IN his letter of May 27, John Blyth points out that Scotland is the oldest monarchy in Europe, and he sees no reason to change that.
Looking around the world at the current presidents of republics, many of them thugs and place-getters, some of whom have waded through blood to get there, and almost all of whom are driven by “o’er-vaulting ambition”, I cannot for the life of me understand an urgency to follow suit. Very few are elder statesmen or stateswomen with sufficient understanding and ability and care for their country to steer it wisely. Probably that can only be assessed after their demise and in retrospect.
A monarchy on the other hand is a family, and a family, like all families, is a story. Like all our families it has contained a few thugs and a few really noble people, and mostly fairly ordinary folk in between. With any luck all families have a few comical characters as well.
READ MORE: Independent Scotland could have a down-to-earth royal family
People really do prefer a family and a story and history that they know, so I now hesitate to put through the doors of our neighbourhood a booklet, otherwise excellent on the prospect of Scottish independence, because it says that the Scottish people will probably vote to be a republic. Well, there is no evidence of that on the ground, though it may find a voice in your columns.
People really do have an interest in history and families. They do know the history of the Stuarts: they do know that there were both inept and wise kings and that their story is more interesting than the endless petty disputes, resentments, spites and bickering of party politics. Perhaps parliamentary politics have always echoed the intrigues and ambitions that once were part of Court life. If so, we have been spared that on home ground for 300 years.
READ MORE: 'Queen's reign could end with Union collapse' says US mag
Meanwhile Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Holland, countries whose practical efficiency we are supposed to admire, all have monarchies which, like ours, do not take sides in politics. They remain a consistent symbol of their country in a way that republican states, with their ever-changing political allegiances, cannot hope to be. The House of Windsor is not, of course, the House of Stuart.
Crucial to this was Mary, Queen of Scots, who in Scotland was surrounded by the nastiest bunch of traitorous nobles imaginable. Jealous of the power of the throne, some of them attempted to make her miscarry her child by murdering her secretary in front of her, and then imprisoned her in the palace of Holyrood. With great courage and ingenuity, she escaped and rode overnight to Dunbar. She saved the life of her child, James VI and I, but could not save herself. Betrayed by the Scots, mostly in English pay, imprisoned and murdered by the English with a shameful pretence of legality, which country was most guilty of the death of that brave and innocent queen?
We owe a belated apology to the house of Stuart.
Lesley J Findlay
Fort Augustus
WHILE accepting George Kerevan’s description of the modern Palestinian’s view of Patrick Geddes as being understandably negative (Letters, May 31) I stand by my comments on his previous piece, that he was iconoclastic. This he partly corrects in his letter. All readers do not have George Kerevan’s erudition and might form a false picture of the stature of Patrick Geddes without more information. In Scottish terms he was a continuation of the intellectual tradition of the giants of The Enlightenment.
READ MORE: Patrick Geddes had good intentions when he planned Hebrew University
Regarding context, Geddes could not have foreseen the extraordinary events of the century that exists between his time and the present. As George Kerevan says, in his time there were 1500 years of Arab control. This extended culturally over the southern half of the Roman Empire including Constantinople. In this city the main Christian building Hagia Sofia was a mosque, which makes the point that buildings change use as history dictates – as might have happened in Jerusalem, for all that Geddes knew.
Iconoclasm often seems to attach to Scottish heroes such as Geddes: Burns considered slave-driving; Macdiarmid toyed with continental political theories; Hume was an atheist. I would prefer to think of these Scots as being on the side of the underdog. Hume’s namesake in India initiated their political development, Cochrane extended independence in South America and Byron died for freedom in Greece. Geddes possibly thought of the Zionists of his time as underdogs.
Iain WD Forde
Scotlandwell
WHAT a brilliant letter on June 2 from Mike Herd comparing the population size of Scotland to his list of countries. These figures need to be made available more and be part of the independence campaign. People will spend hours on the internet searching for information. If they did the same on facts like this, hopefully it would alleviate their concerns about Scotland being too wee.
Gordon Walker
Paisley
TO suggest, as Mike Herd does, that Glasgow has more people than Estonia’s 1,326,590 is just crazy.
George Mylett
via thenational.scot
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