Hiya I'm Bruce Fummey. In 2014 there was a referendum about Scotland becoming independent.
At that time I often heard people say that the UK was like a marriage.
That metaphoric marriage, was on the first of May 1707, but there were seven actual marriages through
the centuries, that each brought us a step closer to that figurative marriage of the United Kingdom,
and I'm going to count them down and explain why. If you're interested in
the people, places and events in Scottish history, then click the subscribe button at
the bottom right hand side of the screen at any time during this video. In the meantime,
let me tell you seven stories! So here's a countdown of the marriages that made the
United Kingdom. We start a thousand years ago in 1070 with Malcolm Canmore and Margaret Aetheling,
Margaret of Wessex, Saint Margaret, call her what you will, she's straight in at number seven da da da da da da da da da da.
Okay pop pickers, let's just calm doon.
There are Canadians, Americans, Australians and young people who have no idea what
just happened there, so let's go back to some historical marriages all right?
1057 was a seminal year in Scottish history, but most of you don't even realise it. It was the first
step in the journey away from Celticness. It was the year Malcolm Canmore killed Macbeth. Now I'm
going to have to leave a link at the end of my video 'Who was the Real King Macbeth?' so that you
can find out all about it. Here's the thing though, I bet you all know what happened nine years later
in 1066! Yes! William of Normandy invaded England and defeated the Saxons at the Battle of Hastings.
King Harold of England lost an eye, and his life. I suppose we should prioritise,
but the Saxons didn't just give up, they named a guy called Edgar Aetheling as
the rightful King of England, then Edgar came north with his sister Margaret. Now
Margaret was going to marry God and become a Nun, but Malcolm Canmore, the Scottish King said,
'How no marry me instead!?' Well what lady doesn't like a bit of sweet talking like that?
Now I think Malcolm saw an opportunity of being married to the sister of the ousted Saxon King of
England when that Saxon King would have to go and fight for the throne against William the Conqueror.
I could just see Malcolm saying you go for it Edgar, go and win back the English throne, oh
and don't worry if you don't make it back, I'll be making replacements with your sister. This
marriage brought together Celtic Scotland and Saxon England. The unification ball was rolling,
and Malcolm gave the first of his children of the marriage Saxon names, just in case. Now the
Scottish Royal Family may have united Celtic and Saxon, but England was becoming Norman. The Saxons
never made that comeback, so Malcolm and Margaret gave their later children Norman names instead,
and one of those children comes in at number six da da da, stop it! Sorry.
At number six we have a marriage that is in a way almost a reversal of number seven.
The Normans were now firmly in charge of England. William the Conqueror, he's dead. His fourth son
was called Henry. Now Henry has an elder brother, William Rufus who succeeded their dad
as the King of England and in August 1100, when the two brothers were in the New Forest,
elder brother was shot with an arrow in a nasty, accidental, suspiciously convenient hunting
accident. Now being Johnny on the spot, Henry claimed the crown before his other elder brother
could complete the Brexit paperwork to get over from Normandy. Now back in those days, the idea of
primogeniture, where the eldest son always inherits the crown wasn't as firmly established, but there
was obviously still a potential for a bit of oy you, what do you think you're up to? manship.
So it would be good to get a bit of credibility with the recently conquered Saxons,
if only there was an eligible female who was the daughter of the previous Saxon
Royal Family close by, then bob's your uncle, Edith's your wife, and there she was in Scotland.
The hunting accident was in the 2nd of August, Henry's crowned on the 5th of August,
and he's married Edith, daughter of Malcolm Canmore and Margaret before the time the year's out.
Now I say her name's Edith, but to make an already confusing family tree even worse,
she's also known as Matilda. I've once seen it written as Maude as well, so anyway, by the end
of 1100 the King of England is the son of the Conquering Norman, William guy, this English King's
married to the sister of the reigning Scots King and they're both children of the now dead Margaret,
the vanquished Saxon English King's sister. Now you might be thinking I'd be tempted to put in an
incest joke there, but trust me we're only at base camp, we've got a long climb ahead of us and you're
going to need oxygen tanks where we're going! So Celtic and Saxon Royal houses have been united
in the Scottish Royal Family. Now they were joined to the Normans through Matilda, but in a way this
marriage was more important, not because of the bride, but because of her younger brother. David was
the eighth child of Margaret and Malcolm, so he had no realistic prospect of becoming King of anything,
he just bummed around growing up in the Norman court being known as the brother of the Queen,
and becoming right-hand man to Henry the First of England no bad thing then what do you know it
all his brothers die and no children it's like finding a 10-pound note in an old cod piece!
The new King of Scots was really a Norman, English Knight and he brought more Norman knighty pals to
Scotland with him. You might recognise some of the names: Bruce, Balliol, Wallace, Bissett, Boyle Corbett
Hay, Kinnear, Graham, Menzies ... stop! see this name, it's pronounced mingus m-e-n-z-i-e-s mingus
and Fraser. By the time David died, Scotland was a bit more Norman and a bit less Celtic, all because
of marriage number six. Now it took a long time before our next significant marriage came along,
403 years to be precise. In 1503 we have at number five da da... no!
The marriage of James Stewart, James the Fourth of Scotland okay and Margaret Tudor, the daughter
of Henry the Eighth, sorry daughter of Henry the Seventh and sister of Henry the Eighth. I'm not going to
go through the whole story because if you can't see the significance of this wedding then I've
conveniently made a whole video on 'The Marriage of the Thistle the Rose' and you know there's
going to be a link at the end right okay? Now the point is that she comes over to this side and
the wedding brings the United Kingdom much closer, and things only speed up from here. We don't have
to wait another 400 years for the next wedding, in fact 62 years later at number four ... I know!
In 1565 with Mary, Queen of Scots and Henry, Lord Darnley. Now I'm going to assume that
you've all heard the Mary, Queen of Scots, the granddaughter of Margaret Tudor and James the Fourth
and the daughter of James the Fifth, but we're now in the foothills of incestuous royalty,
so let me tell you about our second husband Henry, Lord Darnley, you see when King James the Fourth
was killed at Floden fighting against Henry the Eighth, his wife's brother, Margaret
Tudor remarried, and her daughter from that marriage was Margaret Douglas.
Now she was the mother of Henry, Lord Darnley, who was also a Stuart on his dad's side.
You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off. This is from 'The Italian Job'. Right .. so
Mary, Queen of Scots, the granddaughter of Margaret Tudor and James Stewart, married Henry, Lord
Darnley, the grandson of Margaret Tudor and also a Stuart. I'm just saying, even Tinder's got rules!
So Mary and Henry have a son James the Sixth, and that's not the number of his fingers! Stop it!
Anyway, the point is that Elizabeth of England, she doesn't marry, so in 1603
when she dies, James the Sixth of Scotland becomes James the First of England. Now that's not it,
people get mixed up for the next hundred years, apart from a wee head choppy bit mid-century
when James's son, Charles the First ... right Scotland and England have got the same King, but they're two
separate countries with two separate Parliaments. The Union of Parliaments hasn't happened yet,
it's just the Union of the Crowns right, one guy, two crowns. In fact, this was the beginning
of the American colonisation in Jamestown, where Native Americans called him, Jimmy two hats. I'll
be honest,there has been some disagreement amongst the academic community about the veracity of that,
but anyway my children tell me that there's a lot of information for people to follow in this
video and that folk are going to need a bit of a half time break, so here's a picture of a cat.
At number three, in 1673 we have the marriage of James, Duke of York and Mary of Medina. Again my
kids have told me that I need to make this bit clear, so remember James the Sixth and First?
Jimmy two hats right? We know his son, Charles the First got his head chopped off, but he had two sons
that concern us; King Charles the Second and James, Duke of York. Now the Duke of York is the second son
of the monarch in the English system. Now after his first wife died, James, Duke of York married Mary
of Medina. This in itself did nothing to unite the kingdoms, in fact, it did more to split them apart.
You see, by this stage, both Scotland and England were both protestant, but
James had reverted to Catholicism and now he's only gone and married a Catholic wife oh no!
Now this marriage wouldn't have been significant but for two facts;, number one James's two surviving
children from his first marriage, whilst protestant, were females Mary and Anne, secondly, his brother
Charles the Second died without legitimate heirs. When that happened, James's second marriage became crucial to
the development of the United Kingdom because it was the son born of that marriage that caused all
hell to break loose, in an explosion of Jacobite tartan that eventually led to the book 'Outlander'.
Oh there's a point, how many folk that watch my videos have read the 'Outlander' books? Go on tell me in the
comment section below, I'll leave a link to the first 'Outlander' book in the description for anyone
that's not read them right? If you like a bit of soft porn for women, like in a kilt and that. Anyway
if the 1673 marriage of James to Mary of Medina was critical in having James ousted from the still
separate thrones of Scotland and England, then in at number two we have the marriage of William of
Orange to James's daughter Mary four years later in 1677. Now in 1688 James and Mary of Medina
have their son and baptized him a Catholic. You can check out my video 'Jacobite Rebellion or was it?'
Seven English Parliamentarians wrote to William of Orange to ask him to come and invade and take
over for the now raving Catholic James the Seventh, or Second depending on which of the two countries
you're in right. So why William of Orange? Because William and his wife, James's daughter
Mary were both protestant and they were both grandchildren to James's dad Charles the First
we're now at a level of incest where sex between husband and wife could only produce clones. Now
whilst legal attempts to pass the crown to Dolly the sheep on their death were ratified in
Aberdeen and large parts of Wales, most of England insisted that the Crown pass to Mary's sister Anne
thus at number one in 1683 we have the marriage that is most crucial to the
Union between Scotland and England, yet I predict the one about which people know least. Now there
are lots of knowledgeable people watch my videos, far too knowledgeable if you ask me, but I wonder
if I asked the question: who was the husband of Queen Anne? I bet few, if any would know the answer.
Who was a husband of the Queen of Sheba? huh? Let me know in the comments section below,
and be honest, did you know it was George of Denmark? That's Anne, not the Queen of Sheba. Tell me
genuinely I'm interested right. I think the reason that nobody knows is the significance of this
marriage to the United Kingdom isn't the husband, the thing that's significant is that of Anne's
17 pregnancies, yes 17 pregnancies which must have left her very little time to get pregnant.
Anyway of the 17 pregnancies, 12 resulted in miscarriages or stillbirths. That must be so
depressing. All but one son, George died before the age of two and he died at 11. Can you imagine that?
Anne was Queen of England, she was also Queen in Scotland, but she would be the last of the
Stuart monarchs, and it was this succession crisis that finally brought the Union between
Scotland and England, you see England wasn't prepared to have Scotland on their northern
border choose their own monarch on Anne's death. This might provide a back door to the French
and that's why an incorporating Union to create the United Kingdom
had to be pushed through at all costs against the will of both the Scottish and the English populace. Of
course this is a big subject of debate just now. I don't know when you're watching this,
but as I speak in November 2020, opinion polls suggest that a majority of Scots want Scotland
to be on friendly terms, although separate from England, but nobody asks the English and
the Prime Minister won't permit it anyway. That's not much different from 1707, but here's a thought,
remember when number four back in 1565 between Mary, Queen of Scots and Henry, Lord Darnley,
that was Mary's second marriage. Her first marriage to Francis the Second of France hadn't resulted ... if it
hadn't resulted in her widowhood right, if they'd gone on to produce children and progeny down the
centuries right through to today we Scots would be part of France. Imagine that for a minute.
If France had benefited from a union with Scotland over the last 300 years instead of England,
maybe France would have ruled the waves, won the Battle of Trafalgar, won the Americas, built
an empire on which the sun never set and today the world would be speaking French instead of English,
and we Scots would probably be demanding independence from France.
It's just a thought. If you want to watch the video 'Who was the Real King Macbeth?', it should be
on the screen now. If you're interested in the video 'The Marriage of the Thistle and the Rose',
then you can watch that too. You can even watch the 'Jacobite Rebellion or was it?. Hope you enjoyed
this. Spread the word, give it the thumbs up. Tha mi an dochas bum bith lath math leibh. Tiorridh an drasda.