The Scots at home and abroad

Press, 29 June 1985, Page 20

The Scots at home and abroad

Scotland’s Story. By Tom Steel. Collins, 1985. 344 pp. Illustrations and index. $35. (Reviewed by Margaret Quigley) Sir Walter Scott, probably the greatest exponent of the historical novel, created in his novels and through his efforts in establishing societies to encourage interest in Scotland’s past, a romantic and coherent picture of that past. Scott’s view of his country’s history is the one which, since his day, has been widely accepted by the general public, and the great romantic figures of Rob Roy, Montrose, and Bonnie Prince Charlie bestride that history. “The Wizard of the North” was, however, always conscious of the life of the common people, and he would surely have approved of this new history which attempts to tell in popular form the harsh realities of Scotland’s story. Tom Steel emphasises from the beginning of the book, the wide diversity of the people who inhabited North Britain. The Lowland Scots of Anglo-Saxon stock, the Gaelic Highlanders, and the Norse Scots of the Orkneys and Shetlands, divided by heritage, language and clan system, were for centuries hostile to each other. As Steel recounts rapidly, but never superficially, the remote times of early settlement, the foundation of the Celtic Church and the tumultuous years of the Middle Ages and the Reformation, he shows the continuing conflicts which hindered Scotland’s progress, but which also produced the national characteristics of fierce pride and independence. For its small size Scotland has had an amazingly large influence on world

history, and Steel devotes more than two thirds of his book to examining how, since the Union of 1707, Scotland’s contribution to Britain and its Empire has been quite disproportionate to the

Sir Colin Campbell, Lord Clyde (17921863), one of the dozens of notable Scotsmen whose portraits are included in "Scotland’s Story.” Campbell, a formidable soldier in the service of Queen Victoria, is best remembered for his command of the Highlanders at Balaclava, “the thin red line,” in the Crimean War; and for his relief of Lucknow during the Indian Mutiny. numbers and wealth of its society. Politicians, writers, inventors, explorers and soldiers from north of the border helped make Britain great. Moreover, the huge numbers of Scots emigrating from their impoverished

homeland to Canada, America, Australia, and New Zealand formed the basis of many of England’s colonies. “The English are thought of by the world as imperialists,” writes Tom Steel, “yet the Scots founded and ran the colonies without incurring the wrath of those they ruled over, perhaps because they too knew what it was like to be dominated by English interest.” One of the great advantages of this book is that the author does not confine himself strictly to Scotland’s shores, but includes much material on the Scots abroad. “Between 1871 and 1901 a quarter of Scotland’s natural increase in population emigrated.” Readers in this country will be interested in the account of the founding of Otago and Waipu, and in the reference to Duncan Maclntyre, once Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand. Whenever possible throughout the book, Steel uses contemporary sources and quotations to bring the people and times he describes vividly alive. His concise, spirited, yet meticulously researched account of Scotland’s history is easily read as an exciting story, “often bloody, always lively and never dull.” It is lavishly illustrated with hundreds of black and white and colour pictures of faces, places, and incidents. The book is a magnificant one, well bound, well written, marvellously illustrated and printed with attention to detail that uses the end pages for maps of different times and movements. It has been published to accompany a major 24-part television series, but will stand on its own as a valued addition to the library of anyone with any interest in Scotland’s past, places, and people.