THE way you talk or write about historic events often betrays a lot about your political stance.

There are still people who talk and write about the Jacobite “rebellions” when those with greater sensitivity to history call them “risings” since the followers of King James believed that it was William and Mary who usurped the throne of their rightful king.

The Easter Rising of 1916 in Ireland is still known by some as the Easter Rebellion, while in our own time we have seen one event where ordinary people changed the historical name – Operation Iraqi Freedom, which George W Bush and Tony Blair justified on grounds of Saddam Hussein’s possession of weapons of mass destruction, but which the people knew all along were lies and misinformation and nothing to do with “freeeedom” so that it is now the Iraq War, or Blair’s Disgrace.

In Scotland we have a perfect example of that difference of opinion about history. It was an event that took place 220 years ago tomorrow on Tuesday, August 29, 1797, in the East Lothian town of Tranent.

It was Scotland’s Bloody Tuesday. Some call it the Battle of Tranent – why? Those with more feeling for accuracy call it the Massacre of Tranent. And it was a massacre as we shall see.

It was a time of political ferment in Scotland. The French Revolution just nine years earlier and the USA’s wars of independence had led many people to question the whole basis of the British Union state which, lest we forget, was less than 90 years old and was still very unpopular in parts of Scotland – and Ireland was still four years away from joining the Union.

The post-revolution French Government declared war on Great Britain in 1793, and the Westminster Government’s call on patriotism was one of the reasons why ordinary protest was seen as insurrection and sedition for the rest of the decade. In that same year and for the first time, Scotland saw the appointment of Lords Lieutenant, responsible for raising defence corps to resist a French invasion – none came.

Another piece of the context – the United Irishmen movement was well under way by the mid-1790s, and men such as the Reverend William Jackson and Lord Edward Fitzgerald had been accused of treason, the former committing suicide on the day of his final court appearance in 1795, and the latter escaping arrest until 1798 when he was shot and died of wound infection.

In 1796, Wolfe Tone had led the “expedition to Ireland” which ended with the French fleet scattered at Bantry Bay, but that only delayed the uprising which eventually took place in 1798 but which every clued-up person in Britain and Ireland knew was coming for many months beforehand.

The British State had cracked down hard on Ireland, with murder and rape of innocent people by soldiers and militia quite common in 1796, but a Scottish soldier, Sir Ralph Abercromby (or Abercrombie), reorganised the military there and stopped the worst excesses, deeds for which he is still remembered.

In Scotland, the outbreak of war with France – Scotland’s ancient ally – caused the already growing movement for reform to step up its activities.

That led in turn to Thomas Muir and his fellow radicals in the Scottish Association of the Friends of the People becoming targets for the British State, with which the Scottish courts and especially notorious judge Lord Braxfield colluding in sending Muir and his colleagues into exile in Australia in 1794.

In that same year, radical reformer Robert Watt – who will soon have a whole column devoted to him – was executed for high treason in Edinburgh. That really backfired on the British State, because Scottish reformers promptly transformed themselves into a secret group known as the Society of the United Scotsmen, who clearly drew their inspiration from the United Irishmen.

It was a well-organised association, mostly from the poorer classes – but still well-educated thanks to the school in every parish – comprising hundreds of cells numbering up to 16 men in each, and by 1796 it was estimated that there were 3,000 Scots in the United Scotsmen, organised into area committees with the working weavers in various communities being to the fore.

Their policies were for universal suffrage, annually elected parliaments and some form of self-government for Scotland – there was a split between those who wanted a republic and those who wanted a “British federation” under the monarchy.

They were all, or nearly all, men. Yet in 1797 it was a woman who led a famous uprising against the state and became known as a martyr of the people.

In Tranent, there is an unusual statue of a woman in peasant clothes carrying a drum and accompanied by a young boy. The statue of the woman was sculpted by David Annand in 1995 and the boy was added a year or so later to add stability to the monument.

The woman was Jackie Crookston – the variants Joan and Crookstone are also used – who was murdered by the British state on August 29, 1797.

In the winters of 1795-96 and 1796-97, hunger swept across Scotland as the wheat harvest in particular failed drastically. Riots had broken out across Britain and in late 1796, Scotland saw food riots in various places, with the general populace agitating against any export of foodstuffs.

In Inverness several years earlier, workers had gone on strike to prevent a grain ship from sailing, and the Army had dispersed the ensuing march with live ammunition – only one person was wounded.

So when the food riots broke out in late 1796, the protestors across Scotland knew they risked death. Into this cauldron the British Government threw an incendiary bomb.

Henry Dundas, the “uncrowned king of Scotland”, had totally dominated political affairs in Scotland until he was appointed Home Secretary in 1791 and Britain’s first Secretary of State for War in 1794. With William Pitt the Younger as Prime Minister, Dundas mentored the young man and continued to pull the strings of government in Scotland.

He had made it his life’s work to battle the radicals, but in 1797, Dundas went too far when he orchestrated the Militia Act which also made membership of the United Scotsman an offence punishable by seven years transportation.

Ostensibly to put local defence on an organised basis but in reality a way of creating a state police force, the Scottish Lords Lieutenant were given powers under the Act to raise militias – paid for by the government. Troops to serve in the militias were to be chosen by ballot among the able-bodied men of each parish between the ages of 19 and 23, and each would serve for three to five years. If a man did not wish to serve, he could either provide a substitute – say, a family member - or pay a £10 fine, which effectively meant no working man could afford to buy himself out but the middle classes and professionals could.

In an unusual failure of their propaganda, the Scottish authorities failed to convince the working classes – who were growing more organised and powerful in the early industrial revolution – of the efficacy of such militias. Basically the people didn’t believe they were for keeping the peace and defending the nation against France, but were a way of prising hard-working men out of their jobs to serve in the British Army – enforced conscription. To make matters worse, Deputy Lieutenants were appointed to ensure that 6,000 men were recruited by ballot and local schoolmasters were given the job of identifying who was eligible.

And so to Tranent. The first demonstration against the conscription ballot took place in Berwickshire in early August and the news spread up the east coast. The miners in East Lothian combined with the pottery workers and farmworkers around Tranent to let it be known that the ballot would be opposed. The Scottish government promptly sent in the army to enforce the Act, future Prime Minister Lord Hawkesbury, the 1st Earl of Liverpool, leading the local yeomanry and more than 140 cavalrymen from English regiments, the Cinque Ports and Pembrokeshire cavalries.

On August 28, the protestors met at Prestonpans and bravely sent the following communication to the deputy lieutenants.

“To the honourable Gentlemen assembled at Tranent, for the purpose of raising six thousand Militia-men in Scotland: Prestonpans, 28th August, 1797.

“Gentlemen,—The following are the declarations and resolutions to which the undersigned do unanimously agree: 1: We declare that we unanimously disapprove of the late act of Parliament for raising six thousand militia men in Scotland.

2: That we will assist each other in endeavouring to repeal the said act.

3: That we are peaceably disposed; and should you, in endeavouring to execute the said act, urge us to adopt coercive measures, we must look upon you to be the aggressors, and as responsible to the nation for all the consequences that may follow.

4: Although we may be overpowered in effecting the said resolution, and dragged from our parents, friends, and employments, to be made soldiers of, you may infer from this what trust can be reposed in us, if ever we are called upon to disperse our fellow countrymen, or to oppose a foreign foe.”

SOME 30 men led by a potter called Coutterside signed the missive. The authorities could not back down and under armed guard the deputy lieutenants and schoolmasters met in Tranent on the morning of the 29th and the ballot began.

There is little doubt as to what happened next. The common people of the area rose up as one and with “a tall thin woman” thought to be Jackie Crookston among the leaders, they marched on Tranent, where local mineowner John Caddell of Cockenzie threatened to “hang them all”. Crookston banged her drum and led the shouts of “nae militia”.

The protestors, including many more women – Caddell “damned them for bitches” – who feared the loss of their men to the military, taunted the soldiers and when they retaliated by firing blanks, the protests turned violent, with officers, soldiers and cavalry all set upon.

GUNS were now loaded and firing began. The immediate surroundings of the public house of John Glen, where the ballot had been conducted, were cleared in ruthless fashion. The first to die was William Hunter, shot dead off a nearby roof where he had been seen throwing stones.

There was now a full scale riot and the troops were shooting indiscriminately. Isabel Roger, 19, was pursued up a close and shot dead. William Smith and George Elder were shot on the streets.

The English cavalrymen now lost control completely and pursued innocent people as well as rioters for miles around.

Six dragoons cornered Peter Ness, an innocent timber worker, and shot him to pieces. Carpenter William Lawson testified on his death bed that he had been shot and left to die. He had not even been in Tranent.

Stephen Brotherston was shot and slashed to death in front of his wife. An 11-year-old boy called Kemp had his head cut in two with a sabre. Others died in equally appalling circumstances.

The last of the 12 to die may well have been Jackie Crookston as her body was found several weeks later in a corn field some distance away from Tranent. She had suffered stab and gunshot wounds. She was just 29, and had four young children.

The Government propaganda machine went in to overdrive.

Some 36 people had been arrested but when they began to testify about the atrocities, most were quietly released though some were jailed.

The authorities spread tales of “riots” and a “battle” waged by insurrectionists.

The truth, as testified to by too many witnesses to be disbelieved, was that a massacre had taken place in and around Tranent on that dreadful day.

Despite overwhelming evidence, including that of schoolboy Adam Blair who survived several stab wounds and later became a Kirk minister and wrote his own account of the massacre, the then Lord Advocate of Scotland did not prosecute any soldier or officer. But then Robert Dundas could not offend his uncle Henry, could he?

Twas ever thus...