A week of 'Flower of Scotland'

On triumphs and disasters

At Stirling Castle this week

We had visitors to our Highland cottage last weekend and, apart from a wee dip in the cold blue sea, Saturday was dominated by sport on TV.

First, Flower of Scotland echoed round Murrayfield when Scotland’s rugby men’s team played Argentina. After a strong first half, they collapsed in the second. At the end, some fans expressed their frustration with boos and jeers. The normally cheerful coach Gregor Townsend looked defeated.

We had a break for a supper, eaten with “Flower of Scotland” again echoing hopefully from the TV in the snug, as the soccer team’s game against Greece kicked off in Athens. “They stood against him/ Proud Edward’s Army and sent him hamewards tae think again”.

Our young associate opined that it is a terrible anthem. So what if we beat the English in a battle hundreds of years ago? Let’s move on. He has a point - but it is worth remembering what the song is about.

Edward 1 of the song was a tyrant who massacred thousands of civilians at Berwick in 1296 and committed many other atrocities. Flower of Scotland has a chorus celebrating the fact that those days are gone now - for us. But they are not gone for everyone - war is raging in Ukraine against the expansionist Russian tyrant Putin.

“Remember that all through history, there have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they seem invincible. But in the end, they always fall. Always.” Mahatma Gandhi

After being sent hamewords to think again, Edward came back for more - several times. He eventually died within sight of Scotland - en route to a battle with Robert the Bruce

My grandfather Robert Kemp wrote a rousing play in blank verse called King of Scots, which was first performed in the Nave of Dunfermline Abbey during the 1951 Edinburgh Festival. Edward 1 gives this dying speech:

Swear that you’ll not disband

This army, or ignore my last command

Which now I lay upon you! When I’m dead,

Strip the flesh from these bones, then at the head

Of our English might, like a banner, bear them high,

So that when Scotland founders I am by!

Again I curse them, place and folk as one,

Their sodden moors, their -

[He has been raised in his litter, pointing towards

Scotland, when he suddenly half collapses.

Edward’s son Edward ll took over after this. He was a lot less bothered about fighting the Scots and, after the battle of Bannockburn in 1314, the first Scottish War of Independence died down. Eventually, Edward’s estranged wife Isabella took over the throne as regent for Edward lll and made peace with Scotland.

A Stirling stop off

Scotland narrowly lost that Greek game, but when Denmark’s simultaneous match ended in a draw, it transpired that Scotland had a second shot at a golden ticket to the tournament - all they had to do was beat Denmark in Glasgow on Tuesday.

It so happened that I had business in Glasgow then. Hotel rooms were exorbitant in the city for obvious reasons so I hopped off the train in Stirling, booked a room on an app and watched the game there. Flower of Scotland was roared by the crowd at the Hampden stadium:

“That stood against him - ‘Gainst who? Proud Edward’s army.”

After Scotland’s triumphant victory, the normally dour coach Steve Clarke cracked a smile.

Capture the castle

As I am a member of Historic Scotland by virtue of paying them £5 a month, I took the opportunity to nip up to the castle the next morning. I have been a couple of times, but it was great to go on a weekday morning in low season.

Scotland used to be much more aqueous than it is now. A lot of drainage has been carried out over the centuries and at one point, the plateau in between the Forth and Clyde estuaries was covered in water and known as the Sea of Scotland.

So this magnificent castle and its bridge was the gateway. The battle to which the song refers is when William Wallace won the battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297 and took the castle. The guy doing the tour had a nicely packaged sporting themed line on this which drew a laugh from the handful of visitors -

“If you know anything about Scotland you will realise that we don’t often win anything and if we do we lose it again quite soon after.”

Stirling Castle changed hands several times in the first war of Scottish independence. There were five major battles in this war. Can you name them? (Answer at the end).

Wallace was eventually betrayed, taken to London and brutally executed - for treason although he bore no allegiance to the English king - but his legend lives on.

One of the highlights of the newly renovated King’s Theatre in Edinburgh season when it opens next year is to be a hip hop musical called “Wallace”, presumably inspired by Hamilton, with the tagline “Straight outta Stirling”. It sounds fun and apparently asks wether Wallace was a man or a myth.

Scotland’s battle against a brutal invading despot was long ago - it’s just a line in a song we sing at games now. I am glad this is in the past for us. But the war against tyrnanical power is not over.

A: The five battles of the First Scottish War of Independence are: the Battle of Dunbar (1296), the Battle of Stirling Bridge (1297), the Battle of Falkirk (1298), the Battle of Methven (1306), and the Battle of Bannockburn (1314)

(If you want to read Robert Kemp’s ‘King of Scots” I have uploaded it Amazon as an ebook or a publish on demand paperback https://a.co/d/5ww1nyY ) My counsin Prue recalls using this speech of Isabella Macduff, the Countess of Buchan, who was hung in a cage outside Berwick Castle for four years after crowning Robert the Bruce, for an audition.

COUNTESS. I greatly fear
I’ll not see mine, be the war long or short.
You swear to me there is no new report
Of the King of Scots?

JAILER. Neither living nor dead, I vow!
Trumpet distant.
There sounds the rally. I must leave you now!

Exit JAILER.

COUNTESS.
Neither living nor dead! The very state I own,
A trophy of war, nailed to the naked stone
Of Berwick Castle! Oh, to think I rode
On my nodding palfrey once, and bought a load
Of Flemish silk from the booths upon the quay!
Could that laughing girl have been the self-same me,
With lips to singing, feet to dancing apt,
And could such blossoming be so swiftly capped
By the adverse blight of chance? That it may be so,
I daily prove, and, proving, am brought low
Till the small echo of what courage I had
Alone defers the hour I must go mad!
All day, with cat-calls, blasphemies and jeers,
The idle enemy torment my ears;
And then I hear the tuck of distant drum
And over Tweed unchecked I watch them come;
Next, if towards the sea I turn away,
I see their galleons crowd into the bay—
Even the wind is England’s, for at night
When I gain privacy by lack of light,
Out of the sea it blows with rain and sleet
And searching airs and draughts that like the feet
Of myriad rats rustle my prison’s straw,
Rifle my heart and penetrate each flaw
In my shivering resolution! I’d not complain—
One word of him would deaden all the pain,
One rumour, stirring, whisper of one blow
Struck for us, omen of what’s to be! But oh,
To think he may be dead, that night has blacked
Over the shining glory of my act,
That I am martyr to a cause passed by
In the swirl of chance! Let me, before I die,
Have but one clue, one straw in the wind, to show
My act not vain—alas, too well I know,
For every one who may at last succeed,
A thousand must alone, dishonoured, bleed,
And yet that suffrage I’d not think too great
If the King I crowned were thus elect of Fate!

The lights black out on the COUNTESS. During the next scene the grid may be removed