Kingdom of Scotland

A kingdom that spent eight centuries not being England and then joined it on its own terms. Scotland was unified from Pictish, Gaelic, Brittonic and Norse elements by the tenth century, and its identity formed largely through the long argument with its southern neighbour. Edward I's attempt to take the kingdom after a disputed succession produced the wars of independence, Wallace, Bannockburn in 1314, and the Declaration of Arbroath of 1320 - a letter to the pope asserting that the Scots would never submit and that they would replace any king who tried to make them, which is an unusually early statement of conditional kingship. The Auld Alliance with France ran for two and a half centuries. The Reformation of 1560 produced a Presbyterian church governed by assemblies rather than bishops, which shaped Scottish education and civil society. James VI inherited England in 1603, giving one monarch two kingdoms. The Darien scheme's failure bankrupted much of the nobility and made the 1707 union financially attractive to them, if not to Edinburgh crowds. Scots law, the church and the universities were preserved by treaty. The Enlightenment followed within two generations. The kingdom ran from the ninth century to 1707. Edinburgh was the capital and Scone the traditional coronation site. The Stone of Destiny was taken to Westminster in 1296 and returned in 1996. Scots and Gaelic were both spoken alongside English. Its four ancient universities were founded between 1413 and 1583, when England had two. The Scottish parliament reconvened in 1999 after nearly three centuries.

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