Thesis Correspondence XI: How the Scots Invented the Modern World

 Shipping on the Clyde

Dr. _____,

I thought I ought to get through a popular history on Scotland by Arthur Herman, a John Hopkins/George Mason scholar. I'm sure you've heard of How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe's Poorest Nation Created Our World & Everything in It. After skimming through it, I found it a little too exuberant and celebratory in the modern world for my conservative taste, and its conclusions were rather sloppy. With regards to Jacobitism, he sights good scholarship (Monod and Pittock), but is far too sparse and casual with the research. One particular conclusion seems to fall at the root of my thesis:

"This is another persistent myth: that Highlanders supported Bonnie Prince Charlie out of some ancient mystical loyalty to the Stuarts. The truth was that the alliance between the Crown and the clan chieftains was one of mutual self interest. The Crown recognized the chieftain's life-and-death power over his tenants, reinforced the privileged status of his family members and supporters, and protected his children's rights to his land by formal law. In exchange, the chiefs gave the king a rough version of law and order in a remote and largely inaccessible part of his kingdom. It also allowed him to play one clan against another, when it suited his own political purposes."

This is completely a false dilemma. First, I take issue with his premise that myth and economic/political motives stand apart. The entire premise of my thesis will be that cultural traditions informed political opinion. Herman skims over the vital significance of the Scottish nobles. Mystical loyalty and the traditional law over land went hand-in-hand. The vast majority of correspondence between king and country during the exile focused on unifying the kingdom along "ancient" lines of noble pedigree and monarchical inheritance, while Scottish epic poetry in Classical form reinforced the same emphasis on hereditary right. Only rarely might the dynasty successfully pit clan against clan without suffering divisive results which might contradict his pageantry for the kingdom of Scotland as a whole.

I am still in the middle of the Brus, but I am going to put the main emphasis on perfecting my prospectus. I'll send you a copy by the end of the week, and hopefully schedule a time next week to discuss it in person.

Wesley