2 July 1903
The birth of British Prime Minister
and Foreign Secretary, Alec Douglas-Home, in London. His family, the Earls
of Home, had been Scottish landowners since the 13th century. Receiving a
degree in History from Oxford in 1925, he was a Conservative Member of
Parliament (MP) from 1931-1945. He served as Neville Chamberlain's
Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) and was briefly Under-Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs under Churchill in 1945 but lost his seat in the
Labour landslide victory that same year. In 1948, he became President of
the Scottish Unionist Party and served a second time as an MP, 1950-1951.
Douglas-Home was known as Lord Dunglass until 1951 when he went to the
House of Lords as the 14th Earl of Home following his father's death. He
served in the Churchill government of 1951-1955 as Secretary of State for
Scotland, then in the Eden and Macmillan governments of 1955-1963 as
Secretary of State for the Commonwealth from 1955 to1960, Lord President
of the Council in 1957, Leader of the House of Lords from 1957 to 1960,
and Foreign Secretary from 1960. In 1963, after Macmillan's resignation
and upon his advice, Queen Elizabeth summoned Douglas-Home to form a
government and became Prime Minister. He then became the first person to
surrender his peerage in order to be elected to the House of Commons,
winning a by-election to serve as an MP for a third time, 1963-1974. He
was not generally successful as Prime Minister, especially in economic
matters. The General Election of 1964 resulted in a Conservative defeat so
he resigned as Prime Minister and was replaced the following year as
Conservative Party Leader by Edward Heath. Douglas-Home served as Foreign
Secretary during the Heath government of 1970-1974 and returned as a life
peer to the House of Lords in 1975. He died on 9 October 1995 at The
Hirsel, Coldstream, in Berwickshire.
6 July 1747
The birth of American naval hero, John Paul
Jones, a son of gardener John Paul and Jean MacDuff, at Kirkbean Parish,
Kirkcudbrightshrie, southwest Scotland. After some education at the parish
school, young John crossed the nearby Solway Firth, that separates
Scotland from England, and became a sailor. He served on a variety of
ships, including a slaver, and visited Virginia and the West Indies. While
in the latter, he ordered a fatal flogging of a negligent seaman, for
which he was charged with murder and imprisoned in the ‘tolbooth’ (jail)
of Kirkcudbright. He was eventually released but, after killing a mutineer
on another voyage, fled to Fredericksburg, Virginia, where he added Jones
to his name. As a veteran merchant captain, the Continental Congress
appointed him in 1775 as the first lieutenant in the fledgling American
navy. A bold sailor and tenacious fighter, he became Captain of the
Providence in 1776 and captured over twenty five British merchant
ships. He sailed the sloop Ranger to France in 1777 where he was
befriended by Benjamin Franklin who supported his plan of hit and run
raids on the British Isles. In 1778, Jones brought consternation to the
British government and public by raiding the Irish Sea where he took the
British sloop Drake, spiked the guns of the forts of Whitehaven,
pillaged the home of the Scottish Earl of Selkirk, and captured seven
prizes. The following year, off the North Sea coast of England, he won
immortal glory by fighting his worn-out Indiaman, the Bohomme Richard,
to victory over the superior British frigate, the Serapis. It was
here that he is supposed to have said "I have not yet begun to fight" when
called upon to surrender. He returned to Paris with great acclaim and
remained in Europe except for a trip to America in 1787 to receive a
Congressional gold medal. He served as a Rear Admiral in the Russian navy
against the Turks but rivalries with other officers, many of them British,
limited his effectiveness and induced him to return to Paris where he
died, almost alone and forgotten, in 1792. In 1905, his remains were
located and a grateful nation, which properly considers him the ‘Father of
the American Navy,’ re-interred him with honor in the crypt of the United
States Naval Academy in Annapolis.
8 July 1249
The death of King Alexander II, son of William
the Lion and Ermengarde de Beaumont, and succession by his seven year old
son, Alexander III, who reigned until his untimely death in 1286. For many
reasons, the reign of Alexander III is generally considered a 'Golden Age'
in Scottish history. The Viking threat was finally ended by the
destruction of their fleet near Largs in 1263 with the resulting addition
of the Hebrides Islands to the kingdom. The unwarlike Henry III, who
become Alexander's father in law with the 1251 marriage to Princess
Margaret, was King of England and relative peace existed between the two
kingdoms. Above all, Scotland's ports, especially Berwick on Tweed, were
engaged in profitable trading with the Baltic, Germany, and the Low
Countries. It was, however, the calm before the storm as Scotland would
become enmeshed in four centuries of war and destruction after Alexander's
death without a male heir. Many rivals, both serious and frivolous, for
the throne appeared, most notably the powerful Bruce and Comyn families,
but none more sinister than the English king, Edward I, otherwise known as
Longshanks, son of Henry III and brother in law to Alexander, whose
intent, in the end, was to reduce Scotland to a mere appendage of her more
powerful southern neighbor.
10 July 1560
The recognition by the Scottish Parliament of
the Reformed Kirk (Church) of John Knox (ca.1513-1572) as the Established
Kirk of the Kingdom of Scotland. Protestant ideals from the continent had
been introduced by the Lollards and Patrick Hamilton and George Wishart
had been martyred in 1528 and 1546 respectively before the Lords of the
Congregation led by Knox rose up to replace Roman decadence with John
Calvin’s austere theology. Papal authority was abolished, the Mass was
forbidden, and a Protestant Confession of Faith approved. Knox, in
conjunction with some other ministers, wrote the First Book of
Discipline which regulated parish affairs, such as education and poor
relief, and established a church organization based upon the example of
Geneva with elders, Kirk sessions, and a General Assembly. It would be a
few more decades until this church, under the leadership of Andrew
Melville (1545-1622), became the more familiar Presbyterian Church which,
unlike the reformed Church of England, opposed the existence of bishops
above all else.
11 July 1274
The birth of Robert the Bruce,
Scotland’s greatest king, probably at Turnberry. His grandfather, Robert
Bruce the Competitor (ca. 1215-1295), unsuccessfully claimed the vacant
Scottish throne which went to John Balliol in 1292, and his father, Robert
Bruce, Earl of Carrick (1242-1304), in opposition to Balliol, resigned
said earldom to young Robert in 1292 and retired to his English estates.
In 1296, the young Robert the Bruce was among the nobles who gave fealty
to Edward of England following his invasion of Scotland and deposition of
Balliol but, thereafter he joined the rebellion of William Wallace and
served jointly with John Comyn as Guardians of Scotland. In 1302, fearing
plans to restore Balliol, Bruce returned to Edward’s allegiance and
married Elizabeth de Burgh, daughter of the Earl of Ulster. In 1306, he
made a final choice for rebellion against the English and destruction of
their adherents in Scotland. He was crowned King of Scots but was quickly
defeated by the English and forced to flee to the western Isles. Three of
his brothers and a brother in law were captured and executed and his wife,
daughter, and sister imprisoned. Thereafter, he waged guerrilla warfare,
winning many small battles and recapturing several English held castles.
His destruction of a large English army at Bannockburn in 1314, a
diversionary campaign in Ireland under his brother Edward, and especially
years of devastating raids into northern England resulted in the Treaty of
Edinburgh in 1328 which recognized the Bruce Monarchy and Scotland’s
independence. The famous Declaration of Arbroath in 1320 by the clergy and
nobles of Scotland supporting his rule was, in effect, also the Scottish
Declaration of Independence and did much to enhance Bruce’s position as
well as the Scottish cause. Bruce died on 7 June 1329 and was succeeded by
his young son David II. Unable to go on crusade himself, his heart
accompanied his great friend Sir James Douglas in battle against the Moors
in Spain and was subsequently returned to Melrose though Bruce’s body was
buried in Dunfermline.
13 July 1680
The last clan battle fought between the
Campbells and the Sinclairs at Altimarlach near Wick in northeast
Scotland. In contention was ownership of the Sinclair estates in Caithness
as George Sinclair, Sixth Earl of Caithness, had died in 1676 without a
male heir and greatly in debt to John Campbell, Earl of Glenorchy. A
Sinclair kinsman, George of Keiss, resisted Glenorchy’s claim and seized
the disputed territory in 1679. The following year, backed by King Charles
II and the Scottish legal establishment, Glenorchy marched on Caithness
with a force of over a 1,000 Campbell clansmen, plus a detachment of royal
troops, commanded by his kinsman Robert Campbell of Glen Lyon, later to
become infamous as the perpetrator of the massacre at Glencoe. On 12 July,
Keiss mustered hundreds of his supporters on the banks of the River Wick.
They were heartened when the Campbell force apparently withdrew and
subsequently distracted by a ship laden with whiskey that ran aground. The
unsuspecting Sinclairs celebrated their good fortune with excessive drink
and the next morning were thus attacked and brutally slaughtered with so
many dead it is said that the Campbells could cross the river on the
bodies without getting wet. Keiss, however, was not among these and
escaped to wage an effective guerrilla war against the Campbells. He also
had friends in high places, most specifically James, Duke of York, brother
and heir of Charles II. After closer investigation to Glenorchy’s highly
irregular claim, the king granted him the Earldom of Breadalbane as
compensation and restored the Earldom of Caithness to the Sinclair family.
14 July 1794
The birth of John Gibson Lockhart, writer,
editor, critic, and son-in-law of Sir Walter Scott at Cambusnethan in
Lanarkshire . The son of a Presbyterian minister, he grew up in Glasgow
and was educated at the University of Glasgow, 1805-1808, and Balliol
College, Oxford, 1808-1813, and began to practice law in Edinburgh in
1816. He was, however, more interested in literary pursuits and became a
contributing editor of Blackwood’s Magazine in 1817 in which he
established a reputation for both wit and sarcasm. He became close friends
with Sir Walter Scott in 1818 and married his daughter Sophia in 1820. In
1819 he published a clever sketch of Edinburgh titled Peter’s Letters
To His Kinfolk, followed by a successful series of novels. From 1825
until 1853 he was in London as editor of the Quarterly Review and
wrote a series of biographies: Life of Burns in 1828, Life of
Napoleon in 1829, and his magnum opus Memoirs of the Life of Scott
in 1837-1838. Like Sir Walter, he died at Abbotsford, on 25 November
1854, and was buried near Scott at Dryburgh Abbey.
15 July 1914
The birth of Gavin Maxwell, writer and
ornithologist, at Elgin. His father was an office in the British army who
was killed in the First World War. He was raised by his aristocratic
mother on their remote estate of Elrig in Wigtownshire in southwest
Scotland. He was educated at Stowe College and Oxford University and
developed a reclusive personality and an abiding love of nature. He had
many, mostly unsuccessful, career choices which included service in the
Second World War in the Scots Guard and the Special Operations Executive (S.O.E.),
a shark fishery off the Isle of Skye, and portrait painting in London. He
traveled widely, from Lappland to Sicily to Iraq, studying animals and
people and he wrote several books about these adventures. He became
especially fond of collecting otters and settled with them at Sandaig near
Glenelg. His account of this, published in 1960 as Ring of Bright
Water, was a best-seller which brought him fame and resulted in a
beloved film. He wrote several other works, including the autobiographical
House of Elrig, before dying of cancer on 7 September 1969.
17 July 1689
The Battle of Killiecrankie fought at the pass
of same name along the northwest approaches to the city of Perth. Rebel
forces, consisting of about 4,000 Highlanders and supporting the recently
deposed Catholic King James VII and II, were led by John Graham of
Claverhouse, otherwise known as ‘the Bonny Dundee’ or ‘Bloody Clavers.’
Government forces, numbering about 4,500 men from 5 regiments loyal to the
new Protestant regime of William and Mary, were commanded by General Hugh
MacKay. The Redcoats were only able to fire a few volleys with their
muskets before being swept aside by the brutal charge of screaming
Highlanders hacking with their Claymore broadswords. MacKay managed to
escape with a small force and the impact of the battle was not great as
government forces were able to reassert control over time as the
Highlanders had suffered badly from the initial volleys, losing about 600
men and their commander, were distracted by the capture of the baggage
train, and soon dispersed home with their loot. MacKay, however, learned
from his defeat, which he blamed on the socket bayonets used by his
soldiers which had to be plugged into the barrel of the musket so that one
could either fire or use the bayonet, but not both. MacKay therefore
invented the ring bayonet which was attached around the barrel and enabled
a soldier to both fire and quickly thrust his bayonet.
17 July 1790
The death of economist and moral philosopher
Adam Smith in Edinburgh. A posthumous son, he was born in June 1723 at
Kirkcaldy and raised by his mother, with whom he maintained a close and
life-long relationship. Educated at Glasgow and Oxford universities, he
became Chair of Moral Philosophy at the former in 1751. Notoriously absent
minded, he nevertheless won critical acclaim with the publication of
The Theory Of Moral Sentiment in 1759 and lasting influence and fame
with his seminal The Wealth Of Nations in 1776. The latter was a
masterwork of political economy in which Smith set the foundations of
Laissez-faire economics by arguing that self-interest and free trade,
subject to minimal government interference, promoted competition which
resulted in increased production and distribution of consumer goods which
lifted and improved society overall. Smith became Commissioner of Customs
in Edinburgh in 1777, Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1784,
and Lord Rector of Glasgow University in 1787. His circle of friends
included Edmund Burke, David Hume, and Benjamin Franklin.
19 July 1333
The Battle of Halidon Hill fought between an
English army commanded by King Edward III, the grandson of Scotland
nemesis Edward Longshanks, and a Scottish force under Sir Archibald
Douglas, regent for the young King David Bruce. The English were acting in
support of Edward de Balliol, son of the deposed King John Balliol
(reigned 1292-1296), who was a vassal of Edward III and in revolt against
David. The Scots were attempting to break the English siege of the vital
border and port city of Berwick-upon-Tweed, which had agree to surrender
if not relieved by 20 July. The English blocking force consisted of three
dismounted divisions protected by wings of archers mostly equipped with
the dreaded longbow. The ranks of Scottish solders were decimated by the
English arrows as they tried to cross the marshy ground between the armies
and then advance up hill against their hated and better positioned foe.
The few Scots who survived to reach the English lines were soon
overwhelmed. Berwick surrendered the next day and Scotland had suffered
yet another devastating blow in her ongoing struggle for political
independence from England.
21 July 1796
The death of Robert Burns, Scotland’s great
national poet, at age 37, due to complications of heart disease. Son of an
unsuccessful tenant farmer in Ayrshire, Burns followed in his father’s
footsteps though he spent the last six years of his life as an excise man
in Dumfries. He did not have much formal education but read avidly and was
well tutored by John Murdoch in genteel English verse as well as Scottish
traditional verse and folksongs. A notorious womanizer with chronic ill
health, Burns was acutely aware of social disadvantage and wrote with
egalitarian sentiment, deep passion, and sardonic wit. His Poems,
Chiefly In The Scottish Dialect (1786) established his reputation and
included such gems as the satirical ‘Holy Willie’s Prayer,’ the nostalgic
‘Cotter’s Saturday Night,’ and the democratic ‘Twa Dogs.’ In 1790 he wrote
his most famous work of narrative verse, ‘Tam o Shanter.’ He also wrote,
collected, and sometimes refurbished numerous Scottish songs, some 200 of
which were published, and thus preserved, in James Johnson’s Scots
Musical Museum (6 volumes, 1787-1803) and about 70 in George Thomson’s
Select Collection Of Original Scottish Airs (5 volumes,
1793-1818).His ‘Auld Lyne Syne’ has been adopted as a universal song of
parting while ’Ae Fond Kiss’ and ‘O My Luve Is Like A Red, Red Rose’ are
romantic classics. Known affectionately as ‘Rabbie Burns,’ he remains a
revered figure whose poetry and songs continue to inspire. His memory is
honored worldwide every 25th of January, his birthday, with Burns suppers
which include a ceremonial serving of Haggis, a traditional Scottish dish
he did so much to enshrine.
24 July 1411
The Battle of Harlaw fought between invading
Highlanders and Islanders led by Donald, Lord of the Isles, and men
defending the Northeastern Lowlands commanded by the Earl of Mar. Donald
sought to secure the rich Earldom of Ross, which included the islands of
Skye and Lewis, from the Duke of Albany, Governor of Scotland for the
young King James I imprisoned in England. Donald was apparently encouraged
in this by King Henry IV of England to weaken Albany's power. Donald
assembled thousands of his MacDonald clansmen in Mull and marched up the
Great Glen gathering in such allied clans as the Camerons, MacLarens,
MacLeans, MacLeods, and Mackintoshes. With nearly 10,000 men, Donald
seized Inverness, the leading city of the Highlands, and crossed the Spey
intending to sack the great city of Aberdeen. Near Inverurie at a place
called Harlaw, some ten miles from Aberdeen, they met a numerically
inferior but more heavily armed force of city burgesses and knights of the
great local families such as the Keiths, Forbes, Irvines, and Leslies
under the Alexander Steward, the Earl of Mar and nephew of Albany. Brutal
fighting raged throughout the day as the lightly armed Highlanders and
Islanders made repeated charges against the Lowland spearmen and knights.
There was no clear victor as both forces withdrew after nearly 1,000
Highlanders and 600 Lowlanders were killed, one of the bloodiest events in
Scottish history and commemorated thereafter in song and verse as 'Red
Harlaw.’ The results of this epic confrontation between the Gaelic
speaking North and West of Scotland against the Anglo-Norman Northeastern
Lowlands was that the city of Aberdeen was saved, the Earldom of Ross
awarded to Albany’s son John, and Gaeldom failed to expand its influence
outside the increasingly marginalized Highlands.
25 July 1848
The birth of British Prime Minister, Arthur
James Balfour, on the family estate of Whittinghame, East Lothian,. He had
a philosophical mind as well as a taste for music, especially the Baroque
composer George Frederick Handel. With connections to the powerful
Salisbury family, he entered Parliament as a Conservative (Tory) in 1874.
In 1886, he rose to cabinet rank first as Secretary for Scotland and then
shortly thereafter as Secretary for Ireland under his uncle, Prime
Minister Lord Salisbury. He won little popularity in either Scotland or
Ireland with his opposition to crofting land reform in the former and Home
Rule in the latter. He succeeded his uncle as Prime Minister and Leader of
the Conservative Party in 1902, serving in a rather lackluster fashion in
the first post until 1905 and more notably in opposition until 1911 where
he resisted the Liberal Government’s reform of the House of Lords. During
the First World War (1914-1918), he served in the coalition government as
First Lord of the Admiralty and Foreign Secretary. He made the celebrated
‘Balfour Declaration’ in 1917 in favor of a Jewish homeland in Palestine
which resulted first in a British ruled League of Nations mandate and
eventually the independent State of Israel. He died on 19 March 1930 and
was buried at Whittinghame. He was widely mourned by Jews and remembered
ironically as a statesman who opposed nationalism in Scotland and Ireland
but promoted it to great effect in Palestine.
27 July 1770
The death of colonial administrator, Robert
Dinwiddie, in London. He was born near Glasgow in 1693 to Robert Dinwiddie
and Elizabeth or Sarah Cumming. He worked in his father's counting house
and later became a merchant. His career as a colonial official began in
1721 when he was appointed Collector of Customs for Bermuda. In 1738, he
became Surveyor General, which included jurisdiction over Pennsylvania,
Virginia and other southern colonies. In his colonial service, he was
zealously dutiful to his offices and tended to maximize his position by
emphasizing the royal prerogative. In recognition of this, he was
appointed in 1751 as Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, Britain’s largest
colony. A dedicated proponent of British western expansion, his tenure saw
the beginnings of the frontier conflict that resulted in the French and
Indian War, 1754-1763. To fight the French, he sought assistance from the
Indians and the other British colonies, pestered the Virginia Legislature
for defense funding, and promoted the use of regulars instead of less
reliable militia. The pressures of office and the war impaired his health
so, at his own request, he was relieved in 1758 and returned to England
with his wife and two daughters. His importance in American history is due
not only to his key role in the downfall of New France but also for his
promotion and backing of a young Virginian officer named George
Washington.
30 July 1856
The birth of Richard Burdon Haldane, First
Viscount of Cloan, British Secretary of State for War (1905-1912) in the
Liberal governments of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1905-1908) and
Herbert Asquith (1908-1912), in Edinburgh. Both a philosopher and a
lawyer, he was most notable for instituting a major reorganization of the
British army, which included the creation of the Imperial General Staff
and the organization of a substantial expeditionary force which could
intervene on the continent of Europe. The latter became the famous British
Expeditionary Force (BEF) which proved so instrumental in defending France
during the First World War (1914-1918). He was also a founder of the
London School of Economics (1895), President of Birkbeck College
(1919-1928), and Lord Chancellor in the first Labour Government (1924).
By William John Shepherd
Note On Sources:
Some dates are based upon concise chronologies published by Ronald
McDonald Douglas in his Scottish Lore And Folklore (1982) and John
Wilson McCoy in the pages of The Highlander magazine in 1997.
Additional dates and information have been gleaned from my varied readings
in Scottish history. These sources include but are not limited to the
following: Brown, P. Hume. A Short History Of Scotland (1908,
1961); Fisher, Andrew. A Traveller’s History Of Scotland (1990);
Keay, John and Julia (eds.). Collins Encyclopedia Of Scotland
(1994); Mackie, J.D. A History Of Scotland (1964, 1991); MacLean,
Sir Fitzroy. A Concise History Of Scotland (1970, 1988); Magnusson,
Magnus. Scotland: The Story of a Nation. Atlantic Monthly Press
(2001); Prebble, John. The Lion In The North (1971, 1973); Sadler,
John. Scottish Battles (1998); Smout, T.C. A History Of The
Scottish People, 1560-1830 (1969, 1998); Traquair, Peter. Freedom’s
Sword: Scotland’s Wars Of Independence (1998). |