Scotland Back in the Day: Scots have always been good Europeans ... that's why we voted to stay

It is when you ignore your history that you get such perverse decisions as the UK vote to leave the European Union. If more of the English nationalists – for in the final analysis, that is what they were – whose votes swung the Brexit decision actually knew about England’s long and enduring links with the rest of Europe, then perhaps they would not have been so inclined to turn their back on the EU.

Perhaps the greatest insult to their own history by Leavers on both sides of the border is the rejection of immigrants, for both England and Scotland are mongrel nations, whose very existence is utterly intertwined with Europe and depended on people who came here from what are now EU countries.

There is no such thing as a pure-bred English person, nor a pure-bred Scot. As DNA testing has proven beyond a doubt, every person who calls Great Britain home has some part of their make-up which originated furth of this island. Indeed just a few years ago DNA evidence emerged to show that the original Celtic people of Scotland arrived here from Galicia in northern Spain.

For goodness sake, the very names of our two countries come from the EU – the Angles whose name gives us England were from the area that is now Schleswig Holstein in Germany, and the Scots were a tribe from Ireland who took root in what is now Argyll before assimilating the Picts to form a nation.

It also beggars belief that the English nationalists in particular voted Leave. That is not England. English people are not quitters – well, not until this present benighted generation.

The Bulldog breed is aptly-named as any minuscule appreciation of English history will tell you. It’s the fact that they would rather quit than stay and fight for the necessary reform of the EU – and it is needed – which is most un-English, most un-British.

Have they forgotten Waterloo and the cooperation between Britain, Prussia and other allies which defeated Napoleon’s ambitions for a French continent? There are still many people alive who recall that Britain did not quit when Europe was under the Nazi jackboot, and it was Britain that faced Hitler’s hordes alone until the USA and our other allies came to help us free Europe from tyranny, liberating western Europe at first and now most of eastern Europe, too.

The decades-long war – it wasn’t just 1939-45 – for a free Europe is arguably the greatest victory for human freedom in the entire history of our species, but now the UK is about to turn its back on that long triumph, when the correct thing to do was to stay and bring much-needed reform to the EU.

It appears that English nationalists don’t want to know about anything other than their own narrow interests, and it will end up costing them the United Kingdom.

For Scotland’s historic ties to Europe are very ancient indeed, and reminding ourselves and our European partners of that history will be key to gaining independence in the EU. Thankfully, 62 per cent of those who voted here last week appreciate the fact that of the countries on this island, we have always had most dealings with Europe, and hopefully always will.

The first people from what is now the EU to record their arrival in Scotland were the Romans. The first Scot recorded anywhere in history by name was Calgacus, leader of the Celtic tribes which united against the Roman invasion.

In terms of our long Scottish history the Romans didn’t last for long, but they left us a couple of walls, Hadrian’s Wall which for long was the border between England and Scotland, and the Antonine Wall which effectively delineated the divide between north and south Scotland. And people wonder where Donald Trump gets his ideas from...

We have mentioned the Scots coming here from Ireland, but in later centuries there were Vikings who immigrated from Scandinavia. They were not always peaceable, especially at first, but they came and stayed and gave us a part of our culture that endures to this day, not least in the form of our Up Helly Aa and Hogmanay celebrations, though that word derives from Flemish or French.

Shared Christianity also saw links between Europe and Scotland, with King Macbeth, a much finer monarch than Shakespeare made him out to be, visiting Rome and meeting the Pope and other kings and queens who were there at the time.

His successor, Malcolm Canmore, married his Hungarian-born queen, Margaret, and she largely introduced the Roman form of Christianity into Scotland with consequences such as the building of cathedrals, abbeys and monasteries.

In the reign of David I we had more abbeys, and a peaceful invasion of Normans and Flemish, peoples that the king had encountered in his exile in England and whom he saw could help modernise Scotland. And they did – they gave us burghs, sheriff courts, international trade and names such as Fleming and Bruce. Indeed, just this month the University of St Andrews held a two-day conference entitled Scotland and the Flemish People, charting the influence of migration from Flanders to Scotland from 1100 to 1700.

After two or three centuries of Franco-Scottish links, and admittedly because of a certain mutual enemy, the Auld Alliance was agreed between France and Scotland.

It was our first mutual defence treaty, signed on vellum in 1295 by King Philip IV and King John Balliol, with their royal seals attached. For those who doubt English links with Europe, the Auld Alliance is actually pre-dated – albeit by only a year – by the diplomatic alliance between England and Portugal, later formalised as the Treaty of Windsor in 1386, which begs a question ... that treaty has never been revoked, so will it be another casualty of Brexit?

The Auld Alliance document in the Archives Nationales in Paris is a lovely thing, kept in the dark so that the writing never fades. It’s in Latin, of course, but was aimed squarely at England, with both countries promising to help each other.

SCOTLAND paid a very heavy price for that alliance. It enraged Edward Longshanks who sent his army north and occupied Berwick, then the biggest town in Scotland.

In 1296, with the Scots heading for outright revolt against him, Edward ordered the death of every man, woman and child in Berwick-upon-Tweed, which was then burned. The Scottish army was soon routed at the Battle of Dunbar and John Balliol abdicated the throne.

The Auld Alliance was barely two years in existence when William Wallace and the Scottish patriots rose against the tyrant king and won the Battle of Stirling Bridge. Wallace’s first concern was to sort out matters with the then Pope, and Philip of France asked His Holiness to look kindly on the newly-confirmed Guardian of Scotland.

Wallace also wrote immediately to the Hanseatic League, a sort of prototype Common Market, in order to re-establish trade links with their ports from the Baltic to far down the North Sea – and they did, because Scotland was an active trading partner as our wool was particularly prized.

After Bannockburn, Robert the Bruce was hailed across Europe as a true warrior king, and Scottish trade with Europe increased exponentially.

Scotland’s worst military disaster, Flodden Field, was the direct result of James IV agreeing to help out our French allies, yet still the Scots looked to Europe rather than England as our partners.

Scottish fighters became renowned mercenaries on the continent, and our soldiers and builders had huge influence on such countries as Russia – we’ll look at that in a future column.

Even when the English navy sank Scottish ships in the 15th and 16th centuries, Scottish merchants still traded with France and made claret our national drink. In other words, we were good European marketeers centuries before the EU existed.

The greatest influence on Scotland came from Europe, brought here by John Knox who came back from Geneva and almost single-handedly gave Scotland Presbyterianism and our education system.

He may not be everyone’s cup of tea now, and he wasn’t even that popular back in the 16th century, but it was the latter gentleman who in his First Book of Discipline set out the reasoning which led to the “school in every parish” precept of the Church of Scotland, which in turn became the law of Scotland in 1616 at the express wish of King James VI of Scotland, by then James I of Great Britain.

Knox and his Presbyterian colleagues plus the Scottish Parliament ensured that by the late 18th century, Scotland was the most literate nation on the planet.

The Scottish Enlightenment was a direct consequence of that literacy and of a genuine sense in Scottish society that someone could rise from humble origins merely on grounds of talent alone – Robert Burns being the best example.

It was the international influence on Europe and America of the Scottish Enlightenment thinkers that proved enduring. Everything from the French Revolution to the American Constitution was influenced by Scottish thought.

It was not a perfect country, though, and as the philosopher David Hume put it: “Why is it when we have lost parliament and monarchy and independent government, speak uneasily in a foreign tongue but yet are the People most distinguished for literature in Europe?”

THAT fact was recognised by none other than Voltaire, the great French writer and thinker who famously wrote: “We look to Scotland for all ideas of civilisation.”

If there ever was a finer compliment to Scotland, this writer hasn’t read it.

If only Hume was alive now. The author of that seminal work The History of England would surely be asking all the right questions of politicians north and south of the Border.

In the 19th century there occurred an event which helped shape modern Scotland and it involved the single greatest immigration in Scottish history with people coming in their tens of thousands from an EU country – Ireland, when those fleeing the Great Famine found homes in Scotland.

The links between Scotland and Europe in the last century or so are just too numerous to mention, so here’s just one shining example – the Italian community in Scotland is just one instance of people coming to live here in the 1900s and becoming very much a part of this nation. To put it humorously, where would we be without our fish and chips and our ice cream?

So now you know our history with Europe. The problem these days is that many Europeans are only now beginning to recognise that Scotland is a country in its own right and not just the people who occupy North Britain.

The 2014 independence referendum alerted Europe to Scotland’s aspiration for nationhood. They will welcome us in the EU, because they know we are good Europeans.

Let us finish with a warning. History shows us that a people very rarely get a second chance to be a nation again, but now it looks as though Scotland will get that opportunity.

For the sake of our nation in Europe, let’s not make the same mistake as we did the last time.