The River Tweed is one of the ‘small brooks and banks’ (to use Raleigh’s phrase) that separate England and Scotland. It is shown here crossed by the Coldstream Bridge, completed in 1766 for £6,000. For Raleigh, the chief advantage of the Union was that loyalty to a common monarch prevented the peoples of Scotland and England from being pitted against each other by designing European states — a cause that seems as urgent today as it ever was.
Part 1 of 2
NEITHER ought we to forget or neglect our thankfulness to God for the uniting of the northern parts of Britain to the south — to wit, of Scotland to England; which, though they were severed but by small brooks and banks, yet, by reason of the long-continued war, and the cruelties exercised upon each other; in the affection of the nations they were infinitely severed. This I say, is not the least of God’s blessings which his majesty hath brought with him unto this land: no, put all our petty grievances together, and heap them up to their height, they will appear but as a mole-hill compared with the mountain of this concord. And if all the historians since then have acknowledged the uniting of the red rose and the white for the greatest happiness (Christian religion excepted) that ever this kingdom received from God;* certainly the peace between the two lions of gold and gules,* and the making them one,* doth by many degrees exceed the former.
* A reference to The Wars of the Roses (1455-1487), in which two rival Royal Houses, of York (the White Rose) and of Lancaster (the Red Rose), vied for the crown. The House of Lancaster emerged victorious in 1485 when Henry Tudor defeated King Richard III in battle at Bosworth in Leicestershire. He subsequently married Elizabeth of York, Richard’s niece and Edward IV’s daughter.
* A heraldic term for red. The word comes from Latin gula (throat) by way of Old French, and has its origin in pieces of red-dyed fur used as a neck ornament. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet Greek hero Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, is described as “total gules; horridly trick’d / With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons” after killing Priam, King of Troy.
* The accession of James VI of Scotland as James I of England created a ‘personal union’, in which one man held both crowns at the same time. The two crowns remained separate and there were two separate Parliaments until 1707, when James’s great-granddaughter Anne Stuart ceased to be Queen Anne of Scotland and England, and became Queen Anne of Great Britain with one crown and one Parliament. The ‘Honours of Scotland’, the crown jewels, were pushed into a lumber room, where Walter Scott unearthed them in 1794: see The Honours of Scotland. A Scottish Parliament with significant sovereignty was restored in 1999, though its members seem uncomfortable with the responsibility and to crave the familiar servitude of the European Union. See also John Buchan on A Parliament for Scotland.
Précis
In 1614, Walter Raleigh looked back over the years under James VI and I, and setting aside other grievances, expressed his conviction that the union of Scotland and England in 1603 had been the greatest blessing not only of James’s reign, but of British history, more so even than the end of the Wars of the Roses. (55 / 60 words)
Part Two
The tomb of Lady Margaret Beaufort (1443-1509), with the tomb of Mary Queen of Scots (1542-1587, r. 1542-1567) behind, in Westminster Abbey, London. Sir Walter Raleigh picks out the reconciliation of the rival factions after the Wars of the Roses (1455-1487) as the greatest blessing in British history, and Margaret was largely responsible for it, guiding her son Henry VII (r. 1485-1509) throughout his reign. Mary Queen of Scots was Margaret’s great-great-granddaughter. In 1603, her son James VI and I brought an equal blessing in Raleigh’s eyes, the personal union of the crowns of Scotland and England. At Mary’s feet stands a red (gules) lion, which Sir Walter took as the symbol of Scotland.
FOR by it, besides the sparing of our British blood, heretofore and during the difference so often and abundantly shed, the state of England is more assured, the kingdom more enabled to recover her ancient honour and rights, and by it made more invincible than by all our former alliances, practices, policies, and conquests. It is true that hereof we do not yet find the effect; but had the Duke of Parma,* in the year 1588, joined the army which he commanded with that of Spain, and landed it on the south coast, and had his majesty at the same time declared himself against us in the north,* it is easy to divine what had become of the liberty of England, certainly we would then, without murmur, have bought this union at a far greater price than it hath since cost us.
* Alexander Farnese (1545-1592), Duke of Parma, Piacenza and Castro (1586-1592) and Governor of the Spanish Netherlands (1578-1592). The Duke, an outstanding general with a vast army, wanted to invade England from the Netherlands (where Elizabeth was supporting rebels protesting against the Inquisition) but King Philip II of Spain ordered him to wait for his ‘Invincible Armada’. In the event, the Armada was defeated and the Duke’s army never crossed the Channel. See The Spanish Armada.
* James VI of Scotland came to the throne in 1567 at the age of one, when his mother Mary Queen of Scots was deposed by her nobles; Mary was executed in 1587 while seeking (and frankly abusing) the protection of her cousin Elizabeth I. Raleigh is imagining what would have happened if James VI of Scotland had backed Spain in 1588, when the Spanish Armada came, and what price would have had to be paid to buy the Scots off. Among Sir Walter’s ‘molehill’ of grievances was that James was now altogether too friendly with the Spanish, whereas Elizabeth had quite deliberately employed Raleigh and Drake to harass Spanish shipping. After his release from gaol in 1616, Raleigh led an expedition to Guiana where he clashed repeatedly with the Spanish. On his return, James had him executed. See posts tagged Sir Walter Raleigh (6).
Précis
Sir Walter admitted that the benefits may not be obvious so soon, but he invited his readers to imagine what would have happened had James support the Spanish Armada in 1588. Now that the two countries had one king, he argued, neither need fear that artful European powers would turn them against each other again. (54 / 60 words)
