The wages of Scottish independence – a divided country | England calling The wages of Scottish independence – a divided country Posted on July 3, 2011 by Robert Henderson The divided country is not the UK but Scotland. Its divisions are cultural, geographical, religious, demographic and racial. Demographically Scotland is a most peculiar place. It has a population estimated at 5.2 million in 2010 ( ) set in an area of 30, 000 square miles (the UK is only 95, 000 square miles – ) including hundreds of islands ( ). The overwhelming majority of the population live in the lowland belt not far from the border with England, with a mere 450,000 settled in the Highlands and Islands which cover around 60% of the area of Scotland ( ). As such a dramatic physical division of people might suggest ,there are considerable differences between the highly urbanised lowlands and the sparsely populated highlands and islands. Scottish kings before the Act of Union in 1707 were generally kings of the entirety of Scotland in name rather than reality, the clan chiefs in the highlands and islands being effectively monarchs in their own domains.

Until the second half of the 18th century the lowlanders considered the highlanders as primitives, viz: ‘The Highlanders said James VI summarily, in describing his own subjects for the enlightenment of his son, are ‘barbarous for the most part the islanders ‘utterly barbarous’ . A century later, the great Scottish patriot, Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, looked upon them in the same way: to him they were the ‘wretched Highlanders’: few, worthless, and contemptible.’ (The Invention of Scotland Hugh Trevor-Roper p193). The romantic myth of the highlander as the epitome of Scottishness developed from the middle of the 18th century, but at the same time as the myth was being constructed, the clan chiefs were organising the highland clearances of their own people, a process which continued well into the nineteenth century. This changed the highlands from, by the standards of the time, being well populated to a sparsely populated land, something which continues to this day. There is still a residue of resentment between those who consider themselves highlanders and lowlanders because of the clearances.

The major inhabited isles are the Shetlands, Orkneys and the inner and outer Hebrides. All of these have a Norse history having come under Norwegian and Danish control in the ninth century. The Hebrides were ceded to Scotland by Norway in 1266 by the Treaty of Perth. The Shetland and Orkney Islands came to the Scottish crown in 1468 as payment in lieu of a dowry by the King of Denmark and Norway for the Norwegian princess Margaret ,who was betrothed to James III of Scotland. Despite attempts to get the islands back by Denmark they remained in Scottish hands. The Islands, especially the Orkney and Shetland Isles, still have a sense of being Norse rather than Scottish. There is also resentment at the treatment of the Islanders by the Scottish after control passed to Scotland. Here is a Shetlander Malachy Tallack writing in 2007: “ Denmark appealed to the[Scottish] crown [to get back ownership of the islands] several times over the ensuing centuries, but to no avail. Norse law was eventually ended in 1611, though Denmark has, in theory, never renounced its claim to the isles.

Following the Act of Union between Scotland and England in 1707, at a time when many islanders still spoke the native Norn as their first language, the vast majority of Shetlanders were forced into serfdom. The people were cruelly exploited by their new Scottish landlords until the end of the 19th century. “This tainted history explains not only the antipathy towards Scotland, which continued well into the 20th century, but also the persistent nostalgia for a romanticised, Nordic past, which is most apparent in the Viking festivals of Up Helly Aa, held around the isles each winter.” ( ). Nor are those islands which have oil fields about them unaware of their potential from bringing considerable wealth to the small island populations . Here is Tallack again: “Throughout the 1970s and 80s, while the Scottish nationalists were shouting from the rooftops about “our oil”, there was a faint but significant murmur from the Northern Isles that, actually, it’s ours. “When the North Sea was first being explored for oil, Shetland was quick to see the possibilities.

The Zetland County Council Act was passed by parliament in 1974, giving the local council full control over all developments around the isles, and also allowing them to build up a massive oil fund over the following years. It has made Shetland into one of the wealthiest parts of the UK. The oil terminal at Sullom Voe became the largest in Europe, handling, at its peak, 1.4 million barrels a day, and although production has decreased since that time, the terminal is expected to last until at least 2020.” There is serious political support in Shetland for more control of their affairs, including the oil, viz: ‘Calls for devolution are nothing new on this remote archipelago which lies more than 60 miles north of John o’ Groats, but the remarks of Sandy Cluness are likely to carry more weight than most. Because Mr Cluness is the convenor of Shetland Council and one of the most influential voices on the islands.

‘Calling for “a more beneficial, more autonomous type of government”, he said that a full of range of services, from transport and policing to coastal protection and the arts, could be administered from Lerwick, the capital. His favoured solution is a Shetland assembly with tax-raising powers. ‘“What these islands need are viable, profitable economies and one way you can create that is through the ability to vary rates of taxes. In the 21st century there must be some way that the government could look at a different status for Shetland,” said Mr Cluness, who has no party affiliation.’ ( ) . The likelihood is that the islanders with oil would prefer to remain part of the UK rather than go with an independent Scotland because they would get a better and more secure deal with the UK. An independent Scotland would be seriously strapped for cash both because of the obligations it would have to take on such as a proportionate share of the UK National Debt ( ) and its very heavy dependence on public sector employment ( ). That would make any Scottish government less likely to be generous to places such as Shetland.

The loss of great swathes of oilfields to the islands would utterly undermine the SNP belief, gravely flawed as it is, that oil would fund an independent Scotland. ( ). But even those islands without oil nearby would probably prefer the security of being part of the UK because they currently get a disproportionately large share of funding from both the UK Treasury money and the EU. That would be at risk if Scotland were independent. There is great potential for friction between the highlands and islands and the lowlands. Scotland gets a much higher per capita payment than England from the UK Treasury at present, around £1,600 per head or an additional £8-9 billion. ( ). This disparity is a consequence of the Barnett Formula ( ). This was devised in the 1970s, ironically as a short-term measure to provide higher funding for Scotland (Wales and Northern Ireland came in later) on the grounds that Scotland had greater needs due to things such as a worse health record and a scattered population ( ). A disproportionately large amount of the UK Treasury money sent to Scotland is spent on the highlands and islands.

An independent Scotland would lose the English subsidy and have to direct more of its own money away from the 4.7 million in the lowlands to the 450,000 in the highlands and islands. Then there are the many EU grants which go to the highlands and islands, for example, these from 2011: . Most of these require matching funding from recipient country. At present the matching funding comes from the UK Treasury. After independence Scotland would have to find the matching funding, something it would find exceedingly difficult to do. There is also the serious possibilities that Scotland might not be admitted to the EU or the EU might be radically changed by the present problems within the Eurozone or even break up altogether. In any case EU funding for Scotland is going to be reduced by 2020 ( ). Religion is not a problem in England and Wales. It is in Scotland. The broad religious divisions are between Catholic and Protestants , both between the historically Protestant lowlands and the Catholic Highlands and as a consequence of immigration between Ireland and Scotland (both ways) since the 16th century.

The Highland Clearances left only a small population, so the primary cause of friction today is between the Catholics and Protestants of the lowlands. This is most heavily concentrated in the south-west of Scotland with a focal point of Glasgow. These lowland Catholics and Protestants carry on the internecine strife of Northern Ireland, a fact most publicly seen in the often violent support for the two major Glasgow football teams, Celtic (Catholic) and Rangers (Protestant), although Edinburgh has its own version with Hearts (Protestant) and Hibernian (Catholic) ( ). There is Sectarian marching ( ) and a school system in the West of Scotland divided on sectarian lines ( ) . The situation in Ireland both north and south still has very real potential to boil up into serious violence. The “Peace Settlement” in the north has merely been a papering over the cracks. Violence has been low key while a great deal of money and other privileges was pumped into Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland (RoI) was living in the fantasy world of the “Celtic Tiger” as the housing bubble swelled and the EU subsidies flowed in.

But since the present financial crisis began in 2008, there has been the ruination of the RoI’s economy and the north is faced with reductions in its massive subsidy from England. Already there have been sporadic outbreaks of sectarian violence in Ulster over the past few months ( ) and there is a fair chance that if the economic situation in Ireland continues to be poor or deteriorate, from what is already a parlous situation in the RoI , “The Troubles” will re-ignite. If that is the situation after Scotland obtained independence it is probable that the nationalist-loyalist feud would be played out in Scotland, not merely through riots at football matches and marches, but with real terrorist violence. Scotland could also become a place where weapons were stashed for the warring factions in Ulster and a refuge to which Irish terrorists retreated when thing s got too hot, just as they used to keep stashes of weapons in the RoI and retreated there for safety before the “Peace Settlement” . Irish terrorists might also use Scotland as a base from which to attack England. Finally there is the question of ethnic minorities.

The proportion of these in Scotland was 2% (100,000 people out of 5 million) at the 2001 Census ( ). That is considerably below that of England, but the absolute size of population counts for more than the percentage. A population of 5 million can be quickly overwhelmed by mass migration. Add one million more ethnic minorities to those already in Scotland and they form twenty per cent of the population. Add one million more to a population the size of England (50 million) and it only increases the percentage of ethnic minorities by two per cent. It is not a massive problem at present, but there have been pointers to what would happen if a large influx of foreigners suddenly arrived in the hostile response to asylum seekers housed in Scotland for an example, see . It is difficult to see how such a varied society with so many potential points of serious conflict would be able be able to function coherently as an independent state. The population being small would amplify the differences, because the fewer the numbers the easier it is to be heard.

Nor is the record of the Scottish Parliament in handling its finances to date been encouraging, with the massive cost over-run for the Parliament building (initial cost projection £50 million; actual cost £414 million and the Edinburgh tram system fiasco which has seen a planned cost of £500 million soar to £750 million with the prospect that the entire cost may be written off and no tram system built ( ). If an independent Scotland’s finances are rotten, then the project is likely to turn turtle. Share this: Union or conquest? 26-09-2015, 08:56 Union or conquest? The Scots also suffered at the hands of the Vikings, who seized Kintyre and the Inner Hebrides, but, somehow, they were able to take advantage of the PietsпїЅ misfortunes. After a devastating Viking raid on Fortriu in 839 left two Pictish kings dead, the Scottish king Kenneth mac Alpin (Cinaed mac Alpin) conquered all of Pictland.

The traditional date for this is 842/3, but the conquest was probably only completed in 848 when Kenneth transferred relics of St Columba from Iona to the chief centre of the Pictish church at Dunkeld. It was a gesture of thanks by the king to the saint for the support of his church. Kenneth, or one of his immediate successors, commemorated his conquest by commissioning a Pictish sculptor to carve the 23-foot (7-metre) high monolith, known as SuenoпїЅs Stone, which stands on the outskirts of Forres in Moray. One face of the stone is covered from top to bottom with scenes of battle and mass executions of Pictish kings and nobles. The message it conveyed to the conquered Piets was a bleak one indeed. It would seem that by conquering Fortriu the Scots took control of the Pictish high kingship and then secured their conquest by defeating the Pictish sub-kings. Many a Pictish high king had had to do this too, but Kenneth went a step further, and by killing the defeated sub-kings and their aristocracy deprived any attempted Pictish rebellion of leadership.

SuenoпїЅs Stone was one of the last Pictish works of art. Pictish symbols fell out of use, as did the Pictish language, which was replaced by Gaelic. The last contemporary reference to the Piets dates to 904. Thus the Piets became the only one of the Celtic peoples known to have inhabited Britain in historical times to have become completely extinct. The Scots had no great interest in preserving the memory of the Piets, and in later medieval writings they had become folkloric figures, a race of pygmies who lived underground. This odd belief may be derived from the many souterrains that the ancestors of the Piets built as cool underground storerooms for perishable foodstuffs. The Scots adopted many of the trappings of Pictish kingship, along with its places of power, such as Scone, near Perth. Their old royal centre at Dunadd was abandoned: it was too vulnerable to the Vikings and the Pictish lands were far richer than Argyll. Kenneth and his immediate successors used the title пїЅking of the PietsпїЅ, but this was abandoned by Donald II (r.

889-900), who adopted the title пїЅking of AlbaпїЅ. Though Alba is the Gaelic word for Scotland, пїЅScotlandпїЅ in 900 did not mean what it does now but referred only to the area between the Forth and the Spey. In the course of the tenth century, however, Scotland began a period of steady territorial expansion, which continued for over 200 years. Weakened by a devastating Viking attack on its capital at Dumbarton in 870, the British kingdom of Strathclyde became a satellite kingdom of Scotland before it was finally annexed around 1018. The English king Edgar ceded English-speaking Lothian to Kenneth II around 973 in return for his submission and Malcolm IPs victory over the English at Carham in 1018 established the Tweed as ScotlandпїЅs southern border. The eleventh century was marked by a struggle with a rival Scots dynasty that had established itself in Moray.

Macbeth, MorayпїЅs most famous ruler, became king of Scotland in 1040 but was driven out after his defeat by Malcolm III Canmore (пїЅbig headпїЅ) at Dunsinnan in 1054. After Macbeth was defeated and killed by Malcolm at Lumphanan three years later, Moray declined and was completely incorporated into Scotland by 1130. The Norse colonies in Caithness and Sutherland followed soon after. When Norway ceded the Hebrides to Scotland in 1266, the country had reached almost its modern borders: ScotlandпїЅs last territorial acquisitions were Orkney and Shetland, ceded by Denmark in 1468-9 in lieu of a princessпїЅs dowry, which the bankrupt country could not afford to pay. The islanders still have a strong sense of their Scandinavian heritage and in recent years there have been somewhat tongue-in-cheek calls for the restoration of Danish sovereignty. 13 centuries of the Nordic Peoples 13 Centuries of the Nordic Peoples Text and maps copyright Howard Wiseman 2009-2010.

Last Modified: 19th February 2010 The Nordic nations (the Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes, and related peoples) appear most prominently in the pages of history during Viking times (roughly 789-1098). This site covers that period in detail, but also charts their history in more recent times, which has much of interest. The dates chosen for this site are, with the exception of the start, end, and 1864, chosen to show the greatest extents of the power or influence of various Nordic nations. There is one map per century from the 8th to the 13th century, and then one every second century thereafter. Return to Howard Wiseman's History page Note: to view these maps as a coarse "movie", first adjust the size of this window to be slightly larger than a map plus its title, then click on next (>) or previous (<) at the beginning of each title. To return to the Index of Maps, click on the up arrow (^). Index of Maps ^ > 789 -- Scandinavia before the storm Danes, Norwegians, Swedes The Nordic people have been living in Scandinavia for thousands of years.

In the sixth century they had raided northern Francia, and may have participated in the Anglo-Saxon conquest of England. But for the most part they went unnoticed in European history. This all changed with the first recorded raid on England in 789, which launched the Viking Age. What prompted this change in Nordic culture remains controversial; it may have been over-population; or advances in ship-design which opened new opportunities; or Charlemagne's bloody conquest and conversion of the pagan Saxons, which brought the Frankish Empire to the borders of the Kingdom of Denmark (shown in red on the above map). Note that although it is reasonable even at this early time to divided the Nordic people into the three nations that persist to the present day in Scandinavia: the Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes, only the first of these was organized into a single Kingdom at this time. < ^ > 878 -- The Viking Invasions of Britain Danes, Norwegians, Swedes The first Danish raid of three ships in Wessex in 789 was followed by the infamous sack of the monastery of Lindisfarne in Northumbria in 793 by Norwegian Vikings (or Norse, as they are called).

Over the next two generations, the scale and area of Viking activity exploded. They set up bases and sacked towns throughout England and France (i.e. western Francia), and along the coasts of Spain, Africa and Italy. Their fleets could number more than a hundred ships, enough to carry an army of several thousand men. By the 860s, the cavalry forces of local French nobles had learned how to respond rapidly to the Danes, rather than waiting for their King to turn up. The Danes therefore turned their attention towards the easier pickings in England. In 865 the "Great Army" under Ivar and Halfdan invaded. York fell in 866, although the northern part of Northumbria remained independent. East Anglia was next in 869, and Mercia in 873. Only Wessex remained, and in 878, King Alfred, defeated, had fled to the Somerset marshes. The Norse, meanwhile had conquered the northern Scottish Isles, Man, and Dublin, and had established the first settlement in the Faroes and Iceland (previously uninhabited).

In the east, Swedish Vikings (also known as Varangians) were establishing control of key trading towns on the great rivers of Russia. < ^ > 972 -- The Rus Empire of Svyatoslav Denmark, Normandy, Norway, Hiberno-Norse, Swedes, Varangian Rus, Iceland The Danish army had divided after its conquest of Mercia, but Alfred's victory over that fraction which had invaded Wessex was remarkable nevertheless. Gradually over the next two generations the House of Wessex reconquered all the Danish gains, and established the Kingdom of England. The Danes turned again on France, and in 911 Charles the Simple bought off the Viking Rollo by granting him a small piece of territory at the mouth of the Seine. Rollo was baptised and held his land as a vassal of the King, but this was purely nominal. By the time of this map, the Normans (that is, Northmen) had greatly expanded territory of Normandy. They were already becoming more French than Danish, but were still very conscious of their Viking roots.

The Norse, meanwhile, had conquered all of western Scotland, while in Dublin, Man, and Strathclyde, mixed Hiberno-Norse elites ruled (in the last case, mixed also with the Strathclyde Britons). The Icelanders, drawn from all over the Nordic world, had created an island-wide system of government by Thing (assembly) in 930, around the same time the Norwegians were unified under a single King. But the most spectacular gains at this time were by the Varangians, who were known by the locals as the Rus. In 882, Oleg took control of Kiev and made it the capital of an Empire encompassing all the Rus settlements. The Varangian Rus Empire reached its greatest extent under Svyatoslav (945-72), but as his name betrays, by this time they were becoming integrated with the local Slavic population. < ^ > 1028 -- The Danish Empire of Cnut Danish Crown, Normandy, Sweden, Iceland, Greenlanders By the early 11th century Varangian trade with the east had dried up with the exhaustian of silver mines in Dar al-Islam.

The Rus Empire persisted, but was now definitely Russian (slavic speaking, land-based, and Orthodox Christian) rather than Nordic. But in the west Viking activity was on the rise again. England was subject to massive Danish raids from 991 onwards; the Danegeld King Ethelred repeatedly paid them to turn away served only to encourage them to return in future years. Their fleets were helped by the safe havens they were granted in Normandy, which was now a Dukedom. By 1016, Cnut, brother of the King of Denmark, had conquered the whole of England. In 1019 he inherited Denmark, and in 1028 conquered the Norwegians when they allied with Swedes (recently united under a single King) against him. With Norway came the Earldom of Orkney, from the Shetland Isles to the Isle of Man; Cnut had created the only ever Empire of the North Sea. Meanwhile, beyond Iceland, Viking settlers had reached Greenland in 986, and then Vinland in North America around the year 1000.

I have shown a settlement of Greenlanders at the Viking site of L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, but whether this was Vinland and whether it was still occupied in 1028 is debatable. < ^ > 1130 -- The Norman Conquests Denmark, Normans, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Greenlanders Cnut's Empire did not survive his death in 1035, and Danish rule in England ended in 1042. But the restoration of the House of Wessex was also short-lived --- when the half-Norman Edward "the Confessor" died without a son in 1066, the Kingdom was up for grabs. The main contenders were: the half-Danish Harold, Earl of Wessex (the most powerful man in England), Harald Hardrada, King of Norway (with a weak claim to be Cnut's successor), and William the Bastard(*), Duke of Normandy (Edward's cousin once-removed, and his nominated heir). Two great battles on English soil determined that the last was to become King William I of England.

But this famous Norman Conquest of 1066 was not the only one of this century, for even if they now lived as Frenchmen, the Normans still had the Viking wanderlust. From 1040, Norman mercenaries in southern Italy began grabbing land for themselves, and by 1091 had conquered almost the whole of it, plus Sicily from the Moors. These lands were united under Roger, Count of Sicily, who took the title King in 1130. Meanwhile, Normans from Normandy, England, and Italy were among those who had joined the First Crusade against the Seljuks in the East in 1096. Bohemond, a Norman from Italy, won for himself the rule of Antioch, and the title Prince, in 1099. (*) The Normans' willingness, at this stage, to recognize their illegitimate offspring as heirs was another legacy of their Viking past; they called their concubines "Danish wives".

< ^ > 1223 -- The Danish Empire of Valdemar II Danish Crown, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Greenlanders Norman rule ended: in the Principality of Antioch with the death of Bohemond's son, Bohemond II, in 1131; in England and Normandy with the death of Stephen, grandson of William I, in 1154; and in the Kingdom of Sicily with its conquest by the Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI in 1194. After this, the next major Nordic conquest was the creation of a Baltic Empire by Valdemar II, King of Denmark, known as the Conqueror. He began by invading Norway, which became his vassal from 1208. Denmark had been increasing its influence in northern Germany for some time, and in 1214, Valdemar's military support of the beleagered Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II (son of Henry VI) was rewarded with the transfer of the whole coast of Germany east of the Elbe to Denmark.

In 1219 he conquered northern Estonia, as part of a Crusade against the pagans there, and shortly afterwards took northern Courland (Latvia) [Kinder & Hilgemann, 1964]. By this time the Swedes had begun their colonization of Finland. < ^ > 1460 -- The Union of Kalmar under Christian I Danish Crown In 1223 Valdemar II was captured by one of his north German vassals, and only released a year later after promising to give up his German territories. He soon reneged on this promise, but defeat in 1227 forced him to accept this loss. Northern Estonia remained Danish until 1346, when it was sold to the Teutonic Knights. Meanwhile in the west Nordic rule was also retreating --- the Isle of Man and the Hebrides were sold by Norway to Scotland in 1266, following an inconclusive war. However, Norway had won a far bigger prize in 1262 when the Icelanders voluntarily placed themselves under the Norwegian Crown.

(The Greenlanders followed suit, but sadly, due to the deteriorating climate event known as the "Little Ice Age", they fell out of contact with their Nordic cousins and, by the time of this map, had perished through famine.) This was the beginning of a trend that culminated in the 1397 Treaty of Kalmar, which brought all the Nordic peoples under one King. The chief architect of this Union was Queen Margaret of Norway, who remained the power behind the throne of her grand-nephew Erik until her death in 1412. Thereafter the Danes became the dominant power in the Union, and the Swedes in particular often rose up against what they saw as an imposed foreign ruler. However in 1460 Christian I was unopposed King of all the Nordic nations, and had just extended Denmark to the south again by annexing Schleswig-Holstein. < ^ > 1655 -- The Swedish Empire under Charles Gustav Danish Crown, Swedish Crown, Swedish occupying forces Christian I was chronically short of money, because the nobles he relied upon for support paid little or no tax.

In 1468 he pawned Orkney and Shetland to Scotland, to cover the unpaid dowry of his daughter Margaret (betrothed to the Scottish King). Earlier, in 1464, the Swedes had risen again in rebellion against his financial impositions, and restored one of their own Kings. Danish Kings were able to reimpose their authority at times in Sweden, but the massacre of Stockholm in 1520 and the subsequent rebellion saw the final end of the Kalmar Union in 1523. The Norwegians and Icelanders remained under Danish Kings, but it was Sweden which became in the following century one of the "Great Powers" of Europe. Sweden emerged from the thirty-year's war (1618-48) with an Empire in the Baltic and northern Germany, and an army that was second-to-none in Europe. This was a remarkable achievement, since Sweden's population was only about 1/5 of that of Britain (the next-least populous Great Power), and far poorer. It rested on the militarisation of the Swedish people, the generalship of their Kings, and, especially after 1648, subsidies by France.

In 1655 King Charles (traditionally numbered the 10th of that name), surnamed Gustav, opportunistically took Sweden to war against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Russia had invaded the year before, and the Swedish forces quickly overran what was left of the country, in what was remembered in Polish history as "The Deluge". This area is shown above in light yellow, as it was an occupation which never crystallized into a conquest. < ^ > 1864 -- The loss of Schleswig-Holstein Danish Crown, Swedish Crown Charles Gustav was forced to withdraw by Polish nationalist forces in 1657. However, he immediately went to war with Denmark, and by 1658 the Danes had ceded that part of Denmark on the southernmost point of the Scandinavian peninsula, and the central part of Norway, around Trondheim. The former turned out to be a permanent conquest; the latter was returned to Denmark-Norway in 1660.

Sweden continued to act as Great Power in Scandinavia and the east until it was finally defeated in the Great Northern War of 1700-21, by an overwhelming coalition of Russia, Denmark-Norway, Poland-Lithuania and Saxony. Sweden lost all of its territories except for Finland and Pomerania. In 1814, following the Napoleonic wars, these remaining territories were given to Russia and Prussia respectively by the Great Powers (which no longer included Sweden). However, Sweden was compensated because it had fought against Napoleon (and Denmark punished because it had allied with him) by the transfer of Norway from the Danish to the Swedish Crown. The original Norwegian claims to Iceland, Greenland and the Faroes had, however, already been transferred to the Danish Crown. The final loss of Nordic territory occurred in the 1864, when Prussia and Austria-Hungary wrested Schleswig-Holstein (which was predominantly German speaking) from Denmark.

By this time, Denmark had begun reoccupying Greenland, where Eskimo peoples, who had inhabited the far north for millennia, had spread to the south by c.1500 (and may have had a hand in the demise of the Nordic settlers there). < ^ 2009 -- The Nordic Nations today. Denmark, Greenland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland The Norwegians had never been happy under Swedish rule, and the union could not survive the spread of democracy to Scandinavia. When a referendum in 1905 returned a tally 99.95% in favour of dissolution (among the 85% of Norwegian men who voted), Sweden accepted the inevitable. Following the First World War, in which all the Nordic nations were neutral, Denmark regained the Danish-speaking part of Schleswig, Norway gained sovereignty over the Arctic Island of Svalbard, and Finland gained its independence from Russia. Since then, the proportion of native Swedish speakers in Finland has dropped from about 11% to only half that, but Swedish remains an official language, hence the colouring of Finland.

In Greenland, by contrast, which gained full autonomy from Denmark on 21 June 2009, Kalaallisut (an Eskimo tongue) is the only official language. However Danish is spoken by most citizens of Greenland, and remains the language of higher education, hence the colouring of Greenland. Iceland, meanwhile, voted in 1944 for full independence from Denmark as a republic; the other fully Nordic nations (Denmark, Norway, and Sweden) remain monarchies. 13 Centuries of the Nordic Peoples --- a Summary Map The coloured areas of this map shows areas ruled or occupied by Nordic peoples at any time in the last 13 centuries. The colourings are as follows: Areas ruled by Denmark, or Danish Vikings; Areas ruled by Norway or Norse Vikings; Areas ruled by Sweden or Swedish Varangians; Areas ruled by Normans; Areas ruled by Varangian Rus, or temporarily occupied by Sweden; Area ruled by Hiberno-Brittono-Norse; Area colonised by Greenland Vikings. Since many areas fall into more than one of these categories, the colouring is somewhat arbitrary.

I have tended to choose a colouring which emphasizes the greatest territorial expansion of the three original Nordic nations, the Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes. A few territories coloured here do not appear on the earlier maps on this site. The main ones are: (i) Norse colonies in southern Ireland (early to mid 10th century); (ii) Viking-ruled Brittany (914-39); and (iii) conquests by the Norman Kingdom of Sicily: Spoleto in central Italy (1144-94); the Island of Corfu (1147-49), and Tunis and other African cities, including some beyond the borders of this map, (1146-60). Other areas that are beyond the borders of the map are the former trans-oceanic colonies of Sweden and Denmark in West Africa, India, North America, and the Caribbean, and the current Norwegian Antarctic territories. Even without counting these (or indeed Greenland), the Nordic and once-Nordic territories shown cover almost half of Europe, and touch upon another three other continents: Asia, Africa and North America.

Selected Bibliography Debatable Land: stories of life in a grey area: September 2014 Orkney: Debatable Islands This is the cover of a guidebook to the Orkney islands published in the 1930s. My uncle bought it while serving in the Orkneys during WWII. He sent it to his parents as a present, writing in the front “from your loving son serving with the RAF in these lonely islands, June 1944”. I have screwed up my eyes many times trying to decide whether that word is ‘lonely’ or ‘lovely’, and am still not certain. Either would be appropriate, but the former seems more likely to be the adjective of choice of a young conscript missing his home. That was the only contact any of my family have ever had with Orkney – I am ashamed to confess that I have never been there.

One of my relatives in New Zealand is convinced that the original bearers of the surname Housby came from Denmark via Orkney and that there is some sort of ancestral estate of ours in the islands, but more reliable scholarship tells us that most –by Danish surnames entered Britain via Yorkshire, and in any case, my uncle had plenty of time to look around in 1944, and I think he would have mentioned it if he had stumbled across a swathe of acreage bearing his own name. This blog is, of course, about the area on either side of the Scottish-English border, but now that I have had time to digest the results of the indyref in more detail, I have realised that the Orkneys have something in common with the Scottish Borders. Both local authority areas returned a No vote of 67% in the referendum, a much more decisive No Thanks to independence than in the rest of Scotland. The result overall, when votes from the whole of Scotland were combined, was 55% for No, but that disguises some sizeable local variations.

The now much criticised opinion poll that showed 51% for Yes was actually an under-estimate of the vote in Glasgow, which voted nearly 54% for Yes. Glasgow itself and the two adjacent authorities, plus Dundee on the opposite coast, were the only areas to return a majority Yes vote, which is a pretty clear indication that it is the former heartlands of the labour movement, now struggling with de-industrialisation, that have given up on the Labour party and sought salvation in independence. The decisive rejection of independence in the Borders is in accordance with the anecdotal impression I had formed, and is what you would expect from the region whose daily life would have been most seriously disrupted by the appearance of an international frontier on its doorstep. It may in fact be more noteworthy that 33% of voters still thought it was worth risking this inconvenience. But why should the Orcadians have shown themselves equally averse to the prospect of an independent Scotland? In their case, it seems to be because they do not consider themselves to be really part of Scotland at all and do not wish to become even more dependent on it.

The Orkney islands used to belong to Norway but were ceded to Scotland in 1468 as part of the dowry when the daughter of King Christian 1, who ruled both Norway and Denmark, married King James III of Scotland. Princess Margaret’s royal dad was short of ready cash so pledged both the Orkney and Shetland (64% for No) islands in lieu. According to this 1930s book, the islands are still technically ‘pawned’ and may be redeemed by Norway at any time, but "Orkney folk know which side their bread is buttered and so prefer to stay with Scotland". Hmm. That was before Norway accumulated a whopping sovereign wealth fund from oil revenues. The Orkney and Shetland islands are still even more strongly Scandinavian in language and culture than the northern mainland of Scotland and quite a lot of their inhabitants would apparently like Norway to redeem its pledge. There are also reports that some Orcadians are now demanding a referendum of their own on becoming completely independent. Berwick upon Tweed, of course, used to belong to Scotland but was conquered by England. A lot of its residents think it would be better off going back to Scotland or even becoming independent.

The population of the Borough of Berwick is only slightly smaller than that of the Orkney islands. Maybe we could work out some sort of deal whereby Berwick is returned to Scotland while Orkney is returned to Norway? Posted by After the Referendum, What Now? So now we all know the result. The Scots voted by 55.3% to 44.7% to stay in union with the rest of the United Kingdom. I stayed up most of the night from Thursday to Friday, such was my anxiety to know what the future held. The first time I started to relax a bit was at midnight when the news headlines reported an exit poll that gave the No side 54%. By 4 am it was clear that No Thanks had carried the day, and I felt it was safe to go to sleep for a while. But I was awake and online again by 7.30 am, in plenty of time to hear the Chief Counting Officer ‘certify and declare’ that ‘the majority of valid votes cast in answer to the question “should Scotland be an independent country?” was in favour of – No’.

I was surprised by just how relieved I felt that the Borders are not facing any dramatic upheaval or disruption in the foreseeable future. The Tweed can flow peacefully on without any danger of anybody building a barrier across it. This feeling is shared by most Berwickers I have spoken to, though they are being muted in their response to the result, just as they were muted beforehand in their anxiety about it, because Borderers have developed ‘keeping calm and carrying on’ to a fine art. On Friday, in my sleep-deprived state, I went back to re-view some of the video installations in the Berwick Film Festival on the theme of Border Crossing, described in my last post, and saw them quite differently from the way they had struck me the day before. Although my gut reaction was one of intense relief, I would not want to give the impression that I am a devoted Unionist. I have always been able to see strong arguments on both sides of the independence argument, and I am not looking forward to having to face the committed Yes activists from just over the other side of the border that I know socially here in Berwick.

The most poignant figure to me in this whole intensely emotional debate is an older man I have met a couple of times in the art gallery, proudly wearing his Yes badge. He told us how ‘passionate’ he was about the issue, and the depth of his longing for his country to be independent was clear for all to see. Now he has to face up to the knowledge that he will not live to see independence. Maybe a future generation will finally bring about a stand-alone Scotland, but he will not be there to rejoice over it. His situation is repeated thousands of times all over Scotland. The media, the Westminster politicians and the English Establishment generally were so badly shaken by that one poll that showed a majority Yes vote that they are now talking as if a majority of just over 55% is not very close at all. They have conveniently forgotten that when the date of the referendum was first fixed, over two years ago, all the polls showed the No side with a comfortable majority of well over 60%. So one way of looking at the final result is that Better Together lost votes steadily over the course of the campaign. 45% of the voters is a lot of Scots who continued to find their arguments unconvincing.

It should also be borne in mind that there were four local authority districts that returned a majority Yes vote. Personally I believe that Alex Salmond, who shocked everyone by resigning as leader of the SNP and First Minister in the aftermath of defeat, can take credit for an immense achievement. He took Scottish nationalism from a fringe movement regarded by most English people as a joke to an organised campaign that has challenged the whole constitutional settlement of the United Kingdom. Latest reports are that thousands of Scots have joined the SNP in the three days since the referendum. Go figure, Westminster. I am now wondering what I should do with this blog. There will always be plenty of interesting things to write about in the Debatable Land. And it is not the case that nothing will change for the Borders – the commitment to granting Scots more devolved fiscal powers means that some things will change. One scenario is that Berwick will fill up with Scots practising tax avoidance by using a cheaply purchased English property as their main address for income tax purposes. That could be very beneficial for the increased prosperity of this place, but I am not entirely sure that it would be a town I would wish to continue living in.

Posted by Border Crossing: the 2014 Berwick upon Tweed Film Festival The Berwick upon Tweed Film and Media Arts Festival , of which I am a huge fan and about which I have written in previous years, is taking place from 17th to 21st September this year. And isn't something happening just over the border during that period? Oh yeah - the Scottish independence referendum takes place today. The Scots are voting (reportedly queuing up to vote at a turnout rate of over 80%) even as I type. So to fit in with this the Festival has this year adopted the theme of Border Crossing. All of the films and installations are about the borders between countries and the people who live and work next to them and across them. The thing that makes the Berwick festival really special is the video installations in unusual locations. The town has a number of ice houses, where ice was stored in the days before mechanical refrigeration to be used in packing fish for market. These are amazing spaces and are sadly under-used now, so it is fantastic to see them opened up as artistic venues. These photos show the entrance to Bankhill ice house, inside and out.

Sadly it is not possible to take pictures of the pitch black interior without professional equipment. This year it is the venue for an eight screen installation by John Wallace and Professor Pete Smith showing the rivers Tweed and Sark, on the east and west respectively of the Scottish-English border, and the life of people who live and work around them. I had a quick look in this morning and it nearly made me cry. It is such a beautiful evocation of the community cross-border life that we now feel to be threatened. I am fairly sympathetic in principle to independence for Scotland (much more sympathetic than most people in Berwick) but I really dread anything happening at national political level that would result in the building of some kind of frontier control that would make the continuation of this cross-border life impossible. Everybody I have spoken to, from both sides of the border, shares this sense of dread. The Yes campaigners I know hate the idea as much as anybody else but insist it will never happen. We have been the subjects of a media frenzy over the last couple of weeks, with many Berwickers finding themselves starring in foreign newspaper reports.

My friend Simon Heald is quoted in his usual pithy style in a New York Times piece that is one of the better and more balanced articles I have seen. When I congratulated him yesterday he continued in the same style, saying that the Better Together campaign 'could not have been any more badly handled if they had just sent a troop of trained chimps to throw bananas at the Scots'. The comedy antics of Team Westminster have indeed sometimes seemed to descend to the level of 'vote No and we'll give you extra bananas'. I heard somebody on the radio say that the Yes activists have had all the romance and passion while the No Thanks campaign has just droned on about the Barnett Formula (a system of allocating public expenditure). If only Better Together could have borrowed some of the romance of Tweed-Sark Cinema. After two years of writing about the subject on this blog, thinking and wondering and worrying about it, I now just want the indyref to be over. So that I can get some work done again and maybe get a good night's sleep.

Posted by "When the Seagulls Follow the Trawler ..." The footballer Eric Cantona famously compared scandal-seeking journalists to seagulls following a trawler to scavenge for tasty morsels of discarded fish. Here in Berwick we have a permanent problem with seagulls, leading to notices like this one being put up all over town to discourage sentimental visitors from feeding them. The gulls are not suitably grateful for being fed, they will just grab your own lunch as well and then dump the remains of their last meal all over you and your family. In the last few days before the Scottish independence referendum, we now have a problem with metaphorical seagulls as well. Journalists and researchers of all kinds are circling Berwick in search of tasty soundbites, scavenging wherever they can, digesting whatever they are given quickly and badly and then dumping the messy end product all over the world’s media. I have myself been guilty of feeding these seagulls. So far I have talked to two reporters and one doctoral researcher in addition to attending a local debate that was filmed for global distribution.

Blame my fellow blogger Jim Herbert, who for some reason – probably because, unlike mine, his history blog both has a bit of scholarly gravitas and has the name Berwick in the title – seems always to be the first port of call for these enquirers. He has now decided that I am a reliable ‘rent a gob’ and put me on his list of opinionated locals towards whom to point anybody who emails him in search of ‘some interesting people to talk to about what Berwick thinks of the possibility of Scottish independence’. I have now started to get quite angry with these enquirers. None of them seem to have bothered to do any research on the history of Berwick or the Borders in advance. The man from German radio was the least annoying of the lot, because as a foreigner he was prepared to listen and did not assume he knew it all already. My main gripe with that interview was that he asked us whether we thought Scottish independence would be good or bad, without distinguishing between ‘good for Scotland’ and ‘good for Berwick’, which are two very different things.

The PhD student particularly irritated me, because I’ve done academic research myself, and if I were her supervisor I would have been telling her to re-examine her starting assumptions. She told Jim that she only wanted to talk to English people, because her paper is about what English people think of Scottish independence. This forced him to try to remember which of his friends and contacts in Berwick are Scottish and which English, because in daily life in the Borders we often do not consciously notice who is which. Some of the people who did turn up said that, for example, they were born in Scotland but educated in England and now live in Berwick, and were not quite sure whether they were English or Scottish. We tried to explain that the whole idea that Berwickers feel English and define themselves in opposition to the Scots is fundamentally mistaken, but I had a feeling that this won’t make it into the final paper. A couple of days ago Jim obliged a chap from the Wall Street Journal, no less, with his ‘rent a gob’ list. I was really looking forward to talking to him. At last, I thought, a serious and prestigious newspaper, whose staff will be well briefed!

No, this chap’s ignorance of the history of the Borders was just as great as anyone else’s. He asked if anybody here wants Berwick to be independent of both England and Scotland. Oh yes, I said, you hear that quite often. He then asked if I thought that could ever come true, or if it was just a fantasy. I pointed out that historically Berwick WAS an independent political entity, for hundreds of years. This appeared to surprise him. Surely he is being well paid to google this kind of thing? All of these soundbite-scavengers start from an assumption that we in Berwick and North Northumberland feel just as English as they do in London or Surrey. Or if not, that we must have a permanent identity crisis. They don’t understand that we do not live our lives in an agony of confusion over whether we are English or Scottish – our identity is being Borderers and we are not in the least confused about that. They are surprised when we say that we interact with Scots all the time and feel closer to them than to the Southern English.

They don’t understand that the shared history and culture of the Borders goes back to way before the Acts of Union and that whatever national politicians do we will deal with it, because that’s what Borderers have done for a thousand years. And most of all they don't realise how much we would like them to take some notice of us the rest of the time and not just in this once in a lifetime event of the referendum. P.S. After I had posted the above, I was stopped in the street at 6 pm by a reporter from the Newcastle Journal desperate for some quotable Berwickers to meet her deadline. I appeared on their website the next morning, with all my more considered remarks ignored in favour of the angle that 'Berwick estate agents are cockahoop as Scots seek English address to avoid higher Scottish taxes'. I would never use the word 'cockahoop' and the estate agent to whom I have most recently spoken is a very strong Better Together man who opposes increased powers for Scotland even though it might be good for his business. One of the lasting legacies of this referendum experience for me will be an increased dislike and distrust of journalists.

Posted by The Less Attractive Side of Unionism Greetings to readers old and new from Berwick-upon-Tweed, located about a mile south of the Scottish-English border, and thus on the front line of the consequences of the referendum on whether or not Scotland should become independent, which is now not much more than a week away. Some of us have been thinking about these consequences for years now, but the London based media and most of the English population seem to have only just noticed anything is happening. The level of panic engendered in Westminster by one solitary opinion poll showing a very small lead for the Yes side has genuinely surprised me, which I suppose just shows how differently we think up here. I had thought that the leaders of the Westminster parliament could not get any stupider in their handling of the unionist campaign, but I was wrong. The three leaders of the main Westminster parties have, far too late, buried their differences and announced that they will visit Edinburgh tomorrow to campaign for Better Together. The sight of Cameron, Clegg and Milband advancing on the Scottish capital in a posse is guaranteed to terrify any Scot into voting Yes, to make sure it never happens again. And as for flying the Scottish flag over Downing Street .....

if I were a Scot I would feel insulted. Actually, even though I'm English I feel a bit insulted. NOW you care? For the two years since the referendum was announced you've just assumed you didn't need to do anything, and now after one opinion poll that worried the financial markets and weakened sterling a bit you have rummaged in the attic and blown the dust off a Scottish flag? And you wonder why they don't want to be governed by you any more? I have been saying for some time, when asked, that my personal prediction is that the result will be so close that it will be considered inconclusive. A few weeks ago I said it on tape for the benefit of a German journalist who wanted to know what Berwickers think on the subject. Of course, a 51% lead for No, which would undoubtedly be greeted by Westminster with a firm 'that's the end of that then', would be a lot more conclusive than a 51% lead for Yes, which would probably be greeted both by Westminster and by No-voting Scots with 'that's not nearly a clear enough mandate for such a radical step'.

And since the bumbling oafs in Downing Street have now in desperation promised the Scots almost anything they want so long as they stop short of full independence, even a No result would only signal the start of further negotiations. You are probably wondering what the photo above has to do with any of this. It is a cropped view of the back of a sweatshirt worn by one of the marchers on a demo held in Berwick a few weeks ago by the Scottish Defence League, the populist-right political group. The North East Infidels are a similar group in north-east England who have chosen their name to emphasise the anti-Muslim aspect of their views ('infidel' being an insulting term sometimes applied to non-Muslims by extreme Islamists, here embraced proudly by the insulted). I have hesitated for some time over the appropriateness of using it on this blog, but now that the debate over the referendum has become so intense and so bitter I thought I might as well chuck it into the mix. It's an interesting take on the unionist argument that we are 'better together'.

The supporters of the continued existence of the United Kingdom have done a good job of presenting themselves as the polite and genteel side, regretting all this unnecessary rumpus being caused by a few troublemakers in North Britain, but actually, you know, there is a dark side to unionism just as much as there is a dark side to nationalism. Posted by

Question: In 1468 Orkney was ceded to Scotland in lieu of an unpaid dowry by the king of which country?
Answer: NORWAY