Speaking as a person who isn't even a lowlander, I have this image of the average Scots peasant being more a wry smartass than a Simple and Pious Man.
Sort of Sancho Panza with a thicker accent.
Maybe that's just because that's a lot more appealing, but it sounds like something you'd have an easier time hunting down in Scotland (as distinct from Scottland).
Not really: we were statistically more pious (less bastard children for instance), and our reputation for humourlessness doesn't seem to have been undeserved.
That's the peasants, of course, not the sophisticated and debonaire people in the Edinburgh Mob, of course.
I don't know if we can really hold Scott's muddle against him personally, but the more I learn about actual Scottish history, the more I think he should have stuck to novels, where Scottland the Brave at least makes good reading.
I confess I rather like him. All nationality, after all, is invented, and he invented a nationality which - once you strip it of all the Toryism, which has been very easily done - has proved rather positive and inclusive and has made us a great deal of money.
Were there any good Stuart kings?
Exaggerating to make a point there. But Charles (I) seems to have been at best bound to get in trouble with an assertive parliament.
James VI and I was good at doing what he did. Lately people have tended to play up his failings by arguing, quite rightly, that he to an extent set up the fall for his son; but the fact of it is that a man who was able to abolish the General Assembly from London was clearly a pretty smooth operator.
Charles II, for all that he was a complete bastard, was good at what he did. If James II had been his brother but Catholic, he'd probably never have lost the throne.
And then you get into the Scottish Stewarts. James IV and V were certainly magnificent and effective, even if they do seem to have believed that it wasn't over until you'd been killed by the English in an avoidable war and left the country in crisis.
I have to admit to a bit of a soft spot for James II. I'm not sure exactly why, but he seems to have been on the receiving end of a lot of hostility rather than a really bad king.
I get what you mean - he was, when you strip away the Whig history, overthrown for pressing for religious freedom and equality for Ireland. But, here's the thing, he could have gone some way towards getting them if he was any good at making friends and influencing people. Not to mention that he was a sincere believer in Catholic absolutism: the projected alliance with the non-comformists was all stuff. It's harder to sympathise with someone who wants toleration for
his religion and will grit his teeth and put up with the others.
What I was trying to say: "The idea that Great Britain and England are two names for the same place." and it having to conveniently overlook how its nothing like that, anglicized elites or no.
The English do habitually use England when they should say Britain, but they never think of Scotland as part of England; when we heave into view, we generally get acknowledged. Americans... *small intake of breath*
Personally, to join the dots a bit, I think we'd all have been the better off for an English Scott, pardon the pun. If Englishness had been given a definite space and aesthetic, the English might be less inclined to confuse what they do with what Britain does.