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Was Henry IV's revolution as Glorious as William III's...?

• Message 1.Β 

  Posted by Catigern (U14419012) on Sunday, 13th March 2011

  I suppose I'd best start by dealing with the tiresome 'Dutch invasion' interpretation of the Glorious Revolution that prevails in certain quarters...
  
  In Scotland, the the Glorious Revolution was secured by the heroic victory of purely native troops over the Jacobite forces of reaction and absolutism at the Battle of Dunkeld, without any help from Dutch, Danes or anyone else. In England, the severest threat Good King William made to the realm was that, if not offered the crown, he'd take his army, get back on his ships and go away again. In other words, the the Revolution of 1688-9 was truly Glorious, whether one chooses to celebrate military prowess or pacificity.
  
  Can the same be said of the Lancastrian coup a few centuries earlier? Good King Henry IV certainly seems to have enjoyed virtually universal support for his deposition of Richard II. Subsequent disruptions, such as the terrorism of the uncouth, western bandit Owen Glendower and the Yorkist rebellions, can be attributed to the malice and vain ambition of a few malcontents, much like the Jacobite rebellions of the 18th century.
  
  WMUAWHG!

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  Posted by Scriptofacto99 (U3268593) on Sunday, 13th March 2011

  Jacobite forces were defeated at Dunkeld because they were betrayed by their fellow countrymen, the treacherous Lowlanders!
  
  Since the time of the Reformation the main issue that has divided Scots has been one of sectarianism. As a result, Lowlanders were willing to betray their fellow countrymen, and even join together with the traditional enemy, England, in order to defeat the true Scots, the Highlanders.
  
  Re the so-called 'Glorious Revolution,' or the Great Betrayal of a lawful King:
  
  James II was the lawful King of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. However, on the birth of his son and heir, he was both betrayed and usurped by factions within his own administration. His 'crime' being that he remained true to the Faith. A position which was hardly surprising when one considers that it was English Catholics who rescued most of his family (bar the unfortunate Charles I), especially his elder brother the future Charles II following the Royalist defeat at Worcester. His mother, Queen Henrietta Marie, was also undoubtedly a major influence on his life. At the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660, Charles II showed a great deal of toleration to both religious factions. However, whilst on his deathbed, Charles converted to Catholicism. Though in truth, ever since his father's murder at the hands of Puritan fanatics, and his rescue from Roundhead marauders following the Royalist defeat at Worcester, Charles in heart was undoubtedly Catholic.
  
  Had the Scots disregarded sectarian prejudice and joined together with their fellow countrymen, the Highlanders, in favour of their rightful King, the ranks of the Jacobite army could have trebled or even quadrupled. Such a show of force would have stirred the most indifferent of English hearts, swelling the Jacobite ranks yet further. The failure of Lowland Scots, or Anglo-Scots if you prefer, to support the Royal House of Stuart ended in one of the bloodiest massacres in Scottish history. That is why to this very day, Highlanders are seen as the true Scots, the noble Scots. For it was the Highlanders and their allies who at least had the courage to face the old enemy. The Lowlanders on the other hand, many of whom still retain the English surnames of their forefathers will be forever tainted with those treacherous events at Culloden.

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  Posted by cloudyj (U1773646) on Monday, 14th March 2011

  Jacobite forces were defeated at Dunkeld because they were betrayed by their fellow countrymen, the treacherous Lowlanders!Β 
  
  Perhaps if the Stuart kings hadn't sought to make war on the lowlanders and their religious beliefs they might have had more sympathy.
  
  As a result, Lowlanders were willing to betray their fellow countrymen, and even join together with the traditional enemy, England, in order to defeat the true Scots, the Highlanders.Β 
  
  As opposed to their fellow Highlanders who'd happily raped and pillaged their way round Ayrshire in the previous decade? Hardly setting a fine example of Scottish unity.
  
  Re the so-called 'Glorious Revolution,' or the Great Betrayal of a lawful King:
  James II was the lawful King of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. However, on the birth of his son and heir, he was both betrayed and usurped by factions within his own administration.Β 
  
  A king who'd been declared forfeit of his crown for deserting the country by Scotland's National Convention.
  
  His 'crime' being that he remained true to the Faith.Β 
  
  "THE faith"? Not the faith of the vast majority of his subjects. Perhaps that's why they had little loyalty for the Stuarts.
  
  Had the Scots disregarded sectarian prejudice and joined together with their fellow countrymen, the Highlanders, in favour of their rightful King, the ranks of the Jacobite army could have trebled or even quadrupled.Β 
  
  Had Scotland's kings not been so overtly sectarian the Scots may have rallied to them.
  
  ...Charles I...Β 
  
  Another Scottish king who'd declared war on his subjects to force them to worship against their will.
  
  The failure of Lowland Scots, or Anglo-Scots if you prefer,Β 
  
  Anglo-scots? As opposed to the Hiberno-Norse-Scots of the Highlands and Islands perhaps. Those "Anglo-Scots" as you call them accepted the Stuarts as kings long before the Highlanders of the north west.
  
  That is why to this very day, Highlanders are seen as the true Scots, the noble Scots.Β 
  
  No. They're seen like that because the Jacobites won the romantic propoganda war in the C19th and because Scots Nationalists have successfully converted the staunchly Unionist Stuarts into a myth of failed independence leaders.
  
  The Lowlanders on the other hand, many of whom still retain the English surnames of their forefathersΒ 
  
  To be contrasted with the Highland Scots, many of whom still bore the Irish names of their Irish ancestors. The Anglian ancestors of Scots were in Scotland just as early (if not earlier) than the Irish ancestors of parts of the Highlands. So who's the true Scot? Possibly the Picts whom the Scots conquored and erased from history?

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  Posted by Scriptofacto99 (U3268593) on Monday, 14th March 2011

  
  A good response. However, I remain unconvinced. Had the Lowlanders proved loyal to the Stuarts they would have undoubtedly been given greater scope for religious toleration at some point.
  
  Which brings us to the issue of religious toleration in Scotland. Sectarian prejudice has vertually vanished in England. However, it still simmers in Northern Ireland, though hopefully it will continue to subside. Why then does Scotland, and especially the Lowlands, suffer from this affliction? We are all familiar with the shenanigans surrounding the 'Old Firm' clashes but why should this form of bigotry inflict itself on the wider population in this day and age? Have these inter-denominational differences not been rendered irrelevent in the modern world? Most importantly, what is the solution. Is it legislation, education or a combination of these?

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  Posted by cloudyj (U1773646) on Tuesday, 15th March 2011

  Had the Lowlanders proved loyal to the Stuarts they would have undoubtedly been given greater scope for religious toleration at some point. Β 
  
  Really? For Prebyterian Lowlanders, all the evidence from the reigns of Charles I, Charles II and James II points in them moving in the opposite direction.
  
  Which brings us to the issue of religious toleration in Scotland.Β 
  
  The Covenenters should take their fair share of blame for this too. Once in power, they showed little regard for the religious freedoms of others.
  
  Sectarian prejudice has vertually vanished in England. Β 
  
  I think Henry VIII's political separation from Rome has a great deal to do with this. The roots in England don't seem so deep because (in my opinion) there was no long religious war which forced the mass of the populace to take the extreme positions assumed by both sides in Scotland. The English Civil War had a religious component, but people also weighed up politics. Mary Tudor's persecution of Protestants was brief (unlike the protracted civil war in Scotland under Mary Stuart). Elizabeth's early reign despite its official anti-Catholic stance was remarkably lapse in applying laws to loyal Catholics (who could and did hold senoir positions in the British state where they proved loyal).
  
  It's also worth noting that Roman Catholicism and Anglican Catholicism aren't actually that far apart in much doctrine. Certainly a lot closer bedfellows than the brands of Protestantism taking hold in Scotland.

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  Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Tuesday, 15th March 2011

  Surely one of the factors about sectarianism in Scotland must be the fact that the Scottish Reformation was brought about by the more extreme form of Calvinism, which not only had quite extreme leaders like John Knox of "A First Blast Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women" fame, but which encouraged a great deal of personal or small group relationships between man and God, each individual or group likely to believe that theirs was "the true way" and all other ways monstrous or worse.
  
  Hence for example Thomas Carlyle, who served as some kind of lay John Knox to Victorian Britain, came from a family that had broken away from a break-away Church: and, though he never really dared to "come clean" to his mother, he in fact came up with his own very individualistic and personal theology and patterns of devotional practice.
  
  From what I have seen too (e,g a Scottish Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ presenter did a whole programme about the long legacy of Calvinism) within the Kirk the ministers who were elected by the congregation after a trial run, tended to be fire and brimstone preachers who stressed the ways of sin that took individuals to Hell: and the stool that was thrown at the start of the Covenant Uprising may well have been the punishment stool that gave us the Dunce's Stool. Public humiliation also seems to have been involved in the way that alms were collected, with personal contributions made public. Theirs was a God that "helped those who helped themselves".
  
  As we think in terms of Japan's effort at solidarity in the face of disaster, I come back to the "dear years" of the 1690's when there were a succession of bad harvests The absence of England's poor law tradition meant that an estimated 20% of the whole population of Scotland were roaming around as "sourners"- sturdy beggars who stood more chance in gangs, and whose presence at isolated and vulnerable homesteads must have been really intimidating.
  
  Fletcher of Saltoun, who wrote a pamphlet about the problem, suggested that most of them should be enslaved and set to work as bondsmen either in Scotland or in the West Indies, where Scots and Irish prisoners of war were some of the first slaves to be set to work in the islands that England had acquired.
  
  As Neil Oliver showed in his episode about the economic upturn that came in the middle of the Eighteenth Century, that lack of over-arching social conscience also featured when Puritan virtues of thrift industry etc resulted in many Scottish families making fortunes, and looking after "their own". Carlyle did this: as did John Glastone who made part of his fortune out of West Indian slave plantations when he moved to LIverpool, and brought down all of his brothers to work in his firm. And, I get the impression that rather as in the Pakistani tradition, keeping things in the family often extended to looking for suitable candidates for both marriage and domestic service- poor relations were often suitable for the latter. Charity begins at home, and in homework.
  
  
  And the last throw of the Highlanders in capturing and occupying Edinburgh prior to invading England in 1745 was seen as almost a tsunami disaster dragging an Edinburgh, that was set to become "The Athens of the North", back into the barbarity of the Dark Ages, as far as educated and affluent citizens of Edinburgh were concerned..
  
  According to the Scottish writer Ian Grimble a few generations later the descendents of those citizens were horrified when King George IV decided to come North to Scotland at his accession, the first King to do so for a long time, and, having read the works of Walter Scott, and seen the London establishments of the Scottish Highland "lairds" who were busily making money out of the Highland Clearances, turned up wearing some kind of garish kilt, insulting those Scots who saw the kilt as a badge of barbarity.
  
  Cass

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