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Risings and rebellions continued regardless. One of the last was the Battle of Culloden in the Scottish Highlands in 1746, that led to a total defeat of the Jacobite claim to Britain. The victory of the Duke of Cumberland led to a complete remodelling of the governance of the Highlands, removing military and judicial powers from Scottish feudal lords, and the Scottish clergy were forced to pledge allegiance to the British royals. The British state was one whose political tone and agenda were set in London and southern England. Scots were brutally forced to accept that.
It’s only relatively recently, then, that Scots have fought alongside the English, playing a major role in the British army. In world war one, it was Douglas Haig, an Edinburgh man, who led the British army on the Western Front in the battles in the Somme, Ypres, Cambrai and in other places. In world war two, the 1st Battalion of the Royal Scots defended Dunkirk during the evacuation. They were ordered on 26 May 1940 to fight ‘to the last round and last man’ in covering the beaches — and they did. When a rogue, isolated group of Royal Scots were taken to a French hospital, the German officer who escorted him said they ‘fought like lions’. Their battalion was almost entirely wiped out.
In the 1960s the Scottish National party began its rise and, by the 1990s, during the campaign for the Scottish Assembly and after the Claim of Right, Scottish nationalism became increasingly popular. Scotland has since had an independence referendum and will likely have another. It’s worth remembering today, regardless of all that, that England and Scotland will be forever bound in mourning.
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