The Steel Bonnets. George Fraser MacDonald
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Название: The Steel Bonnets

Автор: George Fraser MacDonald

Издательство: HarperCollins

Жанр: Историческая литература

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isbn: 9780007474288

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СКАЧАТЬ outbreaks stemmed mainly from the fact that since the Scottish kings were part-English, and had considerable stakes in England—David, for example, held land in half a dozen English counties and was an English nobleman—they took an active interest in the question of the English succession. At the same time, their political duty marched with expansionist interest, and the northern English counties, to which there was at least an arguable Scottish claim, might in the process of settling the English domestic problem be secured to the Scottish side of the frontier.

      Thus the Borders suffered again. In the period 1136–38 David was over the frontier, seizing Carlisle and Newcastle and devastating Northumberland, until, when he was in full cry southwards, he encountered under the shadow of the great holy standards of the saints at Northallerton, a phenomenon that was to astound and terrify all Europe. This was the English peasant with his bow; beaten by the arrow shower, David was stopped, but he still managed to retain control of the northern shires.

      Forty years later another Scottish King, William, carried his new rampant lion standard south in the debate between Henry II and his sons; he failed to take Carlisle and Wark, but wasted the countryside; a truce followed, and another invasion, and this time William divided his army, like Custer, into three, the better to scour the countryside. It was a fatal mistake; the English caught him near Alnwick, and Henry II, fresh from doing penance for Becket, no doubt felt his penitence rewarded by the capture of the King of Scots. Becket’s spirit, his religious advisers assured him, had obviously been at work on England’s behalf.

      William’s ransom was submission to England, of a most comprehensive kind, hostages of rank, and various Scottish strongholds, including the Border castles of Berwick, Jedburgh, and Roxburgh. However, Richard the Lionheart, when he found himself pressed for money, sold most of these advantages back to Scotland.

      The Scottish retaliatory sweep through the English Borders was equally barbarous. As in the English inroad, churches and monasteries suffered along with the rest, and one ancient chronicler noted with satisfaction that a great number of the despoilers of one Cumbrian abbey were drowned in the Eden, weighed down with their loot.

      But in the end, all that Scotland achieved was the loss forever of the Northern English counties; the Border line was finally established more than 1000 years after Hadrian, from the Solway to Berwick. It made no great difference to the Border people, who might well have been thankful that despite David and William the Lion and Henry II and John, and the petty squabbling for the English throne, the Marches had, by and large, been left reasonably peaceful during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In that time, the Border as a separate entity came into being; divided and yet united by a strange chemistry far above international politics. Half-English, half-Scottish, the Border was to remain a thing in itself; there, as nowhere else, however much they might war and hate and destroy in centuries to come, Englishmen and Scotsmen understood each other.

       III

       England v. Scotland, 1286–1500

      The golden age, of Scotland, of Anglo-Scottish harmony, and of the Border country, ended when King Alexander III of Scotland fell over a cliff in 1286. Few stumbles—if indeed His Majesty was not pushed—have been more important than that one.

      Until then, as we have seen, the frontier had not been an unusually troubled place. It had suffered, but not too severely by medieval standards; the two countries had been growing up and finding their feet. The year 1286 was to see the opening of a new era. From then onward Scotland was to be of increasing importance to England. This was bound to happen as England developed as a nation state; inevitably, too, a new Anglo-Scottish relationship was born. The reasons why these things happened are simple enough, but they are fundamental to British history, and they changed the shape of the world. The new Anglo-Scottish attitudes which were assumed after 1286 have developed and been modified, but even today they bear the imprint of those decisive years in the late thirteenth century when the relationship between England and Scotland was so decisively altered.

      It may not be out of place to leave the mainstream of history just for a moment, to look closer at what I have called Anglo-Scottish attitudes. In simple terms—one might call them historically colloquial—and with tremendous daring, one can try to look at the traditional English-Scottish relationship from what, one hopes, is as nearly impartial a British point of view as possible. (Practically every word of what follows will be denied, refuted, and laughed to scorn somewhere or other; I would only remark that the conclusions have been reached by a Scot born and bred in England, and accustomed to being regarded as a Scotsman south of the Border, and an Englishman north of it. Which in itself is probably significant of the attitudes on both sides).

      The Scot has, and one suspects always has had, something of an inferiority complex where his big, assertive, overpowering neighbour is concerned. It is no wonder. The English race are certainly the most dynamic in history since the Romans. Within a few hundred years they turned themselves from a little nation state on an off-shore European island into the most profound influence in the world; they spread themselves, their language, their products, and above all, their ideas, over the face of the earth. There has never been anything quite like them. Admittedly, at their peak they had the Scots helping them, and only a national extremist would worry about whether the Scots’ contribution, per capita, was above or below average. The point is that the English were by far the major share of the effort; as a national powerhouse, they were in a class by themselves.

      Scotland has lived with and alongside this for several centuries, and that in itself is an achievement. If anything in their history demonstrates that the Scots are remarkable, it is that in spite of being physically attached to England, they have survived as a people, with their own culture, laws, institutions, and, like the English, their own ideas.

      But it has not been easy, and the marks show. The Scots are an extraordinarily proud people, with reason, as they are quick to point out, and like most geniuses, highly sensitive. Where England is concerned, this sensitivity borders on neurosis. Buried deep in the Scottish national consciousness is the memory of a cliff-hanging struggle for independence, which lasted more than three centuries in the physical sense, and in the minds of some Scots continues today. They know, better than anyone, how easily England spread itself, often apparently without trying, and the fear of English domination by force has to some extent been replaced by a fear of English supremacy almost by default

      In fact, if the Scot would look, or could look, objectively at his history, he would see that the English menace was perhaps over-rated, not in physical terms, for there it was truly immense, but in what can only be called a spiritual sense. Scotland’s vitality has always been strong enough, and to spare, to resist outside influence.

      But a small country that survives in Scotland’s situation, under the shadow of a reigning champion, becomes quite naturally suspicious, sensitive, and fiercely jealous in regard to its neighbour. It fears him, but cannot help imitating СКАЧАТЬ