Here's some facts about Scotland for COP26 delegates visiting the 'UK'

A reader kindly suggested that with all the Union Jackery – a term popularised by The National – abounding at COP26, it might be useful to remind delegates that they are in the country of Scotland which has a history, and a flag, all of its own.

So in no order of importance, here’s some things worth knowing about Scotland that probably won’t be found in the UK Government’s information to delegates.

Scotland is one of the oldest nations in the world. It was described as Caledonia by the Romans, and its true foundation is generally reckoned to have been when two tribes, the ancient Scots and their neighbours the Picts, merged in the ninth century under the country’s first recognised king, Kenneth MacAlpin, around 843 in the Common Era. That’s about a century older than England, and 933 years older than the USA.

Prior to that, the tribe known as the Picts – the painted ones – were the dominant force on most of the mainland of Scotland. We know little about them as their language did not survive.

The very edge of the Roman empire was set at Hadrian’s Wall in the north of what is now England though for a brief period the Romans had a wall between the Rivers Clyde and Forth known as Antonine’s Wall after the emperor who ordered its construction in 142CE. In other words, Rome conquered everything south of Scotland but never imposed its rule on the peoples of what is now Scotland.

Scotland’s border with England was set by the Treaty of York in 1237. With minor exceptions, that border has remained in place for 784 years and emphatically did not disappear at the time of the Union in 1707. Very few countries have borders lasting so long.

One of Scotland’s ancient kings was Macbeth, made out by William Shakespeare to be a usurping regicide and a poor king. In fact Macbeth won the throne of Alba, as Scotland was then known, when King Duncan I attacked Macbeth’s lands of Moray and was killed in battle. Macbeth ruled for 17 years of peace and prosperity until he, too, was killed in combat by the troops of his successor Malcolm III in 1057.

Delegates will have seen plenty Saltires if they were watching the march through Glasgow yesterday. The white St Andrew’s cross on a blue background is Europe’s most ancient national flag, first adopted by the Picts and Scots after the battle near Athelstaneford in what is now East Lothian in the early ninth century when Picts and Scots united to defeat raiding Northumbrians, with Saltire-shaped clouds having been seen in the sky before the battle.

Scotland has twice been conquered by the English, but only relatively briefly on both occasions. The first was in the 1290s by King Edward I, known as Longshanks or the Hammer of the Scots, and accurately portrayed in the film Braveheart as a Scot-hating cruel swine. That’s one of the few things in the film that is entirely accurate.

Sir William Wallace really did lead a popular uprising against English rule, and paid for it with his life in 1305. Again Braveheart got his gruesome execution correct.

Scotland won back its independence under King Robert the Bruce, with the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314 the clinching moment of a long campaign. Scotland’s independence was finally recognised by England in the Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton in 1328, though it did not take long for English King Edward III to break the treaty and support a would-be usurper, Edward Balliol, against Scotland’s rightful king, the Bruce’s son King David II. England would invade Scotland again in the reign of Henry VIII, but the Scots held out.

Mary, Queen of Scots, was a tragic figure, decapitated on the orders of her cousin Elizabeth I of England. But Mary’s son King James VI of Scotland became James I of England in a personal ‘united kingdom’ in 1603, so Mary had the last laugh – every monarch since has been her descendant.

The second conquest of Scotland took place in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, often erroneously called jthe English Civil War, in 1650 when Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army routed the Scots at the Battle of Dunbar and proceeded to occupy the whole country with General George Monck imposed as Governor and Scotland incorporated into Cromwell’s Commonwealth, which effectively was a dictatorship. Scotland regained its independence for the second time when Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660.

In 1707, the Act of Union merged the English and Scottish Parliaments to force the creation of a unitary state while maintaining the separate existence of both countries.

It was so unpopular among the Scots that when the Stuart family tried several times to regain the throne, promising to end the Union, many Highlanders in particular joined up to fight for them. The Battle of Culloden in 1746 saw Scots on both sides and the defeat of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s force was followed by wholesale slaughter of Highlanders and brutal suppression of their culture and way of life.

No one doubts that after some time, the growth of the British Empire involved many Scots and saw Glasgow in particular flourish as the Second City of the Empire with its heavy industries and trade around the world. But that Empire has been over for decades.

When you saw people talking about winning independence yesterday, more accurately they should have been talking about regaining independence for the third time. The UK Government refuses to countenance a second referendum, the first in 2014 having been won by Unionists telling lies. And that’s another story…