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the weekend is nearly here :-)
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See our Calendar of Scottish Events around the world at
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CONTENTS
-----------------
Electric Scotland News
The Flag in the Wind
The Scottish Nation
The Southern States of America
Poems and Stories
Clan Newsletters
Scottish Canadian Newspaper
Proceedings of the Scotch-Irish Congress in Columbia, Tennessee May 8-11,
1889.
History of Scotland
Highlanders in Spain
ELECTRIC SCOTLAND
---------------------------------
Likely you'll have heard that the SNP did indeed become the largest party in
the Scottish Parliament. I believe a change was called for and it will be
most interesting to see how things develop over the coming months. The SNP
will be running a minority government as the Greens and Lib-Dems have
refused a coalition.
There was a very interesting article in the Scotsman giving information on
how the SNP might manage in a minority government. You can see this article
and the election results at
http://www.electricscotland.com/history/articles/elections2007.htm
There was of course a major discussion going on in Scotland about the
management of the elections. Over 100,000 spoiled election papers is
certainly not acceptable.
We have also heard that Tony Blair will be retiring in around 7 weeks time.
It is expected that Gordon Brown, a Scot, will take over as Prime Minister.
So.. interesting times ahead for sure :-)
Next week I'll be starting on a new book which is a biography of Norman
McLeod, Minister of Barony Parish, Glasgow; one of Her Majesty's Chaplains;
Dean of The Chapel Royal; Dean of The Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of
The Thistle.
Not only was he well travelled in that he visited most of Europe, America,
Russia, Jerusalem, India, etc. but we also learn something of Queen Victoria
and Prince Albert. Not only is this a good biography but an interesting
account of the times and so I hope you will enjoy it.
I did add a wee summary to my Canadian Journal and included in there is a
scan of The Sunday Post newspaper article on the Tartan Day Dinner in
Toronto and thanks to Ranald McIntyre for sending that in. I might add that
I replaced the picture with the origional one :-) You can read this at
http://www.electricscotland.net/canada_75.htm
ABOUT THE STORIES
-----------------
Some of the stories in here are just parts of a larger story so do check out
the site for the full versions. You can always find the link in our "What's
New" section at the link at the top of this newsletter and pick up poems and
stories sent into us during the week from Donna, Margo, Stan, John and
others.
THE FLAG IN THE WIND
------------------------------------
Mind that The Flag is now in two sections (1) Political and (2) Cultural.
This weeks Flag is of course talking about the elections and Jim Lynch is
showing the front pages of the mass market newspapers and you do wonder how
the elections might have gone had they been more even handed.
In the Cultural section Peter gives us a quote...
Alexander (Alex) Elliot Anderson Salmond
"There is a wind of change blowing through Scottish politics."
(Victory speech after overturning a 4,000 Liberal Democrat majority to win
the Gordon seat in the Scottish Parliament for the Scottish National Party
with a 2,000 winning margin 4 May 2007)
You can read the Flag, listen to the Scots Language, enjoy the Scots Wit and
lots more at
http://www.scotsindependent.org
The Scottish Nation
----------------------------
My thanks to Lora for transcribing these volumes for us.
Now on the G's and added this week are Gillies, Gilmour, Gladstone, Glas,
Glasgow, Glassford and Glieg.
My grandmothers maiden name on my Fathers side was Gilmour and so here is a
wee bit about the name...
GILMOUR, (Anglicé, Gilmore) a surname derived from the Gaelic, gillie-mhor,
great servant, being the designation of the henchman or follower of a
Highland chief. The family of Gilmour of Craigmillar, Mid Lothian, carried
in their armorial bearings three writing pens, with, as crest, a dexter hand
holding a scroll of paper, and the motto Nil penna, sed usus, to indicate
that their rise was from being writers or lawyers. They acquired in 1661,
the castle of Craigmillar, celebrated as the residence of Mary queen of
Scots on her return from France a hundred years before. John Gilmour, an
eminent writer to the signet of the early part of the seventeenth century,
had a son, Sir John Gilmour, who became lord president of the court of
session, and continued in that office for ten years. Having passed advocate
on 12th December 1628, he was, in 1641, appointed by the Estates of
parliament one of the counsel to the earl of Montrose, and conducted himself
so much to the satisfaction of the royalist party that he obtained, through
their means, a very extensive practice at the bar.
On 13th February 1661, he was nominated by the king lord president of the
court of session, which court, after an interruption of nearly eleven years,
resumed its sittings on the 1st June following. As president he received a
yearly pension of £500. At the same time he was appointed a privy councillor,
and one of the lords of Exchequer. Chosen one of the commissioners for the
shire of Edinburgh, in the parliament of 1661, he continued to represent
that county till his death, acting all the time as one of the lords of the
articles. Although he had always favoured the king’s side, he distinguished
himself by his opposition to the arbitrary proceedings of the first
“terrible parliament,” as it is well named by Kirkton, of Charles the
Second. He obtained the insertion of a clause in the militia act, that the
kingdom should not be obliged to maintain any force levied by the king
otherwise than as it should be agreed by parliament, or a convention of
estates. When the marquis of Argyle was brought to trial before the same
parliament, Sir John Gilmour made an attempt to save him by declaring that,
after paying all the attention in his power to the case, he could find
nothing proved against him but what the greater part of the house was as
deeply involved in as he. On this the commissioner, the earl of Middleton,
rose and observed that what Sir John had said was very true; but that the
king might pitch upon whom he pleased to make an example of. [Wodrow’s
Analecta, printed for the Maitland Club, vol, ii. P. 145.]
Sir John Gilmour seems to have belonged to the party of Lauderdale, and by
that statesman was made instrumental in procuring the fall of Middleton in
1663. In the following year he was appointed a member of the high commission
court, and vainly endeavoured to moderate the violence of the prelates who
ruled there. He is said to have refused to vote, as a privy councillor, for
the capital prosecution of the insurgents taken at Pentland, and promised
quarter; but signed the more objectionable opinion of the court of session
that it was lawful to pronounce sentence of forfeiture against the absent,
provided they had been cited to appear. In consequence of infirmity and
weakness, he resigned the lord president’s chair on 22d December 1670, and
died in 1671. He reported the decisions of the court from July 1661 till
July 1666.
You can read the rest of this entry at
http://www.electricscotland.com/history/nation/gilmour.htm
You can read the other entries at
http://www.electricscotland.com/history/nation/index.htm
The Southern States of America
----------------------------------------------
Published in 1909.
I am now doing a few biographies from this series and as I've only had two
requests to continue this publication I guess this will complete the
account.
This week biographies have been added on...
Blair, James
Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
Calhoun, John Caldwell
Henrys of Virginia
Jackson, Andrew
Jackson, Thomas Jonathan ("Stonewall")
McGillivray, Alexander
McIntosh, William
McGILLIVRAY, Alexander, Indian chief: b. in the Creek Nation in 1740; d.
Pensacola, Fla., Feb. 17, 1793. His father was a Scotchman and his mother a
half-breed Creek princess, whose father was a French officer of Spanish
descent. McGillivray seems to have inherited the characteristics of all
these nationalities. He was well educated by his father, and then joined a
mercantile firm in the Creek nation. After his mother's death he became a
powerful Creek chief with the title Emperor of the Creek Nation. During the
Revolution he sided with the British, and, enraged at the confiscation of
his Georgia estates, he waged bloody warfare on the borders. After the
treaty of 1783 he proposed to the Spanish of Florida the policy of wresting
from the Americans the trans-Allegheny region, the fulfilment of which plan
for twelve years was attempted with violence and cunning. In 1790
McGillivray was invited to a personal conference with President "Washington
in New York. Since this gave an opportunity for display, he consented and
was received with great ceremony. A treaty was signed by which much land was
restored to the Creeks. McGillivray was paid $100,000 for his confiscated
property and was commissioned major-general in the United States army,
although he was already a British colonel and a Spanish general. He returned
home and continued the warfare on the American border settlers until his
death. McGillivray was a shrewd business man and politician with scholarly
tastes, but was also a heartless savage who lived in barbaric splendor; a
man of great intellect, but totally without moral principles.
The book index page is at
http://www.electricscotland.com/history/america/south/index.htm
Poems and Stories
----------------------------
Donna has completed her stories about her 93 year old Mother but this week
has also done a complete re-write to add additional information which can be
seen at
http://www.electricscotland.com/history/america/donna/velma/story4.htm
John has been in touch to add a couple of new doggerels which can be seen at
http://www.electricscotland.com/poetry/doggerels.htm
The two new ones are "There's Nane Sae" and "Granda's 'Chucky-Stane'".
Stan also sent in two final poems from his "It's time for Scotland" series
which you can read at
http://www.electricscotland.com/poetry/banff/scotlandndx.htm
Clan Newsletters
------------------------
Added the Spring 2007 newsletter from the Clan Ross of Canada at
http://www.electricscotland.com/familytree/newsletters/ross/2007Spring.pdf
Scottish Canadian Newspaper
--------------------------------------------
Added another issue of this newspaper...
July 9, 1891 at
http://www.electricscotland.com/history/canada/scotscan/issue33.htm
This issue carries an article about Loch Katrine on the front page.
You can see all the issues to date at
http://www.electricscotland.com/history/canada/scotscan/index.htm
Proceedings of the Scotch-Irish Congress in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania May 29
to June 1, 1890.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Continuing this volume on the Second Congress.
Added this week are...
The Scotch-Irish of Ohio. By Hon. James E. Campbell, Governor of Ohio.
The Prestons of America. By Hon. W. E. Robinson, Brooklyn, N. Y.
Washington and Lee, the Scotch-Irish University of the South. By Prof. H. A.
White, Lexington, Ky.
The Scotch-Irish of Pennsylvania. By Ex-Chief Justice Hon. Daniel Agnew, of
Beaver, Pa.
The Ulster of To-day. By Rev. Dr. John Hall, of New York City.
The addresses and historical papers are substancial with much good
information.
Here is how The Scotch-Irish of Ohio starts...
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen:
Scotch-Irish pertinacity descends to the remotest generation, and clings to
the 'blood, however much diluted by admixture with other races. The
Scotch-Irishman loves to recount the deeds of his ancestors, and listens
with delight to their laudation. Those traits are exemplified in the
unflagging attendance upon these prolonged ceremonies; and justify the
belief that you will listen with patience to the modestly written record of
Scotch-Irish influence, and achievement, in the Commonwealth of Ohio. To him
who, at Columbia last year, sat spellbound under the burning words of Knott,
Mcintosh, Hall, Henry, Kelley, McClure, and the other eloquent men who
poured out their stores of wit and learning day after day; or who has
reveled here for three days in the scholarly masterpieces of Perry, White,
Robinson, Dalzell, Beyson and their compeers—the story of the Scotch-Irish
in Ohio will sound like a "twice told tale."
The history of the race in one state is the history of all. The biography of
one Scotch-Irishman is that of his fellow. Wherever the blood is, whether
isolated in a single family, or congregated in an entire community, there
will be found the dauntless courage, the lofty aspirations, the mental and
physical superiority which marked it in the Old World, and have not deserted
it in the New. As it is every-where else, so is it in Ohio. She has four
millions of people. There are no better, richer, happier on earth. In every
hamlet between the lake and the river the Scotch-Irishman has left the
impress of his intergrity, his energy, and his intrepidity. His blood has
furnished the masterful strain which makes the "Buckeye" the most
cosmopolitan of all the assimilated races of the land, and a fitting link
between his "Keystone" brother on the East and his "Hoosier" comrade on the
West.
The printed annals of Ohio tell comparatively little that has been done in
any single locality by the Scotch-Irish as a distinctive race of early
immigrants. We have preserved in enduring form the history of the Yankee,
and his Marietta purchase under the auspices of the goodly "Ohio Company of
Associates." Two years ago a volume was published to celebrate the
centennial of his arrival on the soil of the state. We read much of John
Cleves Symmes and his fellow Jersey-men who cleared the incomparable valley
of the Great Miami. The thrift of the Connecticut settlers in the Western
Reserve, and the industry of the Teutonic races who dwell on the sluggish
Maumee are duly chronicled; but the Scotch-Irish are widely scattered over
the entire state, and have no similar tale of large and solid settlements.
From this, however, it must not be assumed that our race has but a small
footing in Ohio: or that it has not done its full share in founding,
fostering, and upbuilding the state.
The early history of Ohio, like much other American history, was written by
the New Englander, or his descendant. This fact has been noted by others who
have addressed you. As one who is half Puritan himself it is not for your
present speaker to complain, nor animadvert upon his brethren; yet, while
yielding to the English Yankee his full meed of praise, it is only fair to
say that were it not for the Scotch-Irish there would be a much less
glorious history to write. Many of the strong men who settled in Ohio, after
the Revolutionary war were of ancestry which came from Ireland and Scotland
by way of New Eng-land. Some indeed claimed to have been descendants of the
Mayflower party, when, in reality, they were the off-spring of those same
Presbyterians once railed against by the Cromwellian Puritans.
The history of Scotch-Irish influence in shaping the destiny of Ohio goes
back farther than is at first apparent. During the Revolutionary war, while
Washington and his galaxy of Scotch-Irish generals were debating the
propriety of founding a new empire west of the mountains, should disaster
overtake the patriot cause, the territory they talked of was being redeemed
from British rule by a valiant young Scotch-Irishman, born near Monticollo,
Virginia, who, at twenty-six years of age, had achieved such fame that John
Randolph eulogized him as the "Hannibal of the West." George Rogers Clarke
was his name, and the North-west Territory, with its five States of Ohio,
Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan, and its fifteen millions of
people, is his monument. The first exploration of this territory had been
made by La Salle as early as 1680, but the trading posts established by the
French as a result of that expedition had a precarious existence. France,
becoming involved in war with England, finally relinquished her hold on this
garden spot of the earth. By the treaty of Paris the western boundary of the
English colonies was fixed at the Mississippi river; and the territory
north-west of the Ohio was ceded by the British Government to the Colony of
Virginia under the charter of James I—a prince whose perfidy assisted
largely in making Scotch-Irish history in America. When Virginia assumed the
dignity of statehood, the North-west Territory was held by British troops
stoutly entrenched behind strong forts.
The sparse settlements were constantly menaced by red savages incited by
England to make murderous incursions into Virginia and Kentucky. In 1778
Clarke was commissoned by the Scotch-Irish Governor of Virginia, Patrick
Henry, to make a secret expedition into the Ohio country for the purpose of
restoring to Virginia the territory that had been ceded to the colony after
the treaty of Paris. The soldiers selected to accompany him on this perilous
expedition, so fraught with the destiny of the colonies, were picked men ;
the whole two hundred known for their skill as Indian fighters—men of
stubborn endurance, resolute fortitude and persistent valor. Need it be said
that Clarke found them among the Scotch-Irish in the valley of Virginia?
You can read the rest of this chapter at
http://www.electricscotland.com/history/scotsirish/congress2-15.htm
The book index page is at
http://www.electricscotland.com/history/scotsirish/congress2ndx.htm
History of Scotland
----------------------------
In 9 volumes By Patrick Fraser Tytler (1828)
I am now on the third volume and the sections added are...
Chapter 2 (Pages 133 - 198)
Robert the Third (Part B) (1402)
Chapter 3 (Pages 199 - 265)
James the First (Part A) 1424)
Chapter 3 (Pages 266 - 321)
James the First (Part B) (1427)
Chapter 4 (Pages 325 - 386)
Historical Remarks on the Death of Richard the Second
Here is how James the First starts...
IN James the First, Scotland was at length destined to receive a sovereign
of no common character and endowments. We have seen, that when a boy of
fourteen, he was seized by the English, and from that time till his return
in 1424, twenty years of his life, embracing the period of all others the
most important and decisive in the formation of future character, had been
passed in captivity. If unjust in his detention, Henry the Fourth appears to
have been anxious to compensate for his infringement of the law of nations
by the care which he bestowed upon the education of the youthful monarch. He
was instructed in all the warlike exercises, and in the highbred observances
and polished manners of the school of chivalry; he was generously provided
with masters in the various arts and sciences, and as it was the era of the
revival of learning in England, the age especially of the rise of poetic
literature, in Chaucer and Gower, his mind and imagination became deeply
infected with a passion for those elegant pursuits.
But James, during his long captivity, enjoyed far higher advantages. He was
able to study the arts of government, to make his observations on the mode
of administering justice in England, and to extract wisdom and experience
from a personal acquaintance with the disputes between the sovereign and his
nobility, whilst in the friendship and confidence with which he appears to
have been uniformly treated by Henry the Fifth, who made him the partner of
his campaigns in France, he became acquainted with the politics of both
countries, received his education in the art of war from one of the greatest
captains whom it has produced; and, from his not being personally engaged,
had leisure to avail himself to the utmost of the opportunities which his
peculiar situation presented. There were other changes also, which were then
gradually beginning to manifest themselves in the political condition of the
two countries, which, to his acute and discerning mind, must necessarily
have presented a subject of thought and speculation. I mean the repeated
risings of the commons against the intolerable tyranny of the feudal
nobility, and the increased wealth and consequence of the middle classes of
the state, events which, in the moral history of those times, are of deep
interest and importance, and of which the future monarch of Scotland was a
personal observer. The school, therefore, in which James was educated seems
to have been eminently qualified to produce a wise and excellent king, and
the history of his reign corroborates this observation.
You can read the rest of this account at
http://www.electricscotland.com/history/scotland/history27s.pdf
As all the chapters are .pdf files I'll just point you at the index page of
this publication where you can read the other chapters at
http://www.electricscotland.com/history/scotland/historyndx.htm
Highlanders in Spain
------------------------------
By James Grant (1910)
Now up to Chapter 27 of this book so 6 more chapters added this week. Here
is a wee bit from Chapter 26...
Chapter 26 - The Matador
Ronald rode at a rapid gallop along the wild mountain-path which I have
already described. The evening was growing dark, and in that solitary place
the sound of the horse's hoofs alone broke the death-like stillness, and
awoke the echoes of the frowning rocks.
In one place lay dead a poor soldier of the 50th Regiment. His wife and
three little children were clinging to his corse, and lamenting bitterly.
Night was closing around them, and the desolate creatures seemed terrified
at its approach in such a wild spot, and called to Ronald loudly as he rode
past ; but he was too eager to overtake Catalina and her dangerous companion
to waste time unnecessarily. But he made an involuntary stop a little
farther on, where a soldier of his own company, a smart young fellow, named
Archibald Logan, lay writhing in agony across the road, with the dust of
which his blood was mixing as it oozed in heavy drops from a wound in the
breast,—a musket-shot having passed through his left shoulder-belt. Ronald
reined in the animal he rode, to stay for a moment and gaze upon him. He was
the same young soldier whose aged mother had accompanied him with such
sorrow to the beach at Leith, on the morning Major Campbell's detachment
embarked, and Ronald (under whose notice this circumstance had brought him)
had always admired his soldier-like smartness and steadiness. He was dying
now, and evidently in a state of delirium ; broken sentences and wild
observations fell from his clammy lips. Ronald spoke to him: ' He heard it,
but he heeded not; his eyes Were with his heart, and that was far away.'
'Oh, mother! mother!' said he, in piercing accents, 'dinna upbraid me wi'
enlisting and leaving ye. Ye ken weel for what I did it,—to pay my puir auld
faither's debt to Peter Grippy, and to free him frae the tolbooth o'
Edinburgh. But he wadna allow me, and ca'ed the bounty his bairn's bluid
siller. Put yer face close to mine, mother ; for I hear yer greetin' and
moanin', but I canna see the face I fain would look on. Tell my faither to
lay me in the sunny side o' the kirk-yard,—ye ken the place weel. I aye loed
to pu' the gowans and bluebells that grew there in simmer. Menie Ormelie
lies there, amang the lang green deid grass; lay me—lay me close to her. Oh,
mother! ye ken I loed her weel; we herded the same kye, and------' His voice
sunk away into a whisper, and Ronald became deeply affected. After a pause,
he continued in the same tone of agony, 'Bonnie Menie,—Menie wi ' gowden
hair! She lies between the muckle deid-stane o' the lairds o Glencorse, and
the vault o' the auld folk o' Castle-Outer. Lay me close by her side, and
plant some o' the broon heather frae the bonnie Pentlands—the Pent-lands I
loe sae weel—on the heavy howme that covers me.' This was the last effort. A
gush of blood spouted from the wound, and he died without a groan.
Stuart could scarce refrain from tears at witnessing the fate of this poor
private soldier. Death, amidst the fierce excitement and tumult of battle,
where ' the very magnitude of the slaughter throws a softening disguise over
its cruelties and horrors,' is nothing to death when it comes stealing over
a human being thus, slowly and gradually, having in it something at once
awful and terribly impressive ; and Ronald Stuart, blunted and deadened as
his feelings were by campaigning, felt this acutely, as he turned away from
the corse of his comrade and countryman. His attention was next arrested by
a monstrous raven, or corbie, which sat on a fragment of rock, watching
attentively the scene, as if awaiting his coming banquet; but Ronald
compelled it to take to flight, by uttering a loud holloa, which
reverberated among the rocks of the mountain wilderness. It was now night ;
but the moon arose above the summits of the hills, glowing through openings
in the thin clouds like a shield of polished silver, and pouring a flood of
pale light along the pass of Miravete, casting into yet deeper shadow the
rifted rocks which overhung it. The speed at which he rode soon left the
mountains far behind him, and about midnight brought him close to the gloomy
wood of Jarciejo; but on all that line of road he had discovered no trace of
Donna Catalina, or the ruffian who had deceived her ; and as the country
thereabouts was totally uninhabited, he met no one who could give him the
slightest information, and his mind became a prey to fear and apprehension
that some act of blood or treachery might be perpetrated before he came up
with them.
You can read the rest of this chapter at
http://www.electricscotland.com/history/spain/romance26.htm
You can read the other chapters at
http://www.electricscotland.com/history/spain/romancendx.htm
And that's all for now and hope you all have a good weekend :-)
Alastair
http://www.electricscotland.com
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