Are you Scottish or British?
How much are you prepared for that choice to cost you?
...and why is THIS a place to decide? If you re interested in the people,
places and events in Scottish history then click the subscribe button at
the bottom right of the screen and click the notification bell
to be informed when I upload new videos. In the meantime, let me tell you a story.
but which are you? Oh, I know there are some of you who
find that an easy question to answer. In fact, you re adamant.
There ll be transatlantic viewers who think British and English are the same thing,
and neither of them involve Scots...
In spite of their confusion, they ll still have strong feelings on the matter too...
and of course there will be some who say: I m both.
There are businesses up and down the country who fly Saltires AND Union Flags,
so as to avoid taking sides in a modern-day political debate.
I mean you wouldn t want the choice to cost you money, would you?
I myself try to walk a thin line on this channel so as not to exclude people.
Presumably why I ve been called both a rabid nationalist AND a lickspittle Unionist.
You know what side I m on....
Look, I m not here to change your political opinion.
My goal is to persuade you of the importance of this place and come here to visit.
There ARE people who s job it is to persuade you this way and that.
My role is to get you to value of our heritage and understand why these places matter.
It s a serious question though. If somebody said: You have to choose.
Choose wrong and we take away hour house, your income and your name....
That is the choice that folks were forced to make here,
at Cambuskenneth Abbey, in November 1314, five months after the battle of Bannockburn.
Medieval loyalties were messy. Allegiances were to feudal overlords.
You might have one in England to whom you paid homage for lands you held there.
Then you paid homage to the Scottish king for the lands you held here.
You probably owed each of them military service as part of your rental agreement.
It s a bit like somebody in London having a holiday cottage in the Trossachs,
but if the landlord gets into a scrap in the pub you ve got to give him hauners
But it gets kind of messy when the two countries are fighting each other.
As the thirteenth turned to the fourteenth century Edward Longshanks
had a solution to the problem... by making Scotland subservient and
ruling over the whole of this island we could be British AND Scottish.
I don t think the concept of Britishness was quite the feudal mentality, but you get what I mean.
In 1314, with Longshanks dead and his son sent hameward tae think again...
here, at a parliament that November Robert Bruce said to the nobility of Scotland:
No... Choose. The Statute of Cambuskenneth said
it was agreed, finally adjudged and decided hereon
with the counsel and assent of the bishops and the rest of the prelates, earls ,
barons, and other nobles of the kingdom of Scotland,
and also of the whole community of the kingdom aforesaid,
that all who died in war, or elsewhere or who on the said day had not come into his
peace and faith (although oft-times called and lawfully awaited),
be disinherited for ever of their lands... within the kingdom of Scotland,
and be held, besides as enemies of the king and kingdom,
What are you going to do?
You might think Robert the Bruce was being harsh...
but he himself had made the same choice ten years before, in this very same place.
On 11th June 1304 Edward Longshanks was viciously bombarding Stirling Castle.
It was the last holdout against the man who had conquered Wales
and thought he d conquered Scotland... He s the king in charge
of the whole of Britain... or will be once he s dealt with Stirling castle
and that rebel William Wallace of course. The traitor who insisted on being Scottish.
I say that as we stand below the Wallace Monument perched up on that crag.
Wallace the patriot made his choice clear....
and yet, his monument stands as a memorial to Britishness.
If that sounds ridiculous, then watch my video What They Don t Say About the Wallace Monument
That is the Wallace monument from the other side.
This is a car park in the Stirling University campus, and on 15th September
I ll be parking here because over there...
...is The MacRobert Art Centre and I ll be doing my live comedy show,
Stories of Scotland on that stage. If you live near Stirling then why not
click the link top right to book a ticket. Or for all tour dates and tickets click the
link in the description below. Now back to Cambuskenneth
Stirling Castle had already surrendered, but Edward had a new trebuchet to try out,
so wouldn t accept surrender till he d had a bit of fun with his new toy...
and maybe a wee bit of Greek fire along the way. Robert Bruce was on hand... a loyal subject of
this king of all Britain. In fact, that very day
he d formally received Edward s thanks for his services and had his debts cancelled,
after which Bruce said: Thanks for that boss. Now, sorry to be a pain, but I m going to have
to rush off for my one o clock. If I call an Uber now I might just make it.
Round he comes to Cambuskenneth and who is his one O Clock appointment,
but William Lamberton, the Bishop of St Andrews...
The Fighting Bishop. Bruce and Lamberton sign a secret pact
"in view of future dangers," that they should in all time coming
assist each other against all persons whatsoever;
that neither should undertake any business without consulting the other,
and that each should warn the other of any approaching danger.
That s Edward they re talking about. The scheming turncoats.
Even the abbey gargoyles looked down in horror.
That day Robert Bruce made a choice. He chose to be Scottish.
He knew that the consequence would be the loss of substantial English lands, maybe even his life.
Several of his brothers... and many other Scots...
and English Welsh and Irish would lose theirs in the ten years it took
to realise his dream of a free Scotland with him at the top as king of course.
Now he was telling others it was time for them to make the same choice.
I wonder..., given his oaths to Edward here ten years before...,
how much he thought he could trust any oaths
received. That wasn t
just a question for Robert the Bruce
This is the resting place of Robert the Bruce s three times great grandson, James III.
170 years after it was ordained that Scotland was Scotland and loyalties had to be decided,
that royal decedent of Robert the Bruce died after battle...
fighting a civil war against his nobles... who claimed loyalty to James s son.
James himself had taken sides in England s Civil War of the Roses.
Now the details are best covered in another video, but the question is:
Who in both these wars were patriots... and why should they be?
...and what about those who were never asked? What about the ordinary people, who would be
conscripted to fight in armies based, not on their feelings,
but on oaths given by their lord and master without any reference to them.
The rank and file did much more dying and much less choosing
than the nobles who claimed national loyalty. Isn t there an absurdity in the idea that; because
we re born on a particular piece of real estate we have to be loyal to a certain king... to give
up life and limb for the guy in the shinny hat. ...that I would share those same loyalties with
a guy in Galashiels, Garioch, Gowkthrapple...and Govan...and
yes Gowkthrapple is a real place Maybe you re
Canadian, and you don
t believe in loyalty to the shiny hat person who s bizarrely still your head of state...
but you owe allegiance to a clan... you re loyalty is to 1000 disparate
people all over the world who have no connection to you other than a name....
or our American cousins that might think somebody in Glendale,
Georgetown, Green Bay and Greensboro should die for a constitution or a flag...
a piece of cloth and a piece of paper.
Don t you wish there s a place in America called Gowkthrapple
I m not challenging your ideas of patriotism.
I m challenging you to come to Cambuskenneth Abbey.
If you re one of the thousands who come to Stirling Castle or the
Wallace Monument every week but miss this.... Few historic sites in Scotland sit in such close
proximity and hold such history, ...and such contradictions.
If you only see Cambuskenneth Abbey... as a unique 65 foot bell tower
... a preserved archway to the now lost church.... and a site of ruins...,
then you ve missed the point. It s the shade of a magnificent
building, that was key to Scotland s history, where fighting Bishops, kings and parliaments
sat to decide what is Scotland. It s a burial place of Royalty,
it s a place to think... about loyalty and nationhood...
to ask questions... This is a place of decisions.
The decisions you take are yours... but do come. My name s Bruce Fummey... and I m Scottish.
If you re wondering why the Scottishness or Britishness of the Wallace Monument
might not be as clear cut as you imagine there s another video coming up on screen now
Support the channel by clicking top right to become a Patreon member, or buy me a coffee
in the description below. Otherwise I ll see you at
the MacRobert Arts Centre on 15th September Tha mi an dochas gum bith lath math leibh