I'm Bruce Fummey. Today I want to take you to an island that may encapsulate
more Scottish history than any other. A place that brings together the peoples of Scotland,
the spiritual life of Scotland, the historical writings of Scotland, and many of its conflicts.
It all starts with St Margaret, as we set off from under the Queensferry Crossing that
takes her name. If you're interested in the people, places and events in Scottish history,
then click the subscribe button at the bottom right. In the meantime, let me tell you a story.
I'm setting off from near Queensferry, and I'm taking a boat trip out to Inchcolm
Island in the Forth Estuary, courtesy of my old mucker, Ray McIntosh.
We first met when he was a PE teacher, and I was a relief physics teacher in Highland Perthshire.
Now he's a tour guide, and well I do whatever I do,
but McIntosh Tours doesn't just have a car to take you on tour, he's got a boat! Obviously
I'm not risking giving him a speaking part, he's way too friendly, engaging and entertaining to risk
that kind of competition, but I'll leave a link to McIntosh Tours in the description below.
As we head off, it's worth pointing out to the non-Scots, that there are two Queensferries;
South Queensferry in Lothian, on the south bank of the Forth Estuary, but North Queensferry is ... well
I think you can work it out, it's in Fife. You see Margaret of Wessex was the Anglo-Saxon
wife of Malcolm the Third, Malcolm Canmore. Now the romantic story goes, that she, along with her
brother, Edgar Aetheling, the Saxon, English heir, that William of Normandy had pushed out in 1066,
fled north. The family had become shipwrecked on the Forth, and were welcomed in by Malcolm, who was
taken by this young beauty. Now she was supposed to become a nun, before Malcolm persuaded her, and
her brother that she should become his Queen, and play a major role in the development of Scotland.
I'll be honest, the truth was a wee bit more calculated than the romance, but let's not
let that get in the way a good story. Margaret did however, remain pious all the way through her life,
and had quite an impact on the religious life of Scotland, increasing the influence of the Roman
Church, over the cult of Columba and the Church of Iona. Incidentally, you know that I've got a video
on Columba, filmed at the beautiful grounds of Dunkeld Cathedral don't you? You could say as part
of the romanisation and deceltification of the church, Margaret wanted to help pilgrims, who were
traveling from Lothian, through the Kingdom of Fife, to pay homage at the holy relics of St Andrew,
and have a game of golf, and so she established a ferry crossing here. The Queen's ferry took people
from Lothian, that part of Anglian Northumbria, that had only just recently become part of Scotland,
to St Andrews, the holy site of Scotland's developing Patron Saint. Kind of makes you wonder
if there may have been a political motive of unifying two peoples involved as well.
That would kind of spoil the romance wouldn't it? Nowadays we don't need to take a ferry, because
there are bridges. When Britannia ruled the waves, the Forth Bridge was one of
those feats of Victorian engineering, that meant that trains no longer had to be put on ferries,
but could cross the Forth by their own steam. Then in September 1964, the age of cars,
meant that Queen Elizabeth opened the Forth Road Bridge, and recently, as that showed signs of decay,
the more modern Queensferry Crossing was built, by a German company. The bridges
kind of tell their own story of British history, but we're here for older history today.
Back at the time of St Margaret, this would have been known as the Scottish Sea. The patriarch of
the Canmore line, of Margaret, her husband, Malcolm Canmore, and their descendants was Malcolm the Second. In
his time, this Scottish Sea, was a dividing line. On the north shore was Alba, the kingdom so recently
formed by the Picts and the Scots. On the southern shore, Lothian and our current capital of Edinburgh,
had been part of the Anglian and somewhat Vikingy kingdom of Northumbria. It was Malcolm the Second, who
had brought the lands south of the Forth into Scotland at the battle of Carham in 1018. Margaret
had married that Malcolm's great-grandson, Malcolm Canmore in 1070. She started a ferry for pilgrims
and blah de blah de blah. Now Malcolm and Margaret died within days of each other 23 years later, and
if you're interested in the debacle that followed, then why not watch my video, 'Was Macbeth the Last
Celtic King of Scotland?' When things settled down after the debacle, their son became Alexander the
First of Scotland in 1107. About 60 years into his reign, it so happened that Alexander was crossing
this estuary one night, at the very place that mummy had established a ferry, and a wild storm
blew up. Now the Pope hadn't yet canonised mummy, so Alexander called out to God, and promised that
if he kept him alive, then in thanks, Alexander would build a monastery to St Columba, Colm Cille.
God saw Alexander safe to the shore of this island. Alexander spent three nights on the island, and
he was looked after by two pious hermits. The island is now named Inchcolm, after Colm Cille,
Columba's isle. Is that because Alexander built a monastery on the island? No, because shortly after
Alexander got off the island, he died. He hadn't specified to God how long he had to keep him alive.
If you're going to make a construction contract with the Almighty, always check the small print.
Oh, incidentally, I'll be doing some additional longer interviews with special guests for my
Patreon members to see. You send in the questions, and I ask our guest your questions during the
chat. This month's interview will be uploaded to the Patreon member site, at the start of October.
The interview is with Stuart McHardie, who's written 'A New History of the Picts', 'Tales of the Picts',
'Pagan Symbols of the Picts', and other titles. I'll leave links in the description below. So if you're
a Patreon member, send me a message with your questions in time for my interview with Stuart,
on the 27th of September 2021. If you're not already a Patreon member, then you can join by
clicking the white tab up there in the description. I'll leave a link in the description as well.
Here's the chapel, or hermit cell, where Alexander sheltered from the storm. So was that the end of
the monastery on this island in the Forth? If it was, I wouldn't be bringing you here today, would I?
Of course a monastery was built, but it was built by Alexander's younger brother, David the First,
presumably to say thanks to God, for making him King! Maybe he'd been praying harder than Alexander,
but I told you, that this was a microcosm of Scottish history. The monastery on this island,
was promised and built by the Norman raised sons of an Anglo-Saxon Queen, Margaret, and what some might
deem the last Celtic King, Malcolm Canmore. It's named after an Irish monk of Dalriada. Hogback stone
monuments, and other burial monuments used by the Viking types, suggest that this was also a
sacred location in burial ground for Christian, north men, long before the monastery was built.
If you've watched my series on the peoples who made Scotland, then you'll know that's just about
every one of those groups who made Scotland, that have used this island, and are remembered here.
During the 13th Century, Scotland was consolidating under the later Canmore Kings. The Church was
extended in that direction, and they built this magnificent tower. Then in the 14th Century, as
Scotland was fighting its Wars of Independence with England, the strategically located island
came under attack. It was also around that time, that they built an entirely new abbey here, that
didn't survive. They don't make those modern things to last eh, but in the 15th Century, come here,
this is the most complete set of monastic cloisters to be found in Scotland.
Possibly the reason Inchcolm's fabric survived much of the destruction of the Reformation,
was because it was on this island. Rangers fans are notoriously bad swimmers!
their players are good divers but. Okay, for reasons of balance in the tedium of West of Scotland politics,
I'm now required to insert a Celtic joke here, so Neil Lennon. You guys argue amongst yourselves, it
takes the pressure off the Fifers. Back to more important issues. In some ways, the Abbot who
supervised building these cloisters is even more important than the cloisters themselves. His name
was Walter Bower, and he was the Abbott here from 1418 until he died in 1449. Now
for the context of his time, I've got some videos, and I'll leave a link at the end,
but Walter Bower's importance is because of what he did in that room up there, towards the end
of his life here, let's call it the Bower Tower, because that's where Walter Bower wrote the book,
'Schotichronicon'. It's a book that sets out the history of the Scots, from their foundation under
Scota, the legendary Pharaoh's daughter, who brought her people out of Egypt, all the way down to Bowers'
own time and James the First of Scotland. Now some of his material was taken from earlier books, some
was his own writings, some bits are more reliable than others, but whenever you read something about
Scotland's ancient past, whenever you watch a video like this, where a non-historian like me has read
a book by a proper historian, like Fiona Watson, or somebody else like that, that proper historian
will often compare their observations, discoveries, and analysis against Schotichronicon. Come here.
In fact for me, as somebody who's read references to Schotichronicon so many times,
the idea that I'm in the room where Walter Bower poured over parchment to write that book,
just gives me goosebumps, like very few things I've shown you today. You can just imagine him sitting
by this fire, recording the story of Scotland, and that's not even all the history that this
island's got to offer, because following Walter Bower, I could talk about how this island was
fortified for later military conflicts against the English, during the Henry the Eighth's rough wooing
of Mary, Queen of Scots. Napoleonic defences, and the military emplacements of the First
and Second World Wars, it can still be seen on this island today. This island oozes Scotland's story,
but I can't tell you all in one video, because medical experts have said that there's a risk
that your mind would be completely blown, and my public liability insurance won't cover it,
so I'm going to get back on the boat, with my old mucker, Ray McIntosh,
and I'll leave you to watch another video, of some of the events in Scottish history
around the time of Walter Bower. Tha mi an dochas gum bith lath math leibh. Tiorridh an drasda.