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Scotland: Centuries
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An independent nation for much of its history, Scotland was joined to England by a series of dynastic and political unions in the 17th and 18th centuries. Scotland retains a separate national identity... supported by separate legal and educational systems, a national church, a parliament with wide-ranging powers, and other national symbols and institutions.
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Within Scotland's borders considerable social and cultural diversity ... persisted. Highland literacy was much lower than Lowland because most people there spoke Gaelic, not Scots (a West Germanic tongue similar to English). Gaelic was the first language of half of Scotland in the fifteenth century, a third in 1689, but just a fifth in 1806. Linguistic variety did not end there, for all of Scotland was becoming more Anglicized. Scots itself had flourished as a literary medium in the late Middle Ages (c. 1480รข€“1520) but was in retreat thereafter as standard court Scots fragmented into regional dialects after the departure of James VI in 1603.
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During the Industrial Revolution of 18th and 19th centuries, Scotland became a regional commercial power. Landowners forced tenants off the land (the Highland Clearances), establishing large cattle and sheep farms. Soon coal mining, steel production and ship building continued the economic transformation.
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The political origins and standing of the Church of Scotland gave it power almost unique in Europe, for example allowing it to control the moral and religious behavior of all Scots through parish "kirk sessions." Yet this was fatally weakened by a Toleration Act in 1712 and by further splits between Protestant denominations (for example, in 1733), which continued to fragment the faith into the mid-nineteenth century. Vocal and sometimes violent anti-Catholicism ... persisted throughout the early modern period.
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The Scots, a Celtic tribe from Ireland, migrated to the west coast of Scotland in about 500. Kenneth McAlpin, king of the Scots, ascended the throne of the Pictish kingdom in about 843, thereby uniting the various Scots and Pictish tribes under one kingdom called Dal Riada. By the 11th century, the monarchy had extended its borders to include much of what is Scotland today.
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![[Flag of Scotland]](http://retrieverimages.lycos.com/images/s/c/o/scotland/i/038.gif)
In 17th century Scotland, the colours carried by the infantry regiments that fought against Cromwell in 1648-50 are in a wide variety of colours. There are yellow saltires on black, black on yellow, white on red, red on white, white on yellow, white on black, white on green, red on yellow, yellow on red, white on blue and red quartered, yellow and white quartered on blue, and for those with no imagination, white saltires on blue :-). The choice of colours appears to be have dictated by the livery colours of the colonel. So at that time, it would seem that it was the saltire itself that was the 'national identifier', rather than it having to be a white saltire on a blue (of whatever colour) field.
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Centuries