later work indicates opposition to the Walpole administration. The opera Masque of Alfred (1740) was a collaboration between Thompson, Mallet and composer Thomas Arne , with Thompson supplying
24864-452: The continuation of Scottish culture and national identity . Scottish English and Scots are 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
25086-444: 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
25308-509: The earliest Welsh literature was actually composed in or near the country we now call Scotland, in the Brythonic speech, from which Welsh would be derived, which was not then confined to Wales and Cornwall, although it was only written down in Wales much later. These include The Gododdin , considered the earliest surviving verse from Scotland, which is attributed to the bard Aneirin , said to have been resident in Brythonic kingdom of Gododdin in
25530-705: The early 16th century, and especially after the Acts of Union 1707 , the terms British and Briton could be applied to all inhabitants of the Kingdom of Great Britain , including the English , Scottish , and some Irish , or the subjects of the British Empire generally. The Britons spoke an Insular Celtic language known as Common Brittonic . Brittonic was spoken throughout the island of Britain (in modern terms, England, Wales, and Scotland). According to early medieval historical tradition, such as The Dream of Macsen Wledig ,
25752-455: The early modern era royal patronage supported poetry, prose and drama. James V 's court saw works such as Sir David Lindsay of the Mount 's The Thrie Estaitis . In the late sixteenth century James VI became patron and member of a circle of Scottish court poets and musicians known as the Castalian Band . When he acceded to the English throne in 1603 many followed him to the new court, but without
25974-520: The emergence of a new generation of Scottish poets that became leading figures on the UK stage, including Don Paterson , Kathleen Jamie , Douglas Dunn , Robert Crawford , and Carol Ann Duffy . Glasgow-born Duffy was named as Poet Laureate in May 2009, the first woman, the first Scot and the first openly gay poet to take the post. Scotland – in Europe (green & dark grey) – in
26196-631: 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
26418-738: The end of the century there were " closet dramas ", primarily designed to be read, rather than performed, including work by Hogg, Galt and Joanna Baillie (1762–1851), often influenced by the ballad tradition and Gothic Romanticism. Scottish poetry is often seen as entering a period of decline in the nineteenth century, with a descent of into infantalism as exemplified by the highly popular Whistle Binkie anthologies (1830–90). However, Scotland continued to produce talented and successful poets, including weaver-poet William Thom (1799–1848), Lady Margaret Maclean Clephane Compton Northampton (d. 1830), William Edmondstoune Aytoun (1813–65) and Thomas Campbell (1777–1844), whose works were extensively reprinted in
26640-652: 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
26862-426: 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
27084-687: 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
27306-423: The film Tunes of Glory (1956). Successful mass-market works included the action novels of Alistair MacLean , and the historical fiction of Dorothy Dunnett . A younger generation of novelists that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s included Shena Mackay , Alan Spence , Allan Massie and the work of William McIlvanney . From the 1980s Scottish literature enjoyed another major revival, particularly associated with
27528-534: The first millennium BC, reaching Britain towards the end of this period. In 2021, a major archaeogenetics study uncovered a migration into southern Britain during the Bronze Age , over a 500-year period from 1,300 BC to 800 BC. The migrants were "genetically most similar to ancient individuals from France" and had higher levels of Early European Farmers ancestry. From 1000 to 875 BC, their genetic marker swiftly spread through southern Britain, making up around half
27750-655: The first millennium BC. More recently, John Koch and Barry Cunliffe have challenged that with their 'Celtic from the West' theory, which has the Celtic languages developing as a maritime trade language in the Atlantic Bronze Age cultural zone before it spread eastward. Alternatively, Patrick Sims-Williams criticizes both of these hypotheses to propose 'Celtic from the Centre', which suggests Celtic originated in Gaul and spread during
27972-475: 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,
28194-507: 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
28416-400: The following centuries there was literature in Latin, under the influence of the Catholic Church, and in Old English , brought by Anglian settlers. As the state of Alba developed into the kingdom of Scotland from the eighth century, there was a flourishing literary elite who regularly produced texts in both Gaelic and Latin, sharing a common literary culture with Ireland and elsewhere. After
28638-427: The formerly Brittonic ruled territory in Britain, and the language and culture of the native Britons was thereafter gradually replaced in those regions, remaining only in Wales, Cornwall, the Isles of Scilly and Brittany , and for a time in parts of Cumbria, Strathclyde, and eastern Galloway. Cornwall (Kernow, Dumnonia ) had certainly been largely absorbed by England by the 1050s to early 1100s, although it retained
28860-418: The forms", and could be linked to the Latin name Picti (the Picts ), which is usually explained as meaning "painted people". The Old Welsh name for the Picts was Prydyn . Linguist Kim McCone suggests the name became restricted to inhabitants of the far north after Cymry displaced it as the name for the Welsh and Cumbrians . The Welsh prydydd , "maker of forms", was also a term for the highest grade of
29082-432: The fourteenth century. Thomas Owen Clancy has argued that the Lebor Bretnach , the so-called "Irish Nennius", was written in Scotland, and probably at the monastery in Abernethy, but this text survives only from manuscripts preserved in Ireland. Other literary work that has survived includes that of the prolific poet Gille Brighde Albanach . About 1218, Gille Brighde wrote a poem— Heading for Damietta —on his experiences of
29304-462: The head of the Lyon Court , was a prolific poet. He wrote elegiac narratives, romances and satires. George Buchanan (1506–82) had a major influence as a Latin poet, founding a tradition of neo-Latin poetry that would continue in to the seventeenth century. Contributors to this tradition included royal secretary John Maitland (1537–95), reformer Andrew Melville (1545–1622), John Johnston (1570?–1611) and David Hume of Godscroft (1558–1629). From
29526-403: The highlands and to create a cultural gulf with the lowlands. The first surviving major text in Scots literature is John Barbour 's Brus (1375), composed under the patronage of Robert II and telling the story in epic poetry of Robert I's actions before the English invasion until the end of the war of independence. The work was extremely popular among the Scots-speaking aristocracy and Barbour
29748-414: 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
29970-586: 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
30192-432: 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
30414-433: The larger Patent theatres , included The Lady in the Lake (1817), The Heart of Midlothian (1819), and Rob Roy , which underwent over 1,000 performances in Scotland in this period. Also adapted for the stage were Guy Mannering , The Bride of Lammermoor and The Abbot . These highly popular plays saw the social range and size of the audience for theatre expand and helped shape theatre-going practices in Scotland for
30636-496: The largest Brittonic-Pictish kingdom which covered Strathearn , Morayshire and Easter Ross , had fallen by approximately 950 AD to the Gaelic Kingdom of Alba ( Scotland ). Other Pictish kingdoms such as Circinn (in modern Angus and The Mearns ), Fib (modern Fife ), Fidach ( Inverness and Perthshire ), and Ath-Fotla ( Atholl ), had also all fallen by the beginning of the 11th century AD or shortly after. The Brythonic languages in these areas were eventually replaced by
30858-408: The late 1590s the king's championing of his native Scottish tradition was to some extent diffused by the prospect of inheriting of the English throne. Lyndsay produced an interlude at Linlithgow Palace for the king and queen thought to be a version of his play The Thrie Estaitis in 1540, which satirised the corruption of church and state, and which is the only complete play to survive from before
31080-420: The later Irish annals suggest it was indeed related to the Common Brittonic language . Their Goidelic (Gaelic) name, Cruithne , is cognate with Pritenī . The following is a list of the major Brittonic tribes, in both the Latin and Brittonic languages, as well as their capitals during the Roman period. The La Tène style , which covers British Celtic art , was late arriving in Britain, but after 300 BC
31302-406: 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 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
31524-420: The later eighth century, Viking raids and invasions may have forced a merger of the Gaelic and Pictish crowns that culminated in the rise of Cínaed mac Ailpín (Kenneth MacAlpin) in the 840s, which brought to power the House of Alpin and the creation of the Kingdom of Alba . Historical sources, as well as place name evidence, indicate the ways in which the Pictish language in the north and Cumbric languages in
31746-476: 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 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
31968-424: The literature of the country of his birth in Scots. His treatise, Some Rules and Cautions to be Observed and Eschewed in Scottish Prosody , published in 1584 when he was aged 18, was both a poetic manual and a description of the poetic tradition in his mother tongue, to which he applied Renaissance principles. He became patron and member of a loose circle of Scottish Jacobean court poets and musicians, later called
32190-427: The lyrics for his most famous work, the patriotic song " Rule, Britannia! ". In Scotland performances were largely limited to performances by visiting actors, who faced hostility from the Kirk. The Edinburgh Company of Players were able to perform in Dundee, Montrose, Aberdeen and regular performances at the Taylor's Hall in Edinburgh under the protection of a Royal Patent. Ramsay was instrumental in establishing them in
32412-435: The male side. Wales, Cornwall, Brittany and the Isles of Scilly continued to retain a distinct Brittonic culture, identity and language, which they have maintained to the present day. The Welsh and Breton languages remain widely spoken, and the Cornish language , once close to extinction, has experienced a revival since the 20th century. The vast majority of place names and names of geographical features in Wales, Cornwall,
32634-630: The mid 11th century AD when Cornwall was effectively annexed by the English, with the Isles of Scilly following a few years later, although at times Cornish lords appear to have retained sporadic control into the early part of the 12th century AD. Wales remained free from Anglo-Saxon, Gaelic Scots and Viking control, and was divided among varying Brittonic kingdoms, the foremost being Gwynedd (including Clwyd and Anglesey ), Powys , Deheubarth (originally Ceredigion , Seisyllwg and Dyfed ), Gwent , and Morgannwg ( Glamorgan ). These Brittonic-Welsh kingdoms initially included territories further east than
32856-421: The modern borders of Wales; for example, Powys included parts of modern Merseyside , Cheshire and the Wirral and Gwent held parts of modern Herefordshire , Worcestershire , Somerset and Gloucestershire , but had largely been confined to the borders of modern Wales by the beginning of the 12th century. However, by the early 1100s, the Anglo-Saxons and Gaels had become the dominant cultural force in most of
33078-458: The most enduring Gaelic poets. Walter Scott began as a poet and also collected and published Scottish ballads. His first prose work, Waverley in 1814, is often called the first historical novel. It launched a highly successful career, with other historical novels such as Rob Roy (1817), The Heart of Midlothian (1818) and Ivanhoe (1820). Scott probably did more than any other figure to define and popularise Scottish cultural identity in
33300-409: 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 ; 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
33522-448: The name Scots. In the south were the British ( Brythonic -speaking) descendants of the peoples of the Roman-influenced kingdoms of " The Old North ", the most powerful and longest surviving of which was the Kingdom of Strathclyde . Finally, there were the English or "Angles", Germanic invaders who had overrun much of southern Britain and held the Kingdom of Bernicia (later the northern part of Northumbria ), which reached into what are now
33744-539: The names of rivers, such as the Thames , Clyde , Severn , Tyne , Wye , Exe , Dee , Tamar , Tweed , Avon , Trent , Tambre , Navia , and Forth . Many place names in England and Scotland are of Brittonic rather than Anglo-Saxon or Gaelic origin, such as London , Manchester , Glasgow , Edinburgh , Carlisle , Caithness , Aberdeen , Dundee , Barrow , Exeter , Lincoln , Dumbarton , Brent , Penge , Colchester , Gloucester , Durham , Dover , Kent , Leatherhead , and York . Schiffels et al. (2016) examined
33966-405: 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
34188-420: The native Britons south of Hadrian's Wall mostly kept their land, they were subject to the Roman governors , whilst the Brittonic-Pictish Britons north of the wall probably remained fully independent and unconquered. The Roman Empire retained control of "Britannia" until its departure about AD 410, although parts of Britain had already effectively shrugged off Roman rule decades earlier. Thirty years or so after
34410-445: The nature of Gaelic poetry. The best poetry in this vein contained a strong element of protest, including Uilleam Mac Dhun Lèibhe's (William Livingstone, 1808–70) protest against the Islay and Seonaidh Phàdraig Iarsiadair's (John Smith, 1848–81) condemnation of those responsible for the clearances. The best known Gaelic poet of the era was Màiri Mhòr nan Óran (Mary MacPherson, 1821–98), whose evocation of place and mood has made her among
34632-438: The nature poetry of his Seasons . Tobias Smollett (1721–71) was a poet, essayist, satirist and playwright, but is best known for his picaresque novels , such as The Adventures of Roderick Random (1748) and The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle (1751) for which he is often seen as Scotland's first novelist. His work would be a major influence on later novelists such as Thackeray and Dickens . The early eighteenth century
34854-459: The next generation. From the eleventh century French, Flemish and particularly English became the main languages of Scottish burghs , most of which were located in the south and east. At least from the accession of David I (r. 1124–53), as part of a Davidian Revolution that introduced French culture and political systems, Gaelic ceased to be the main language of the royal court and was probably replaced by French. After this " gallicisation " of
35076-410: The nineteenth century. Scottish "national drama" emerged in the early 1800s, as plays with specifically Scottish themes began to dominate the Scottish stage. The existing repertoire of Scottish-themed plays included John Home 's Douglas (1756) and Ramsay's The Gentle Shepherd (1725), with the last two being the most popular plays among amateur groups. Scott was keenly interested in drama, becoming
35298-404: The nineteenth century. Towards the end of the Victorian era a number of Scottish-born authors achieved international reputations, including Robert Louis Stevenson , Arthur Conan Doyle , J. M. Barrie and George MacDonald . In the twentieth century there was a surge of activity in Scottish literature, known as the Scottish Renaissance . The leading figure, Hugh MacDiarmid , attempted to revive
35520-412: 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,
35742-407: 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 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
35964-411: 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
36186-400: The period 1800–60. Among the most influential poets of the later nineteenth century were James Thomson (1834–82) and John Davidson (1857–1909), whose work would have a major impact on modernist poets including Hugh MacDiarmid, Wallace Stevens and T. S. Eliot . The Highland Clearances and widespread emigration significantly weakened Gaelic language and culture and had a profound impact on
36408-438: The period, including The Buik of Alexander , Launcelot o the Laik and The Porteous of Noblenes by Gilbert Hay . Much Middle Scots literature was produced by makars , poets with links to the royal court, which included James I (who wrote The Kingis Quair ). Many of the makars had university education and so were also connected with the Kirk . However, Dunbar's Lament for the Makaris (c.1505) provides evidence of
36630-502: The poems were not direct translations from the Gaelic, but flowery adaptations made to suit the aesthetic expectations of his audience. Robert Burns was highly influenced by the Ossian cycle. Burns, an Ayrshire poet and lyricist, is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and a major figure in the Romantic movement. As well as making original compositions, Burns also collected folk songs from across Scotland, often revising or adapting them. His poem (and song) " Auld Lang Syne "
36852-467: The poets and novelists James Hogg (1770–1835), Allan Cunningham (1784–1842) and John Galt (1779–1839), Drama was pursued by Scottish playwrights in London such as Catherine Trotter (1679–1749), born in London to Scottish parents and later moving to Aberdeen. Her plays and included the verse-tragedy Fatal Friendship (1698), the comedy Love at a Loss (1700) and the history The Revolution in Sweden (1706). David Crawford's (1665–1726) plays included
37074-410: 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
37296-416: The post-Roman Celtic speakers of Armorica were colonists from Britain, resulting in the Breton language , a language related to Welsh and identical to Cornish in the early period, and is still used today. Thus, the area today is called Brittany (Br. Breizh , Fr. Bretagne , derived from Britannia ). Common Brittonic developed from the Insular branch of the Proto-Celtic language that developed in
37518-411: The pre-Roman Iron Age , until the central Middle Ages ". The earliest known reference to the inhabitants of Britain was made by Pytheas , a Greek geographer who made a voyage of exploration around the British Isles between 330 and 320 BC. Although none of his own writings remain, writers during the following centuries make frequent reference to them. The ancient Greeks called the people of Britain
37740-429: The press also produced editions of the work of Scottish makars before its demise, probably about 1510. The next recorded press was that of Thomas Davidson (f. 1532–42), the first in a long line of "king's printers", who also produced editions of works of the makars. The landmark work in the reign of James IV was Gavin Douglas's version of Virgil 's Aeneid , the Eneados , which was the first complete translation of
37962-400: The publication of the anthology of the Deliciae Poetarum Scotorum (1637), published in Amsterdam by Arthur Johnston (c. 1579–1641) and Sir John Scott of Scotstarvet (1585–1670) and containing work by the major Scottish practitioners since Buchanan. This period was marked by the work of the first named female Scottish poets. Elizabeth Melville 's (f. 1585–1630) Ane Godlie Dream (1603) was
38184-453: 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 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
38406-439: The regions of modern East Anglia , East Midlands , North East England , Argyll , and South East England were the first to fall to the Germanic and Gaelic Scots invasions. The kingdom of Ceint (modern Kent) fell in 456 AD. Linnuis (which stood astride modern Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire) was subsumed as early as 500 AD and became the English Kingdom of Lindsey. Regni (essentially modern Sussex and eastern Hampshire )
38628-418: The remains of three Iron Age Britons buried ca. 100 BC. A female buried in Linton, Cambridgeshire carried the maternal haplogroup H1e , while two males buried in Hinxton both carried the paternal haplogroup R1b1a2a1a2 , and the maternal haplogroups K1a1b1b and H1ag1 . Their genetic profile was considered typical for Northwest European populations. Though sharing a common Northwestern European origin,
38850-525: 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
39072-453: 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
39294-466: The rest of the century. Scotland was also the location of two of the most important literary magazines of the era, The Edinburgh Review , founded in 1802 and Blackwood's Magazine , founded in 1817. Together they had a major impact on the development of British literature and drama in the era of Romanticism. Thomas Carlyle , in such works as Sartor Resartus (1833–34), The French Revolution: A History (1837) and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, &
39516-444: The ruling elite as they gradually abandoned French. By the fifteenth century it was the language of government, with acts of parliament, council records and treasurer's accounts almost all using it from the reign of James I onwards. As a result, Gaelic, once dominant north of the River Tay , began a steady decline. Lowland writers began to treat Gaelic as a second class, rustic and even amusing language, helping to frame attitudes towards
39738-411: 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
39960-506: The same period included Carol Ann Duffy , who was named as the first Scot to be UK Poet Laureate in May 2009. After the collapse of Roman authority in the early fifth century, four major circles of political and cultural influence emerged in Northern Britain. In the east were the Picts , whose kingdoms eventually stretched from the river Forth to Shetland. In the west were the Gaelic ( Goidelic )-speaking people of Dál Riata , who had close links with Ireland, from where they brought with them
40182-444: The seventeenth century they were used as a literary form by aristocratic authors including Robert Sempill (c. 1595–c. 1665), Lady Elizabeth Wardlaw (1627–1727) and Lady Grizel Baillie (1645–1746). The loss of a royal court also meant there was no force to counter the kirk's dislike of theatre, which struggled to survive in Scotland. However, it was not entirely extinguished. The kirk used theatre for its own purposes in schools and
40404-424: The seventeenth century. Members of bardic schools were trained in the complex rules and forms of Gaelic poetry. Much of their work was never written down and what survives was only recorded from the sixteenth century. It is possible that more Middle Irish literature was written in medieval Scotland than is often thought, but has not survived because the Gaelic literary establishment of eastern Scotland died out before
40626-491: The sixth century. It is a series of elegies to the men of the Gododdin killed fighting at the Battle of Catraeth around 600 AD. Similarly, the Battle of Gwen Ystrad is attributed to Taliesin , traditionally thought to be a bard at the court of Rheged in roughly the same period. There are religious works in Gaelic including the Elegy for St Columba by Dallan Forgaill, c. 597 and "In Praise of St Columba" by Beccan mac Luigdech of Rum, c. 677. In Latin they include
40848-405: The south were overlaid and replaced by Gaelic, Old English and later Norse . The Kingdom of Alba was overwhelmingly an oral society dominated by Gaelic culture. Our fuller sources for Ireland of the same period suggest that there would have been filidh , who acted as poets, musicians and historians, often attached to the court of a lord or king, and passed on their knowledge and culture in Gaelic to
41070-443: 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
41292-434: The style of Dunbar; John Rolland (fl. 1530–75), who wrote allegorical satires in the tradition of Douglas and courtier and minister Alexander Hume (c. 1556–1609), whose corpus of work includes nature poetry and epistolary verse . Alexander Scott 's (?1520–82/3) use of short verse designed to be sung to music, opened the way for the Castilan poets of James VI's adult reign. In the 1580s and 1590s James VI strongly promoted
41514-412: 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,
41736-446: 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
41958-404: The thirteenth century, including " Sir Patrick Spens " and " Thomas the Rhymer ", but which are not known to have existed until the eighteenth century. They were probably composed and transmitted orally and only began to be written down and printed, often as broadsides and as part of chapbooks , later being recorded and noted in books by collectors including Robert Burns and Walter Scott . From
42180-513: 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
42402-409: The time of the Roman departure, the Germanic -speaking Anglo-Saxons began a migration to the south-eastern coast of Britain, where they began to establish their own kingdoms, and the Gaelic -speaking Scots migrated from Dál nAraidi (modern Northern Ireland ) to the west coast of Scotland and the Isle of Man. At the same time, Britons established themselves in what is now called Brittany and
42624-422: The total population, though state-sponsored revitalisation attempts have led to a growing community of second language speakers. The mainland of Scotland 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
42846-411: The tradition of detective fiction. The " kailyard tradition " at the end of the century, brought elements of fantasy and folklore back into fashion as can be seen in the work of figures like J. M. Barrie , most famous for his creation of Peter Pan and George MacDonald whose works including Phantastes played a major part in the creation of the fantasy genre. In the early twentieth century there
43068-641: 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
43290-439: The vernacular of many rural communities and the growing number of urban working-class Scots. Literature developed a distinct national identity and began to enjoy an international reputation. Allan Ramsay (1686–1758) was the most important literary figure of the era, often described as leading a "vernacular revival". He laid the foundations of a reawakening of interest in older Scottish literature, publishing The Ever Green (1724),
43512-439: The virtues of Scots "poesie", following his accession to the English throne, James VI increasingly favoured the language of southern England. In 1611 the Kirk adopted the English Authorised King James Version of the Bible. In 1617 interpreters were declared no longer necessary in the port of London because Scots and Englishmen were now "not so far different bot ane understandeth ane uther". Jenny Wormald, describes James as creating
43734-408: The western Pennines , and as far as modern Leeds in West Yorkshire . Thus the Kingdom of Strathclyde became the last of the Brittonic kingdoms of the 'old north' to fall in the 1090s when it was effectively divided between England and Scotland. The Britons also retained control of Wales and Kernow (encompassing Cornwall , parts of Devon including Dartmoor , and the Isles of Scilly ) until
43956-418: 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
44178-407: 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 the Roman army in the Severan campaign were placed near those established by Agricola and were clustered at the mouths of
44400-488: 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
44622-500: 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
44844-461: 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
45066-409: Was a new surge of activity in Scottish literature, influenced by modernism and resurgent nationalism, known as the Scottish Renaissance. The leading figure in the movement was Hugh MacDiarmid (the pseudonym of Christopher Murray Grieve). MacDiarmid attempted to revive the Scots language as a medium for serious literature in poetic works including " A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle " (1936), developing
45288-445: 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
45510-424: Was accompanied by wholesale population changes is still debated. During this time, Britons migrated to mainland Europe and established significant colonies in Brittany (now part of France), the Channel Islands , and Britonia (now part of Galicia , Spain). By the 11th century, Brittonic-speaking populations had split into distinct groups: the Welsh in Wales, the Cornish in Cornwall, the Bretons in Brittany,
45732-454: Was also a period of innovation in Gaelic vernacular poetry. Major figures included Rob Donn Mackay (1714–78) and Donnchadh Bàn Mac an t-Saoir (Duncan Ban MacIntyre) (1724–1812). The most significant figure in the tradition was Alasdair mac Mhaighstir Alasdair (Alasdair MacDonald) (c. 1698–1770). His interest in traditional forms can be seen in his most significant poem Clanranald's Gallery . He also mixed these traditions with influences from
45954-446: 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 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
46176-426: Was closely related to Common Brittonic. Following the end of Roman rule in Britain during the 5th century, Anglo-Saxon settlement of eastern and southern Britain began. The culture and language of the Britons fragmented, and much of their territory gradually became Anglo-Saxon , while the north became subject to a similar settlement by Gaelic -speaking tribes from Ireland. The extent to which this cultural change
46398-490: 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
46620-416: Was conquered by Gaelic Scots in 871 AD. Dumnonia (encompassing Cornwall , Devonshire , and the Isles of Scilly ) was partly conquered during the mid 9th century AD, with most of modern Devonshire being annexed by the Anglo-Saxons, but leaving Cornwall, the Isles of Scilly ( Enesek Syllan ), and for a time part of western Devonshire (including Dartmoor ), still in the hands of the Britons, where they became
46842-416: Was conquered by the Anglo-Saxons in 627 AD. Pengwern , which covered Staffordshire , Shropshire , Herefordshire , and Worcestershire , was largely destroyed in 656 AD, with only its westernmost parts in modern Wales remaining under the control of the Britons, and it is likely that Cynwidion, which had stretched from modern Bedfordshire to Northamptonshire, fell in the same general period as Pengwern, though
47064-429: 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 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
47286-452: Was likely fully conquered by 510 AD. Ynys Weith (Isle of Wight) fell in 530 AD, Caer Colun (essentially modern Essex) by 540 AD. The Gaels arrived on the northwest coast of Britain from Ireland, dispossessed the native Britons, and founded Dal Riata which encompassed modern Argyll , Skye , and Iona between 500 and 560 AD. Deifr (Deira) which encompassed modern-day Teesside, Wearside, Tyneside, Humberside, Lindisfarne ( Medcaut ), and
47508-430: Was made up of many tribes and kingdoms, associated with various hillforts . The Britons followed an Ancient Celtic religion overseen by druids . Some of the southern tribes had strong links with mainland Europe, especially Gaul and Belgica , and minted their own coins . The Roman Empire conquered most of Britain in the 1st century AD, creating the province of Britannia . The Romans invaded northern Britain , but
47730-399: 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
47952-546: Was one of the most influential works of the era. He would also play a leading role in supporting drama in Scotland and the attempt to found a permanent theatre in the capital. Ramsay was part of a community of poets working in Scots and English. These included William Hamilton of Gilbertfield (c. 1665–1751), Robert Crawford (1695–1733), Alexander Ross (1699–1784), the Jacobite William Hamilton of Bangour (1704–54), socialite Alison Rutherford Cockburn (1712–94), and poet and playwright James Thomson 's (1700–48), most famous for
48174-510: Was originally compiled by the orders of King Alfred the Great in approximately 890, starts with this sentence: "The island Britain is 800 miles long and 200 miles broad. And there are in the island five nations; English, Welsh (or British), Scottish, Pictish, and Latin. The first inhabitants were the Britons, who came from Armenia, and first peopled Britain southward" ("Armenia" is possibly a mistaken transcription of Armorica , an area in northwestern Gaul including modern Brittany ). In 43 AD,
48396-424: 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
48618-466: Was slow to suppress popular folk dramas . Surviving plays for the period include William Alexander's Monarchicke Tragedies , written just before his departure with the king for England in 1603. They were closet dramas , designed to be read rather than performed, and already indicate Alexander's preference for southern English over the Scots language. There were some attempts to revive Scottish drama. In 1663 Edinburgh lawyer William Clerke wrote Marciano or
48840-415: Was used by Celtic Britons during war and ceremony. There are competing hypotheses for when Celtic peoples, and the Celtic languages, first arrived in Britain, none of which have gained consensus. The traditional view during most of the twentieth century was that Celtic culture grew out of the central European Hallstatt culture , from which the Celts and their languages reached Britain in the second half of
49062-399: Was used for Ireland. By the 11th century at the latest, Scotia was being used to refer to (Gaelic-speaking) Scotland north of 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
49284-437: Was written in Latin in Whithorn in the eighth century. In Old English there is The Dream of the Rood , from which lines are found on the Ruthwell Cross , making it the only surviving fragment of Northumbrian Old English from early Medieval Scotland. It has also been suggested on the basis of ornithological references that the poem The Seafarer was composed somewhere near the Bass Rock in East Lothian. Beginning in
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