Parcel of Rogues
I always thought of AA Gill as a quintessentially English writer, but he is apparently a Scottish exile which may help explain why he was able to produce this thoughtful and interesting contribution to the Scottish independence debate for The Sunday Times.
Scotland's history is littered with 'rogues' like the Duke of Hamilton and if you ask me, some of them are still to be found holed up at the Palace of Westminster, in both the House of Commons and House of Lords.
“My links to Scotland are fierce and they’re blood. This is the place where I feel the choke and the pulse of my creation myth”
Scottish exile AA Gill journeys to his homeland
By AA Gill - The Sunday Times
AA Gill on the pier at Berwick upon Tweed, the English town that used to belong to Scotland (Tom Craig)
The bridge at Coldstream is a braw and sonsy thing, spanning the swan-bobbing Tweed that slowly, elegantly and expensively patrols the border, where Englishmen pay Scotsmen to row them up and down, where they flagellate the water, stalking salmon they put back. It is from here that Robbie Burns crossed over so he could set foot in England. Then, looking back, became so homesick with awe and love that he threw off his hat and quoted himself: “O Scotia, my dear, my native soil!”
The sun dapples the Scottish bank, which is wooded and bosquey with daffodils and wild garlic and benches where you can sit and enjoy the schadenfreude of the view of England, which is cloudy and consists of a scrubby electricity substation and the road south. Bridges tend to go one way or the other, and this one goes from Scotland to England. It has carried away so much, so many Scots, so much hope and ingenuity, aspiration and muscle. Along with the first regiment of the English army, the Coldstream Guards, and the army of James IV that, just a couple of miles down the way, suffered the cataclysmically dearest of defeats in all of the many desperate fights between England and Scotland: at Flodden, where the flowers of the forest were cut down and are remembered in one of the most haunting bagpipe laments.
Someone said that Scotland doesn’t have history, it just has a longer memory for current events. Before talking about whether this uneven union should be split, it’s instructive to understand what forged it in the first place.
In the 1690s, the Darien scheme was Scotland’s attempt to bypass its cap-in-hand dependence on trade through and with England, by forming its own colony at Darien, on the isthmus between the Atlantic and the Pacific in what is now Panama. It was to be called Caledonia. Scots individually and collectively invested a quarter of the nation’s entire wealth in the project, which was an unmitigated disaster. Mismanaged, purloined and frittered by adventurers, romantics, crooks, murderers, and the wholly inept — the usual quorum of a Scots lounge bar.
It was effectively thwarted by the English who bullied and threatened European banks into withdrawing support, the East India Company who, fearing for its monopoly in trade, sued and King William who, having never bothered to visit his kingdom of Scotland, made sure that no neighbouring colonies offered help because he didn’t want to upset the Spanish. Scotland was very effectively bankrupted and England — ever helpful — came up with a plan: amalgamation, rationalisation, a one-nation takeover. They got it through the Scottish parliament with bribery. The Duke of Hamilton, an implacable anti-unionist, dramatically changed sides for cash. Others had their Darien debt repaid and members of the Scottish parliament would sell their country for as little as a fiver. As Burns had it, Scotland was “bought and sold for English gold/Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!”
The English, while offering gold with one hand, waved the cudgel with the other and passed the Alien Act, making any Scot not in the army or on business an illegal immigrant. London threatened tariffs on Scottish exports. So the vote was passed. As Daniel Defoe, an English spy, said, for every one Scot in favour of union, 99 were against. There had been hundreds of petitions agin it from every corner of the country, and not a single one in favour. There were riots in Edinburgh and Glasgow, martial law was imposed.
In the new parliament at Westminster, Scotland got 45 MPs out of 558 and 16 seats in the Lords out of 212. Individual Scots might find a voice, an advancement, and disproportionately, one at a time, they did, but the country would be drowned out. As the ancient Caledonian parliament voted itself out of existence, the Earl of Seaford, with a heavy heart, noted that it was the end of an auld sang. And at St Giles Cathedral, the national church of Scotland, where Knox had preached, the bells rang out. The tune was Why Should I Be So Sad on My Wedding Day?
Not many Scots, and even fewer English, know this story, the inglorious nuptials of the Union. But you don’t have to remember history to be affected by it. This act and all the bullying and perfidy, venality, weakness and snobbery that went before it has made the relationship between the two countries what it is. The informed view of Big Ben seen from Ben Nevis was never a love match, nor the uniting of mutually benefiting equals. It’s the English who roll their eyes at the raking up of the past and say, “Oh, get over it, move on. Stop being a victim,” which is what wife-beaters always say to their victims.
What is so surprising about crossing the Coldstream Bridge is that within 100 yards you know you are in another country. The distinction between Scotland and England remains clear and marked as the Scottish lilt becomes a Northumbrian twang. You can move from Venice into Italy without ever noticing that these were once different nations, or travel through Germany’s city states and principalities without any sense of crossing borders, though this is a country half the age of Great Britain.
Still, despite 400 years of patronage and propaganda, Scotland isn’t the heathery extension of England. It remains stubbornly and grimly, often amusingly, a different place. Its humour, its character, its stories, its expectations, how it gets married and celebrates, how it gets buried and sees in the New Year, what it sings about and fights about, are all markedly, noticeably, fiercely different. Indeed, this quiet river divides two of the most distinctively separate nations in Europe.
Along the empty high street of Coldstream, most of the shopkeepers say they will be voting for the union. It’s better for business. “And anyway,” says an antique dealer, “we’re Borderers. This is neither Scotland nor England, it’s reavers’ country. We have more in common historically with Hexham and Alnwick than Glasgow or London.”
The bridge at Coldstream is a braw and sonsy thing, spanning the swan-bobbing Tweed that slowly, elegantly and expensively patrols the border, where Englishmen pay Scotsmen to row them up and down, where they flagellate the water, stalking salmon they put back. It is from here that Robbie Burns crossed over so he could set foot in England. Then, looking back, became so homesick with awe and love that he threw off his hat and quoted himself: “O Scotia, my dear, my native soil!”
The sun dapples the Scottish bank, which is wooded and bosquey with daffodils and wild garlic and benches where you can sit and enjoy the schadenfreude of the view of England, which is cloudy and consists of a scrubby electricity substation and the road south. Bridges tend to go one way or the other, and this one goes from Scotland to England. It has carried away so much, so many Scots, so much hope and ingenuity, aspiration and muscle. Along with the first regiment of the English army, the Coldstream Guards, and the army of James IV that, just a couple of miles down the way, suffered the cataclysmically dearest of defeats in all of the many desperate fights between England and Scotland: at Flodden, where the flowers of the forest were cut down and are remembered in one of the most haunting bagpipe laments.
Someone said that Scotland doesn’t have history, it just has a longer memory for current events. Before talking about whether this uneven union should be split, it’s instructive to understand what forged it in the first place.
In the 1690s, the Darien scheme was Scotland’s attempt to bypass its cap-in-hand dependence on trade through and with England, by forming its own colony at Darien, on the isthmus between the Atlantic and the Pacific in what is now Panama. It was to be called Caledonia. Scots individually and collectively invested a quarter of the nation’s entire wealth in the project, which was an unmitigated disaster. Mismanaged, purloined and frittered by adventurers, romantics, crooks, murderers, and the wholly inept — the usual quorum of a Scots lounge bar.
It was effectively thwarted by the English who bullied and threatened European banks into withdrawing support, the East India Company who, fearing for its monopoly in trade, sued and King William who, having never bothered to visit his kingdom of Scotland, made sure that no neighbouring colonies offered help because he didn’t want to upset the Spanish. Scotland was very effectively bankrupted and England — ever helpful — came up with a plan: amalgamation, rationalisation, a one-nation takeover. They got it through the Scottish parliament with bribery. The Duke of Hamilton, an implacable anti-unionist, dramatically changed sides for cash. Others had their Darien debt repaid and members of the Scottish parliament would sell their country for as little as a fiver. As Burns had it, Scotland was “bought and sold for English gold/Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!”
The English, while offering gold with one hand, waved the cudgel with the other and passed the Alien Act, making any Scot not in the army or on business an illegal immigrant. London threatened tariffs on Scottish exports. So the vote was passed. As Daniel Defoe, an English spy, said, for every one Scot in favour of union, 99 were against. There had been hundreds of petitions agin it from every corner of the country, and not a single one in favour. There were riots in Edinburgh and Glasgow, martial law was imposed.
In the new parliament at Westminster, Scotland got 45 MPs out of 558 and 16 seats in the Lords out of 212. Individual Scots might find a voice, an advancement, and disproportionately, one at a time, they did, but the country would be drowned out. As the ancient Caledonian parliament voted itself out of existence, the Earl of Seaford, with a heavy heart, noted that it was the end of an auld sang. And at St Giles Cathedral, the national church of Scotland, where Knox had preached, the bells rang out. The tune was Why Should I Be So Sad on My Wedding Day?
Not many Scots, and even fewer English, know this story, the inglorious nuptials of the Union. But you don’t have to remember history to be affected by it. This act and all the bullying and perfidy, venality, weakness and snobbery that went before it has made the relationship between the two countries what it is. The informed view of Big Ben seen from Ben Nevis was never a love match, nor the uniting of mutually benefiting equals. It’s the English who roll their eyes at the raking up of the past and say, “Oh, get over it, move on. Stop being a victim,” which is what wife-beaters always say to their victims.
What is so surprising about crossing the Coldstream Bridge is that within 100 yards you know you are in another country. The distinction between Scotland and England remains clear and marked as the Scottish lilt becomes a Northumbrian twang. You can move from Venice into Italy without ever noticing that these were once different nations, or travel through Germany’s city states and principalities without any sense of crossing borders, though this is a country half the age of Great Britain.
Still, despite 400 years of patronage and propaganda, Scotland isn’t the heathery extension of England. It remains stubbornly and grimly, often amusingly, a different place. Its humour, its character, its stories, its expectations, how it gets married and celebrates, how it gets buried and sees in the New Year, what it sings about and fights about, are all markedly, noticeably, fiercely different. Indeed, this quiet river divides two of the most distinctively separate nations in Europe.
Along the empty high street of Coldstream, most of the shopkeepers say they will be voting for the union. It’s better for business. “And anyway,” says an antique dealer, “we’re Borderers. This is neither Scotland nor England, it’s reavers’ country. We have more in common historically with Hexham and Alnwick than Glasgow or London.”
Burns night in Hammersmith Town Hall (Tom Craig)
