A History of Scotland - S1 Ep5 - Project Britain

How are you doing

No bad. Good day for it, eh? It's lovely. Go aboard, yeah

Yeah, no problem. This is Loch Leaven in Perthshire

In 1567, it was at the centre of some of the most turbulent events Scotland had ever known

On a little island in the middle of the loch, kept as a prisoner, was a young woman

The 24-year-old Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots. on their way to the island was a small group of powerful nobles

intent on stripping the queen of her crown when the nobles arrived here they were brandishing documents that they wanted mary to sign

and they were prepared to use force and threats to her life to get their way they saw themselves

as the saviours of Scotland and she was the obstacle in their path

But Mary refused to cooperate because she knew that with one scratch of the pen

she would cease to be Queen. Mary and the nobles held radically different visions of the nation's future

and Scotland stood divided. From that moment on this law, an incredible transformation will take place

that will not only see Scotland united, but a Scottish king ruling the entire British Isles

The ambition of an unconquered nation and its royal family will be the driving force that unites two ancient enemies

and sets them on the road towards the Great Britain we know today

A Scottish takeover of England. Who would dare dream of such a thing

In 1542, Scotland's fate came to rest on the shoulders of a six-day-old girl

when its king, James V, died. His daughter, Mary Stuart, was the last of the great Scottish royal line

a child of glittering dynastic potential. and almost immediately the coveted prize of an English king

Infant Mary was the solution to a very English problem. Henry VIII had fallen out with other countries in Europe over religion

He'd broken with the Catholic Church and now England was vulnerable to invasion

Henry's worst fear was that a hostile army would be allowed to land in Scotland

and from there launch itself into northern England England's king Henry VIII was an arch strategist

and he came up with a remarkable course of action he would kill off the threat from the north

by marrying the Queen of Scots to his own son and by doing that, Scotland would become part of England

A group of Scottish nobles were seduced by Henry's scheme and even signed a marriage treaty on Mary's behalf

But Mary's guardians backed out, which brought Scotland and England once again to the brink of war

Young Mary was forced to run from one castle to another as Henry sent soldiers to hunt her down

and bring her to him. When they couldn't find her, the English generals decided on a new tactic

Diplomacy on one hand Devastation on the other

A huge English army Invaded southern Scotland The English tried to persuade the Scots that a royal marriage to their oldest enemy was in everyone's interests

But while the politicians were throwing away words like fellowship and brotherhood and equals

the English soldiers were murdering and raping and burning their way across southern Scotland

abbeys like Melrose then major commercial and cultural centres

were devastated as southern Scotland was brought to its knees but the Scots still wouldn't give up their queen

instead they looked to Europe for military help and called on France their oldest and most trusted

ally now the French king Henri entered the fight he would send troops to help the Scots fight off

the English, but there was a condition. The infant Mary would have to be betrothed to

his son, Francois. So a new marriage treaty was drawn up for five-year-old Mary, promising that she would

now one day be Queen of France. The French king duly sent an army to fight off the English

and a boat to spirit his little Scottish queen to safety. And the English scheme to take over Scotland by marriage was dead

The magnificent chateau of the Loire Valley became Mary refuge as she entered the protection

of the French royal family and charmed the man who had gone to war for her hand

She is the most perfect child that I have ever seen, he wrote

Mary was welcomed in here like a long lost daughter in fact the King Henri treated her like one of his own children

she lived in the royal nursery alongside the Dauphin her future husband

and she received a fantastic Renaissance education literature, rhetoric as well as music and dancing and sport

she was a precious jewel and in this setting she shone brightest of all

Her future husband, Francois, was short and clumsy, but Mary was tall, elegant and charming

All through her childhood, at court appearances and in private, she impressed her French guardians

And she was groomed for a glittering future, not only in France and Scotland

but potentially beyond. Mary's veins contained very royal blood

blood that gave her a claim to an even bigger prize the crown of England

She was only fourth in line but Mary's French guardians knew where that claim could take them

if fortune smiled their way and that one day Mary Stuart might just be their key to the back door of England

Her claim to be a contender for the English throne had always been a long shot

but events back across the Channel took a couple of unexpected twists

In quick succession, an English king and an English queen, both from the house of Tudor, died without leaving heirs

Suddenly, in 1558, Mary, in French eyes at least, became the perfect heir for the English throne

There was just one problem. Elizabeth Tudor. Henry VIII's illegitimate daughter also now claimed to be Queen of England

She had been born just eight months after her parents' wedding and in the eyes of many

she was not only illegitimate as a daughter but would be illegitimate as a queen

So Mary's French family stoked her ambition as she became the vehicle for theirs

They encouraged her to dream that now the crown of England really could be hers too

If she got it, one single united empire would stretch from Scotland in the north to France in the south

This would be a Catholic empire, vast and powerful, that would dominate the west of Europe

Wasn't that what God had in mind for Mary? But her rival Elizabeth was English, Protestant and a Tudor

So she got the crown And Mary's dream of a vast Catholic empire slipped away

and soon even the certainty of her own French crown was under threat

The Protestant Reformation was coming. This religious revolution was spreading across Europe

promising to sweep away Catholic monarchs like Francois and Mary. Just a few months into the rain, a group of rebels stormed the chateau at Amboise and tried to capture the king

So who were the rebels? They were Protestants, but they were lords

We know their name. And they wanted to plot against the royal family and the king, Francois II, was young and weak

The revolt failed and a very public and a very bloody example

was made of the rebels How much of this would Mary Queen of Scots

have seen with her own eyes? We know she saw the bodies at the balconies of the chateau

because she was in the chateau so it was the first time she was confronted to such a thing

Such violence? Yes, first time she saw this And the bodies were hung from here to show the people

Yes, to make an example. This is what you get? Yes. Just a few months later, Mary's time as Queen of France came to an abrupt end

Her young husband, Francois, died of an ear infection. leaving Mary a widow and a powerless dowager queen

The glittering future that Mary had been brought up to believe in disappeared before her eyes

France, the Catholic Empire, life at the centre of the Valois court

it was all suddenly over. So Mary looked to home

but home had changed. The Reformation that was pitting Protestant against Catholic

from France to Holland and beyond had spread to Scotland with dramatic results and very little bloodshed so far

Swiftly and comprehensively, the Scottish Church had gone over to the new creed

Life in Scotland was suddenly very different indeed. Edinburgh's tiny Magdalene Chapel was where the leaders of that Reformation met to plan their brave new world

And they now wanted to change more than just the church. What was undertaken in this room was the sweeping, all-encompassing reform of Scottish society

They started with religion but they wanted to reach out and touch every part of people lives and of course it couldn help but be a direct attack on the power of the monarch

Mary's most loyal supporters, Roman Catholics who had dominated the country in her absence

were driven from power as Protestant nobles took control of the country

The movement's spiritual leader was a preacher called John Knox. He called for those who practised the Catholic Mass to be put to death

He even went so far as to claim that Catholic monarchs could be justly deposed

Catholic monarchs like Mary. When the Scottish nobles heard Mary was coming back

Different factions sought her out. One Catholic Earl wanted Mary to return as a Catholic figurehead in a war to drive out the Protestants

Another offer came from her Protestant half-brother. He wanted Mary to come back and work with the new Protestant regime

If she accepted his offer, he promised she could remain a Catholic, as long as she kept her religion a secret and only practised her faith in private

One August day in 1561, Mary Stuart sailed into Scottish waters. She had chosen to work with the Protestant regime

Her ships were almost a week ahead of schedule, so there was no welcoming party

But a few rounds of the ship's cannon promptly assembled a small, curious crowd

as Scotland's Queen finally came home. During Mary's first private mass, on her first Sunday back, a mob gathered outside Holyrood

to protest. They jeered and shouted that they were going to kill the priest, but they couldn't

get to Mary. Eventually they went away, but the secret of the Queen's private faith was

out, and the truth hung in the air like a bad smell. John Knox wouldn't even tolerate Mary's private faith

That one mass, he said, was more fearful than if 10,000 armed men

were landed in any part of the realm to suppress the whole Protestant religion

From the pulpit of St Giles, he openly preached against her. Knox was brought before the Queen and straight to Mary's face

he questioned her right to rule Scotland. Why? First of all, she was Catholic, and Scotland wasn't, not anymore

Second, she was a woman. But Mary had lived long enough to have seen the realities of religious reformation

She was no innocent, so she faced them down. Scotland could remain Protestant

In private, however, she would remain Catholic. No matter how violently Mary and Knox disagreed

there would be no bloodbaths here. Mary had survived her first crisis

and now she had the business of ruling to attend to Mary began to tour the whole country

winning over the powerful regional nobles with her beauty and her cultivated charm

rekindling old loyalties that ran deeper than the new religious ties sending a clear signal that she was back

and in charge This is a moment from Scottish history that stays with you

Mary was back and she was making a success of it but she'd been queen all of her life

she'd been surrounded by the magnificence of the French court and she'd had her ambitions to be queen of England

inflated and fanned Now, after all that, could she really reconcile herself to a life lived here

out on the edge of the world? The bigger stage, England, was always on her mind

The trouble was, the English already had their leading lady. But by 1564, Elizabeth had neither married nor produced an heir

So Mary seized the initiative. Mary began surveying the field for suitable contenders for marriage

But Mary wasn't just looking for a husband. She was looking for a stud to maintain or even improve the bloodline

someone who could finally help her fulfil her dynastic potential. First, she investigated Catholic suitors, Spaniards and French

The French one was her dead husband's adolescent brother and the Spanish one promptly lost his mind

Elizabeth offered her own favourite but eventually Mary settled on something much closer to home

an English cousin. Like her, he's a good dancer, a good huntsman

tall, good-looking, and young. His name was Henry

Lord Darnley, and he was the boy who would be king. After a whirlwind romance

Mary and Darnley married and Scotland was poised to have a cocky 19-year-old

not just as its Queen's husband but as its out-and-out King all with Mary's blessing

But then something strange happened. A clue lies here in the National Museum of Scotland

So what have we here now? Well, we have a coin which was struck to commemorate

the marriage of Mary Queen of Scots and Henry Lord Darnley in July 1565

And that's the happy couple. Indeed, yes, face to face, staring into each other's eyes. And the inscription has Henry's name before Mary's

So it's Henry and King before Mary and Queen. Yes. So I think it was probably considered fairly soon after this had gone into circulation that it was in fact conveying an unfortunate message And they were withdrawn from circulation very rapidly and replaced with a different type What replaced it

It was replaced by a different coin, the same size but with different designs on it

So surely that's mysterious that two coins should replace one another so quickly

Well, Mary of course was of higher status than Henry Darnley. And the coin seemed to convey that he was at least equal if not in fact superior status

so the new issue was brought out which had Mary's name first

making sure that the correct hierarchy was maintained. So he's been put in his place by the time the second coin comes in

Yes, that's right, yes, very much so. So quite clearly these two coins tell us what we need to know about that relationship

Well, yes, the fact that this happened in Scotland so rapidly is an indication of something unusual going on, yes

Darnley roamed about Edinburgh drunk and debauched mouthing off about not being king

and making enemies in the process if Mary had once encouraged him to dream of being king

she now backtracked and well she could because Darnley had done his job by then

he'd made his wife pregnant Guns fired across Scotland to salute the future king

when Mary gave birth to a son, James, on June 19th, 1566

A few months later, a lavish party was thrown in the Great Hall of Stirling Castle

to celebrate James's baptism. and it was a major political event. Mary had ordered that a huge round table be set up here

to remind the guests of King Arthur, the mythical king of Britain

and James was hailed as Little Arthur, the future king of a reunited Britain

The visiting English ambassador was suitably offended at the Scottish royal family's claim

to the future rulers of the whole British Isles. It was a very provocative gesture

But it was realistic. Time was running out for Elizabeth. She was already in her mid-thirties

and it was becoming less and less likely that she would ever produce her own heir

And if she didn't or couldn't, where would that leave England? Answer, in Scotland's hands

Whether Elizabeth liked it or not, baby James would be the next in line

So the English Queen now seemed poised to do something remarkable. Bury the hatchet with Mary and name her son, James

as the successor to the English throne. Until, that is, Mary's poor choice in men came back to haunt her

The house where Darnley, Mary's husband, was staying was blown up with gunpowder packed into its basement

but it wasn't the blast that killed him. His body was found some distance away from the scene of the explosion

In all likelihood he was strangled as he tried to flee for his life

The Scottish nobles had finally run out of patience with Darnley. But some said the blood on their hands was ordained by the Queen herself

And Mary's behaviour seemed to prove those suspicions. She didn't rush into mourning clothes, nor did she give her husband a state funeral

Instead, Darnley's body was dumped at night somewhere in Holyrood Abbey. You get a sense of Darnley's tragedy here

The story goes that he's buried alongside these other dead, but they have gravestones and he doesn't

No one knows for sure where he was buried, and no one really cares. Yet he was practically a king of Scotland

His sword of death changed everything for Mary. Elizabeth put a stop to any more talk of her succession

Until, that is, Mary could be cleared of any involvement in Darnley's murder

but that wasn't about to happen. Instead, she married the man most people suspected of carrying out the murder

His name was James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell. There were, of course, rumours that he kidnapped her, that he raped her

that she married him to keep her honour, but none of that could alter the fact that from the outside

from the point of view of the ministers, the nobles and the mob

It looked bad. Those factions who had always opposed her

chief among them the hard-line Protestants, now rose up against Mary and her power-hungry new husband

and Scotland teetered on the point of civil war. Mary and Bodwell met their opponents outside Edinburgh

ready to calm their kingdom with violence. But on the battlefield Mary begged her opponents to avoid bloodshed

and to allow Bothewell to escape. In return she offered herself into captivity

Mary was taken to Loch Leven Castle. and when the nobles came to force her to sign her abdication documents

at first Mary resisted. But it was only so long she could put up with the threats to her life

So she signed, and gave up her power, gave up her country

A few months later, Mary escaped and tried to get it back

But it was too late. The army that she raised was defeated at Glasgow

and Mary fled to England, where she threw herself on Elizabeth's mercy

But Elizabeth put her back in prison. The future of Scotland once again rested on the shoulders of a Stuart infant

This is the 100th and it's believed to have been sung at the coronation of Mary's son James

here in the Church of the Holy Root in Stirling. It was the worst attended Scottish coronation of all time

After the Psalms came the sermon and it was given by the firebrand preacher John Knox himself

It wasn't unusual for an infant to become a king, especially not a Stuart King, but there

was something momentous about the day and it marked a turning point in the history of

the nation. For the first time, a king of Scotland had been crowned in a Protestant ceremony

That ceremony sent a clear signal. When it came to religion, Scotland was now firmly on the same Protestant side as England

As James grew up, his religious education became the most important project in the land

Scotland's leading scholar, George Buchanan, was the man brought in to ensure that James was set against his mother's religion

for good. He had once been a confidant of Mary's, but then he had turned against her

and now he had power over her son. James and Buchanan spent a lot of their time here at Stirling Castle

and through this little door is supposedly the schoolroom where they had all their lessons in Latin, history and rhetoric

and, of course, lots and lots of Bible lessons. You can't help but feel for little James

He was here without a mother or a father. He was kept away from the people

He was almost a captive himself. And he wasn't here to do what he wanted

He was here to do what he was told. To make matters worse, the man responsible for his education

was not above inflicting physical punishment. After one beating inflicted by Buchanan

James' guardian, the Countess of Mar, accused him of going too far

Buchanan retorted, I have whipped his arse. You may kiss it if you want to

And just what was his tutor trying to be into him? Something his mother never fully grasped

The limits of royal authority. In the new Protestant Scotland, the role of the monarch was under review

The will of the people was what mattered now. And Buchanan wanted to ensure that James got the message

He even wrote a book to help James be the right sort of king

Listen to this. It's from George Buchanan's personal note to James VI

at the start of his book about kingship. I have sent you this book to steer you through the reefs of flattery

It may not only admonish you, but also keep you to the path which you have once embarked upon

And if you should stray from it, rebuke you and drag you back again

Now, it's all couched in very affectionate language, but there's no mistaking Buchanan's intent

It says to me that he wants to control the young prince. In fact, he wants to create a puppet king

Buchanan went on to say that if the king caused the people to despise or distrust him by reigning like a tyrant

the people were perfectly justified in getting rid of him. It was meant as a warning, not necessarily as a prediction

but just a few years later James came to understand exactly what his teacher

had been trying to tell him a group of Protestant nobles lured 16 year old James to this castle

and took him prisoner James' crime he had been keeping dangerous company

the company of an older, charismatic French cousin. Esme Stuart was the only family James had ever known

and James had grown bold with him around. Once trusted advisors had found themselves sidelined

some had even been executed and his cousin had been promoted in their place

Esme Stuart was two things the Protestant nobles feared most. He was French and he had Catholic sympathies

Even more worrying, he had an influence, even a power, over young James

Protestant nobles felt their power slipping and in England, Elizabeth grew worried at developments north of her border

so with her support Esme Stewart was forced back to France and James came to share his captive mother's fate

James stews in captivity as days turn into weeks turn into months and into a year he's just a young

boy. He knows his mother has been imprisoned in England for years, so maybe

this is his lot. Or perhaps his captors have another more grisly fate in mind for him

But his jailers didn't seem to know what to do with him. For the best part of a year

they moved him around the country. Until, finally, James escaped he sought out his loyal supporters and raised an army

to take on his captors and get his kingdom back. A few skirmishes later, James marched into Edinburgh and took full control of Scotland

And it wasn't long before James showed just what kind of king he intended to be

The book of his old tutor, George Buchanan, that contained all those ideas of the king's rightful place

the book designed to rebuke James and drag him back to the correct path, was banned

James would be guided not by the will of the people but by God alone

James would be an absolute monarch But what of England

and of the Queen who had wanted James jailed? Elizabeth was facing war in Europe

and now she sought an alliance with the Scottish king. But James had a price in mind

nothing less than a guarantee that he would be her heir. Childless Elizabeth guaranteed nothing

but she did offer a bond of friendship and little Arthur was almost where he wanted to be

But this so-called friendship was about to face its toughest test. In her 19th year in Elizabeth's English prison, Mary had grown reckless

Almost everything she'd hoped for had been lost. The Catholic Empire, power in France, power in Scotland

Even her liberty. So when she received an offer to join up to a murderous plot

she said yes. The plot was an elaborate one. Mary was to be liberated, Elizabeth was to be executed

and a Catholic army would land here on the south coast of England

They would sweep up through the country to London and secure Mary's position

It was nothing less than a plan for a holy war. Mary wrote a letter agreeing to Elizabeth's murder

The letter was intercepted. Mary was tried for treason and sentenced to death

James now faced the toughest decision of his life, just how far should he go in pleading for the life of the mother he hadn't seen since he was a baby

if he was seen to be weak if he did nothing then the scottish people themselves might rise in

defense of mary but if he shouted too loudly and severed his ties with england and with elizabeth

what would that mean for his place his unspoken place in the line of succession

He sent ambassadors to London with clear written instructions

The one to deal very earnestly both with the Queen and her counsellors

for our sovereign mother's life The other that our title to that crown be not prejudged

In other words, do nothing to jeopardise my claim to the English throne

James' next letter begged Elizabeth merely to exile Mary But by then it was clear that James was not going to make war

To save his mother's life The lion and the unicorn were fighting for the crown

The lion ate the unicorn all around the town Some gave them white bread and some gave them brown

The English royal coat of arms bears a lion and the Scottish coat of arms bears a unicorn

the mythical wild animal that cannot be tamed, except by a virgin

Now the Virgin Queen had tamed her troublesome unicorn. Mary went to the block dressed as a Catholic martyr

and still claiming to be the rightful Queen of England. Nothing became her in life like her death

James expected Elizabeth to reward him for his loyalty but he was in for a shock

as again she refused to officially name him as her chosen successor for the English crown

So James set about proving himself as a king in Scotland. First, the Stuart line had to be strengthened

James chose a wife Princess Anne of Protestant Denmark who quickly gave birth to an heir Henry

and then she produced a spare Charles Sometimes by force but more often than not by guile

James started to stabilise his turbulent kingdom Words were his main weapons

and books were his ammunition in the constant struggle to stay in control

He even sought out copies of books from across the known world

So what have we got here, Ian? Something rather intriguing. A translation into Scots of Machiavelli famous treatise on statecraft the prince done by William Fowler for his sovereign James VI And here is the first page The Prince of Nicholas Machiavelli

secretary and citizen of Florence, translated Firth of the Italian Tongue. A rather nice usage of Firth out of the Italian Tongue

What is The Prince all about? What's the essence of Machiavelli's work

power, the getting, the keeping, the exercise of power and the use of it for the prince's ends and for the good of his state

Machiavelli's book, The Prince, has become the most famous book on power in the world

It advises kings to act like a fox as well as a lion in keeping hold of it

which James did amazingly well and gradually he established himself as a king who ruled with his head

and not with his heart. A son who was the opposite of his mother

though every bit as ambitious. Elizabeth's stubborn refusal to name James as her chosen successor

became irrelevant. The writing was on the wall for Tudor England, and James was the only real contender for the crown

Like his mother, the perfect solution to a very English problem. James had already proven himself to be an adept ruler in Scotland

He had succeeded where Mary had failed. He was also the right sex and the right religion to rule in England

And what's more, he had done something the Tudors had never been very good at

He'd produced viable heirs. Now, all he had to do was live longer than Elizabeth

But Elizabeth lived on and on and on. In fact, Elizabeth I lived longer than any English monarch had ever lived before

Little Arthur was forced to bide his time and contemplate his master plan for when he

finally took over in England

James was 36 when he received the news he'd spent half a lifetime waiting for

Elizabeth was dead. The Tudors were finished. And England needed a king

James received the news just three days after the death of Elizabeth. The kingmakers wanted him to go down south

He was to go immediately and directly to the seat of power. But James had other ideas

For one thing, he was going to take his time, and for another, he wasn't going to travel light

He was going to take his whole entourage, all the pomp and circumstance he could manage

This was to be a triumphal tour of the promised land. Now, a moment that Scottish kings could only have dreamed of had arrived

A Scottish takeover of England was happening. And the moment belonged to a king who had proven himself as a clever and effective ruler

one of the most accomplished kings Scotland had ever produced. He entered London just a few days after an outbreak of plague

Shortly after, he took a barge along the Thames to the tower

where he finally saw the English crown jewels that now belonged to him

Put yourself in James's position. This was the seat of power of his most ancient foe, the enemies of his blood

The people who had burned, raked and murdered his forebears, who had sought to dominate his nation for 300 years

were offering everything they had, throne and crown included, to him. Imagine what that must have felt like

After the grand entrance, the great words of welcome, James unveiled his master plan

And it went way beyond just being the king of two separate kingdoms

Now, according to James, was the chosen moment for a new country to be born

James had a crystal clear vision of the future and his place in it

This was to be a Great Britain, united under a common religion, common laws and common citizenship

He would be at the top, king and emperor of it all. And most crucially, it was to be a union of two equal nations

But that was precisely where the problem lay. What's so equal about Scotland and England

Said the English nobility England, they thought, was clearly the superior nation

Richer, more developed, stronger What benefit would there be in joining with backward and impoverished Scots

Yet, a Scot was now their king and he was determined to take his idea of Great Britain to Parliament

It didn't exactly go down a storm James was accustomed to getting his own way with Parliament in Scotland. He expected unquestioning

obedience but the men here would not roll over certainly not for an upstart Scot Inside Parliament it quickly became clear that James wasn about to get his own way

And outside Parliament relations between Scots and English were on the point of breaking down

James exacerbated the situation by his own actions. He began to shower his inner Scottish circle with gifts, money, pensions, land

English estates were dealt out to Scottish nobles. And suddenly, England seemed to be ruled by a clique of very powerful Scots

blocking the way of English courtiers and nobles to riches and royal favour

Scots in London began to acquire a reputation as being on the make

and tight-fisted and closed ranks around their king. Their prominence was to make them a target

in one of the most spectacular conspiracies in British history. One group had come to especially hate James and his expatriate entourage

and decided to take matters into their own hands. English Catholics felt the Scottish King had let them down with empty promises of tolerance

And so they turned not only against James, but against all Scots in London

One of these conspirators was a mercenary called Guy Fawkes. The gunpowder was heaped up under the Houses of Parliament

but the institution itself was not the target. King James was, Protestant, Scottish King James

They later said they had enough gunpowder to blast him all the way back to Scotland

After the plot had been foiled, after Guy Fawkes had been tortured and made his confession

it was revealed that the conspirators had detailed maps given the locations of the houses of every prominent Scot in London

What they had planned was nothing less than the ethnic cleansing of the whole city

James' project for a peaceful, united Britain

was in desperate trouble. In the absence of meaningful progress, James resorted to symbols, to gestures, to flags

Once James was settled in London, he asked one of his English advisors to come up with some designs

for a new flag for his United Kingdom. And don't the results give a telling insight

into the mindset of the English establishment of the time? Scots were gripped by the new fear

that the independence of their unconquered nation was under threat. That a Scottish king would do with the pen

what no English king had been able to do with the sword, turn Scotland into a satellite of England

Scotland would now be outranked by England and thereby loss her beauty forever, said one commentator

Scotland will turn into a pendicle of England, said another. The Union flag, with the English cross set on a Scottish background

was what James chose to represent his United Kingdoms. But in James' lifetime

it was no more than a reminder of what might have been, of an idea whose time hadn't yet come

The people of the islands, both Scots and English alike, weren't ready to be British

And so Project Britain ground to a halt. For centuries, English kings had used the prophecy of King Arthur's return

to try and justify their attempts to subdue Scotland. But in one of the great ironies of British history

it was Scotland's own little Arthur, James, who fulfilled that prophecy. What James had seen as a great victory for Scotland

other Scots felt as a loss. For the first time, Scots now found themselves ruled from distant London

and a new reality dawned. By 1603, the Scottish people had a powerful sense of their identity

as an ancient and free nation, unconquered by successive waves of invaders

who had fought time and again to secure their freedom and forged a place in Europe

They had also created a unique and distinctive court. But the events of 1603 weren't just a further step along that road

They were the decisive turning point in Scotland's story. The peace and cooperation that 1603 seemed to promise would be short-lived

In the century to come, Scotland and England would experience a terrible escalation of violence

in a furious civil war to resolve just what Britain actually meant

and what sort of country the new Scotland would become. Thank you