The history of Scotland begins around 14,000 years ago, when humans first began to inhabit what is now Scotland after the end of the Devensian glaciations, the last ice age. Of the Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age civilization that existed in the territory, many artifacts remain, but few written records were left behind.

The recorded history of Scotland begins with the arrival of the Roman Empire in Britain, when the Romans occupied what is now broadly England and Wales and the Scottish Lowlands, administering it as a Roman province called Britannia. To the north was territory not governed by the Romans — Caledonia, by name. Its people were the Picts. From a classical historical viewpoint Scotland seemed a peripheral country, slow to gain advances filtering out from the Mediterranean fount of civilization, but as knowledge of the past increases it has become apparent that some developments were earlier and more advanced than previously thought, and that the seaways were very important to Scottish history.

Because of the geographical orientation of Scotland and its strong reliance on trade routes by sea, the kingdom held close links in the south and east with the Baltic countries, and through Ireland with France and the continent of Europe. Following the Acts of Union which united Scotland with England into the Kingdom of Great Britain, and the subsequent Scottish Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution, Scotland became one of the commercial, intellectual and industrial powerhouses of Europe. Its industrial decline following the World War II was particularly acute, but in recent decades the country has enjoyed something of a cultural and economic renaissance, fuelled in part by a resurgent financial services sector, the proceeds of North Sea oil and gas, and latterly a devolved parliament.

Prehistoric People

People lived in Scotland for at least 8,500 years before recorded history dealt with Britain. At times during the last interglacial period (130,000–70,000 BC) Europe had a climate warmer than today's, and early humans may have made their way to Scotland, though archaeologists have found no traces of this. Glaciers then scoured their way across most of Britain, and only after the ice retreated did Scotland again become habitable, around 9600 BC.

Mesolithic hunter-gatherer encampments formed the first known settlements, and archaeologists have dated an encampment near Biggar to around 8500 BC. Numerous other sites found around Scotland build up a picture of highly mobile boat-using people making tools from bone, stone and antlers.

Neolithic farming brought permanent settlements, and the wonderfully well-preserved stone house at Knap of Howar on Papa Westray dating from 3500 BC predates by about 500 years the village of similar houses at Skara Brae on West Mainland, Orkney. The settlers introduced chambered cairn tombs from around 3500 BC (Maeshowe offers a prime example), and from about 3000 BC the many standing stones and circles such as the Ring of Brodgar on Orkney and Callanish on Lewis. These form part of the Europe-wide Megalithic culture which also produced Stonehenge in Wiltshire, and which pre-historians now interpret as showing sophisticated use of astronomical observations.

The oldest standing house in Northern Europe
is at Knap of Howar, dating from 3500 BC.




In 3000 BC, some Neolithic farmers lived in
stone houses (such as those at Skara Brae)
set into existing middens

120 km Hadrian's Wall marked the border between
Scotland to the north and the Roman Empire to the
south with small forts and gates every Roman mile.
Roman sway reached further north at times.

The cairns and Megalithic monuments continued into the Bronze age, and hill forts started to appear, such as Eildon Hill near Melrose in the Scottish Borders, which goes back to around 1000 BC and accommodated several hundred houses on a fortified hilltop.

Brythonic Celtic culture and language spread into Scotland at some time after the 8th century BC, possibly through cultural contact rather than through mass invasion, and systems of kingdoms developed.

From around 700 BC the Iron age brought numerous hill forts, brochs and fortified settlements which support the image of quarrelsome tribes and petty kingdoms later recorded by the Romans, though evidence that at times occupants neglected the defenses might suggest that symbolic power had as much significance as warfare.

Roman invasion

The only surviving pre-Roman account of Scotland originated with the Greek Pytheas of Massalia who circumnavigated the British islands (which he called Pretaniké) in 325 BC, but the record of his visit dates from much later.

The Roman invasion of Britain began in earnest in AD 43. Following a series of military successes in the south, forces led by Gnaeus Julius Agricola entered Scotland in 79. The Romans met with fierce resistance from the local population of Caledonians. In 82 or 83 Agricola sent a fleet of galleys up round the coast of Scotland, as far as the Orkney Islands. In 84 Agricola defeated the Caledonian tribes at the Battle of Mons Graupius due to superior tactics and the use of professional troops.

The only historical source for this comes from the writings of Agricola's son-in-law, Tacitus. Archaeology backed up with accurate dating from dendrochronology suggests that the occupation of southern Scotland started before the arrival of Agricola. Whatever the exact dating, for the next 300 years Rome had some presence along the southern border.

Although the Romans had failed to conquer Caledonia they attempted to maintain control through military outposts and built a few roads. They were eventually forced or chose to withdraw, concluding that the wealth of the land did not justify the extensive garrisoning requirements.

Scotland's population comprised two main groups:

  1. The Picts, the original peoples (possibly a Brythonic Celtic group) who occupied most of Scotland north of the Firth of Clyde and the Firth of Forth: the area known as "Pictavia".

  2. The Britons formed a Roman-influenced Brythonic Celtic culture in the south, with the kingdom of Strad Glud (Strathclyde) from the Firth of Clyde southwards, Rheged in Cumbria, Selgovae in the central Borders area and the Votadini or Gododdin from the Firth of Forth down to the Tweed.

Invasions brought three more groups, though the extent to which they replaced native populations is unknown. They were:

  1. The Old Irish-speaking Scotti (Scots) or more specifically, the Dál Riatans, arrived from Ireland from the late 5th century onwards, taking possession of Argyll and the west coast in the Kingdom of Dál Riata.

  2. The Anglo-Saxons expanding from Bernicia and the continent. Notably seizing Gododdin in the 7th Century. It was their language which eventually became the predominant tongue of lowland Scotland, a variant of English which was initially termed Inglis, whereas the name "Scottis" (pronounced the same way as Scots) referred to the Gaelic language spoken largely in the Highlands. However, during the late Middle Ages the name "Scots" was transferred to the Scottish form of English, while the Celtic language of the Highlands came to be known only as Gaelic.

  3. In the aftermath of the 795 Viking raid on Iona, the Norse Jarls of Orkney took hold of the Western Isles, Caithness and Sutherland, while Norse settlers mixed with the inhabitants of Galloway to become the Gallgaels.

The British Saint Ninian conducted the first Christian mission in Scotland. From his base, the Candida Casa (present-day Whithorn) on the Solway Firth, he spread the faith in the south and east of Scotland and in the north of England. However, according to the writings of Saint Patrick and Saint Columba, the Picts appear to have renounced Christianity in the century between Ninian's death (432) and the arrival of Saint Columba in 563. The reason is not known. The Gaels re-introduced Christianity into Pictish Scotland, gradually pushing out worship of the older Celtic gods. The most famous evangelist of that period, Saint Columba, came to Scotland in 563 and settled on the island of Iona having obtained permission from the Pictish king at his court in Inverness to settle on Iona and to spread Christianity. Some consider his (possibly apocryphal) conversion of the Pictish king Bridei a key event in the Christianization of Scotland.

Rise of the Kingdom of Alba

The myth of MacAlpin's Treason tells how Alba was born when the Gael Cináed mac Ailpín conquered the Picts, but Alba is a creation of Constantine II. Cináed's son Constantine had the Series Longoir written to show his family's claim to the throne of a united Pictland. The triumph of Gaelic over Pictish and the change from Pictland to Alba is placed in the half-century reign of Constantine II. Why and how this happened is unknown.

At first this new kingdom corresponded to Scotland north of the Rivers Forth and Clyde. South west Scotland remained under the control of the Strathclyde Britons. South-east Scotland was under the control from around 638 of the proto-English kingdom of Bernicia, then of the Kingdom of Northumbria. This portion of Scotland was contested from the time of Constantine II and finally fell into Scottish hands in 1018, when Máel Coluim II pushed the border as far south as the River Tweed. This remains the south-eastern border to this day.

Scotland, in the geographical sense it has retained for nearly a millennium, completed its expansion by the gradual incorporation of the Britons' kingdom of Strathclyde into Alba. In 1034, Donnchad I inherited Alba from his maternal grandfather, Máel Coluim II. With the exception of Orkney, the Western Isles, Caithness and Sutherland, which remained under Norse rule, Scotland had assumed the shape it was to retain thereafter.

Macbeth, the Cenél Loairn candidate for the throne whose family had been suppressed by Máel Coluim II, defeated Donnchad in battle in 1040. Macbeth then ruled well for seventeen years before Donnchad's son Máel Coluim III overthrew him. (William Shakespeare, in his play Macbeth, later immortalized these events, in a heavily fictionalized way based on inaccurate contemporary history that flattered the antecedents of James VI of Scotland/I of England at Macbeth's expense).

After the Norman Conquest in 1066, Edgar, one of the claimants of the English throne opposing William the Conqueror, fled to Scotland. Máel Coluim married Edgar's sister Margaret, and thus came into opposition to William who had already disputed Scotland's southern borders. William invaded Scotland in 1072, riding through Lothian and past Stirling on to the Firth of Tay where he met his fleet of ships. Máel Coluim submitted, paid homage to William, and surrendered his son Donnchad as a hostage.

Margaret herself had a great influence on Scotland. She is said to have brought European cultivation to the warlike Scottish court. She had an English father and a Hungarian mother and had grown up in Hungary, recently pagan and largely untouched by the European culture of the period. However at this point the Church explicitly recognized the Bishop of Rome (the Pope) as its head and at her instigation, the Benedictine order founded a monastery at Dunfermline, and St Andrews began to replace Iona as the centre of ecclesiastical leadership. The rites of the Scottish church became gradually re-integrated with mainstream Western Catholicism from that base.

When Malcolm died in 1093, his brother Domnall III succeeded him. However, William II of England backed Malcolm's son by his first marriage, Duncan, as a pretender to the throne. With the English behind him Duncan briefly seized power. His murder within a few months saw Domnall restored with Edmund as his heir. The two ruled Scotland until two of Edmund's younger brothers returned from exile in England with English military backing. Victorious, the younger brothers imprisoned Domnall and Edmund for life, and Edgar, the oldest of the three, became king in 1097. Shortly afterwards Edgar and the King of Norway, Magnus Bare Legs concluded a treaty recognizing Norwegian authority over the Western Isles. In practice Norse control of the Isles was of the loosest nature, with local chiefs enjoying a high degree of independence. The following century, Somerled, the greatest of these, became King of the Hebrides in his own right. His descendants, the Lords of the Isles, continued to enjoy a semi-independent status until the end of the fifteenth century.

Cambuskenneth Abbey, built around 1140, derived much
of its importance from its proximity to
sometime-capital Stirling

When Edgar died in 1107, Margaret's third son Alexander became king, and when he in turn died in 1124, the crown passed to her fourth son David I. During David's reign Lowland Scots (known as Inglis then) began to grow in south east Scotland, although Gaelic would continue to be spoken in many parts of what would become the Lowlands for centuries more.

The governmental and cultural innovations introduced by the Norman conquerors of England impressed David greatly, and he arranged for several notables to come north and take up places within the Scottish aristocracy. The Normans came into frequent conflict with the native nobility, especially in the north east and south west of the country.

In a mirror of the invitation of the Normans northwards, David received lands south of the border in fee from the English kings. This meant that the Kings of Scotland also functioned as Earls of Huntingdon, and that the Earls paid ceremonial homage to the English kings for the lands received. This homage proved problematic, however, as Malcolm Canmore as the King of Scotland had paid homage to the new Norman Kings of England twice after defeats during his various campaigns against the Normans in support of his Anglo-Saxon brother-in-law Edgar Atheling's claim to the English throne.

In 1263, Scotland and Norway fought the Battle of Largs for control over the Western Isles. Although the battle was little more than a series of indecisive skirmishes, it did at least prove that the distant kings of Norway could not continue to control the Isles. This was recognized soon after when the Norwegian king Magnus VI of Norway signed the Treaty of Perth in 1266, acknowledging Scottish suzerainty over the islands. Bit by bit, the Island chiefs were politically integrated into the Scottish state. In 1284 all of the descendants of Somerled attended a parliament called by Alexander III to acknowledge his granddaughter, Margaret, as heir to the throne. The subsequent dynastic crisis caused by the death of Margaret and the onset of the Wars of Independence reversed this process. By the middle of the fourteenth century the MacDonald Lords of the Isles were once again loosening their ties to the crown.

A series of deaths in the line of succession in the 1280s, followed by King Alexander III's death in 1286 left the Scottish crown in disarray. His granddaughter Margaret, the "Maid of Norway", a four-year old girl, was the heir.

Edward I of England, as Margaret's great-uncle, suggested that his son (also a child) and Margaret should marry, stabilizing the Scottish line of succession. In 1290 Margaret's guardians agreed to this, but Margaret herself died in Orkney on her voyage from Norway to Scotland before either her coronation or her marriage could take place.

The Wars of Independence

The death of king Alexander III in 1286, and the subsequent death of his granddaughter and heir Margaret (called "the Maid of Norway") in 1290, left 14 rivals for succession. To prevent civil war the Scottish magnates asked Edward I of England to arbitrate, for which he extracted legal recognition that the realm of Scotland was held as a feudal dependency to the throne of England before choosing John Balliol, the man with the strongest claim, who became king as John I (30 November 1292). Robert Bruce of Annandale, the next strongest claimant, accepted this outcome with reluctance. Over the next few years Edward I used the concessions he had gained to systematically undermine both the authority of King John and the independence of Scotland. In 1295 John, on the urgings of his chief councilors, entered into an alliance with France, the beginning of the Auld Alliance.

In 1296 Edward invaded Scotland, deposing King John. The following year William Wallace and Andrew de Moray raised forces to resist the occupation and under their joint leadership an English army was defeated at the Battle of Stirling Bridge. For a short time Wallace ruled Scotland in the name of John Balliol as Guardian of the realm. Edward came north in person and defeated Wallace at the Battle of Falkirk (1298). Wallace escaped but probably resigned as Guardian of Scotland. In 1305 he fell into the hands of the English, who executed him for treason despite the fact that he owed no allegiance to England.

Rivals John Comyn and Robert the Bruce, grandson of the claimant, were appointed as joint guardians in his place. On 10 February 1306, Bruce participated in the murder of Comyn, at Greyfriars Kirk in Dumfries. Less than seven weeks later, on March 25, Bruce was crowned as King. However, Edward's forces overran the country after defeating Bruce's small army at the Battle of Methven. Despite the excommunication of Bruce and his followers by Pope Clement V, his support slowly strengthened; and by 1314 with the help of leading nobles such as Sir James Douglas and the Earl of Moray only the castles at Bothwell and Stirling remained under English control. Edward I had died in 1307. His heir Edward II moved an army north to break the siege of Stirling Castle and reassert control. Robert defeated that army at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, securing de facto independence. In 1320 the Declaration of Arbroath, a remonstrance to the Pope from the nobles of Scotland, helped convince Pope John XXII to overturn the earlier excommunication and nullify the various acts of submission by Scottish kings to English ones so that Scotland's sovereignty could be recognized by the major European dynasties. The Declaration has also been seen as one of the most important documents in the development of a Scottish national identity.

In 1326, what may have been the first full Parliament of Scotland met. The parliament had evolved from an earlier council of nobility and clergy, the colloquium, constituted around 1235, but perhaps in 1326 representatives of the burghs — the burgh commissioners — joined them to form the Three Estates. In 1328, Edward III signed the Treaty of Northampton acknowledging Scottish independence under the rule of Robert the Bruce. However, four years after Robert's death in 1329, England once more invaded on the pretext of restoring Edward Balliol, son of John Balliol, to the Scottish throne, thus starting the Second War of Independence. Despite victories at Dupplin Moor (1332) and Halidon Hill, in the face of tough Scottish resistance led by Sir Andrew Murray, the son of Wallace's comrade in arms, successive attempts to secure Balliol on the throne failed. Edward III lost interest in the fate of his protégé after the outbreak of the Hundred Years' War with France.  In 1341 David II, King Robert's son and heir, was able to return from temporary exile in France. Balliol finally resigned his claim to the throne to Edward in 1356, before retiring to Yorkshire, where he died in 1364.

The Stewarts

After David I's death, Robert II, the first of the Stewart (later Stuart) kings, came to the throne in 1371. He was followed in 1390 by his ailing son John, who took the regal name Robert III, to avoid awkward questions over the exact status of the first King John. During Robert III's reign (1390–1406), actual power rested largely in the hands of his brother, also named Robert, the Duke of Albany. After the suspicious death (possibly on the orders of the Duke of Albany) of his elder son, David, Duke of Rothesay in 1402, Robert, fearful for the safety of his younger son, James (the future James I), sent him to France in 1406. However, the English captured him en route and he spent the next 18 years as a prisoner held for ransom. As a result, after the death of Robert III, regents ruled Scotland: first, the Duke of Albany; and later his son, during whose office the country fell into near anarchy. When Scotland finally paid the ransom in 1424, James, aged 32, returned with his English bride determined to assert this authority. Implicated in the murder of his cousin Albany, he succeeded in centralizing control in the hands of the crown, but at the cost of increasingly unpopularity and was assassinated in 1437. His son James II (reigned 1437–1460), when he came of age in 1449, continued his father's policy of weakening the great noble families, most notably taking on the great House of Douglas that had come to prominence at the time of the Bruce.

In 1468 the last great acquisition of Scottish territory occurred when James III married Margaret of Denmark, receiving the Orkney Islands and the Shetland Islands in payment of her dowry. With the death of James III in 1488, during or after the Battle of Sauchieburn, his successor James IV successfully ended the quasi-independent rule of the Lord of the Isles, bringing the Western Isles under effective Royal control for the first time. In 1503, he married Henry VII's daughter, Margaret Tudor, thus laying the foundation for the 17th century Union of the Crowns.

Scotland advanced markedly in educational terms during the fifteenth century with the founding of the University of St Andrews in 1413, the University of Glasgow in 1450 and the University of Aberdeen in 1495, and with the passing of the Education Act 1496, which decreed that all sons of barons and freeholders of substance should attend grammar schools. James IV's reign is often considered to have seen a flowering of Scottish culture under the influence of the European Renaissance.

In 1512 the Auld Alliance was renewed and under its terms, when the French were attacked by the English under Henry VIII, James IV invaded England in support. The invasion was stopped decisively at the battle of Flodden Field during which the King, many of his nobles, and a large number of ordinary troops were killed, commemorated by the song The Flooers o' the Forest. Once again Scotland's government lay in the hands of regents in the name of the infant James V.

When James V finally managed to escape from the custody of the regents with the aid of his redoubtable mother in 1528, he once again set about subduing the rebellious Highlands, Western and Northern isles, as his father had had to do. He married the French noblewoman Marie de Guise. His reign was fairly successful, until another disastrous campaign against England led to defeat at the battle of Solway Moss (1542). James died a short time later. The day before his death, he was brought news of the birth of an heir: a daughter, who became Mary, Queen of Scots. James is supposed to have remarked in Scots that "it cam wi a lass, it will gang wi a lass" – referring to the House of Stewart which began with Walter Stewart's marriage to the daughter of Robert the Bruce. Once again, Scotland was in the hands of a regent. Within two years, the Rough Wooing—Henry VIII's military attempt to force a marriage between Mary and his son, Edward—had begun. This took the form of border skirmishing and several English campaigns into Scotland. To avoid the Rough Wooing, Mary was sent to France at the age of five, as the intended bride of the heir to the French throne. Her mother, Marie de Guise, stayed in Scotland to look after the interests of Mary — and of France — although the Earl of Arran acted officially as regent. In 1547, after the death of Henry VIII, forces under the English regent Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset were victorious at the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh, the climax of the Rough Wooing, and followed up by occupying Edinburgh. However it was to no avail since the young Queen Mary was in France. Marie de Guise responded by calling on French troops, who helped stiffen resistance to the English occupation. By 1550, after a change of regent in England, the English withdrew from Scotland completely.

From 1554, Marie de Guise, took over the regency, and continued to advance French interests in Scotland. French cultural influence resulted in a large influx of French vocabulary into Scots. But anti-French sentiment also grew, particularly among Protestants, who saw the English as their natural allies. In 1560 Marie de Guise died, and soon after the Auld Alliance also died, with the signing of the Treaty of Edinburgh, which provided for the removal of French and English troops from Scotland. The Scottish Reformation took place later the same year, when the Scottish Parliament abolished the Roman Catholic religion and outlawed the Mass.

Meanwhile, Queen Mary had been raised a Catholic in France. She had married the Dauphin Francis in 1558, and become Queen of France on the death of his father the following year. When Francis himself died, Mary, now nineteen, elected to return to Scotland to take up the government in a hostile environment. Despite her private religion, she did not attempt to re-impose Catholicism on her largely Protestant subjects, thus angering the chief Catholic nobles. Her six-year personal reign was marred by a series of crises, largely caused by the intrigues and rivalries of the leading nobles. The murder of her secretary, David Riccio, was followed by the murder of her unpopular husband Lord Darnley, and her abduction by and marriage to the Earl of Bothwell. Captured by Bothwell's rivals, Mary was imprisoned in Loch Leven Castle, and in July 1567, was forced to abdicate in favor of her infant son Prince James. Mary eventually escaped from Loch Leven, and attempted to regain the throne by force. After her defeat at the Battle of Langside in 1568 she took refuge in England, leaving her young son, James VI, in the hands of regents. In England she became a focal point for Catholic conspirators and was eventually tried for treason and executed on the orders of her kinswoman Elizabeth I.

Protestant Reformation

During the 16th century, Scotland underwent a Protestant Reformation that made the nation Calvinist, with a strong Presbyterian Church. In the earlier part of the century, the teachings of first Martin Luther and then John Calvin began to influence Scotland. The execution of a number of Protestant preachers, most notably the Lutheran influenced Patrick Hamilton in 1528 and later the proto-Calvinist George Wishart in 1546 who was burnt at the stake in St. Andrews by Cardinal Beaton for heresy, did nothing to stem the growth of these ideas. Beaton was assassinated shortly after the execution of George Wishart.

The eventual Reformation of the Scottish Church followed a brief civil war in 1559–60, in which English intervention on the Protestant side was decisive. A Reformed confession of faith rejecting papal jurisdiction was adopted by Parliament in 1560, while the young Mary, Queen of Scots, was still in France. The most influential figure was theologian John Knox (1510–1572), who had lived in Switzerland and was a disciple of both Calvin and Wishart. The Protestant Church of Scotland was formed in the mid-16th century by Knox and the Protestant Lords of the Congregation. Roman Catholicism was not totally eliminated, and remained strong particularly in parts of the highlands.

The Protestant nobility in Scotland proved critical to the success of the Reformation. The clergymen depended on aristocratic support, so they were seldom equal partners. However the relationship was strong enough to withstand disputes over the use of ecclesiastical revenues and tensions stemming from the ministers' insistence that all magistrates must be true Protestants.

One major impact of the kirk was to moderate the violence that had been endemic in rural Scotland. The reformed kirk actively mediated local communal conflicts that otherwise would have turned violent. The premises of the parish kirk became a sacred space which often was used for public reconciliation. In order to discourage blood feuds and mortal combat, which had once been common, the kirk used preaching, mandatory attendance at weekly services and at seasonal communion, and public rituals of repentance and punishment. Moving beyond the local level, presbyteries and kirk sessions were increasingly accepted as legitimate alternative to the baronial or civil courts.

Until the late 20th century Protestantism—especially of the Presbyterian variety—was a central value for most Scots, helping shape their identity and way of thinking.

Wars of the Three Kingdoms and the Puritan Commonwealth

Bishops' Wars
Although Scotland and England had both rejected papal authority, the Reformation in each country proceeded in slightly different directions. England retained much of the old Catholic practice, including a formal liturgy and order of service, whereas the Scots embraced more of a free-form Calvinism. Although James had tried to get the Scottish Church to accept some of the High Church Anglicanism of his southern kingdom, he met with limited success. His son and successor, Charles I, took matters further, introducing an English-style Prayer Book into the Scottish church in 1637. This resulted in anger and widespread rioting. (The story goes that it was initiated by a certain Jenny Geddes who threw a stool in St Giles Cathedral). Representatives of various sections of Scottish society drew up the National Covenant in 1638, objecting to the King's liturgical innovations. In November of the same year matters were taken even further, when at a meeting of the General Assembly in Glasgow the Scottish bishops were formally expelled from the Church, which was then established on a full Presbyterian basis. Charles gathered a military force; but as neither side wished to push the matter to a full military conflict, a temporary settlement was concluded at Berwick. Matters remained unresolved until 1640 when, in a renewal of hostilities, Charles's northern forces were defeated by the Scots at Newburn to the west of Newcastle. During the course of these "Bishops' Wars" Charles tried to raise an army of Irish Catholics, but was forced to back down after a storm of protest in Scotland and England. The backlash from this venture provoked a rebellion in Ireland and Charles was forced to appeal to the English Parliament for funds. Parliament's demands for reform in England eventually resulted in the English Civil War. This series of civil wars that engulfed England in the 1640s and 50s is known to modern historians as the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. The Covenanters meanwhile, were left governing Scotland, where they raised a large army of their own and tried to impose their religious settlement on Episcopalians and Roman Catholics in the north of the country.

Civil War
As the civil wars developed, the English Parliamentarians appealed to the Scots Covenanters for military aid against the King. A Solemn League and Covenant was entered into, guaranteeing the Scottish Church settlement and promising further reform in England. Scottish troops played a major part in the defeat of Charles I, notably at the battle of Marston Moor. An army under the Earl of Leven occupied the North of England for some time.

However, not all Scots supported the Covenanter's taking arms against their King. In 1644, James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose attempted to raise the Highlands for the King. Few Scots would follow him, but, aided by 1,000 Irish, Highland and Islesmen troops sent by the Irish Confederates under Alasdair MacDonald (MacColla), and an instinctive genius for mobile warfare, he was stunningly successful. A Scottish Civil War began in September 1644 with his victory at battle of Tippermuir. After a series of victories over poorly trained Covenanter militias, the lowlands were at his mercy. However, at this high point, his army was reduced in size, as MacColla and the Highlanders preferred to continue the war in the north against the Campbells. Shortly after, what was left of his force was defeated at the Battle of Philiphaugh. Escaping to the north, Montrose attempted to continue the struggle with fresh troops; but in July 1646 his army was disbanded after the King surrendered to the Scots army at Newark, and the civil war came to an end.

The following year Charles, while he was being held captive in Carisbrooke Castle, entered into an agreement with moderate Scots Presbyterians. In this secret 'Engagement', the Scots promised military aid in return for the King's agreement to implement Presbyterianism in England on a three-year trial basis. The Duke of Hamilton led an invasion of England to free the King, but he was defeated by Oliver Cromwell in August 1648 at the Battle of Preston.

Cromwellian Occupation and Restoration
The Covenanter government was outraged by Parliament's execution of Charles I in 1649, carried out in the face of their strongest objections. No sooner did news of his death reach the north than his son was proclaimed King Charles II in Edinburgh. Oliver Cromwell invaded Scotland in 1650, and defeated the Scottish army in battles at Dunbar and Worcester. Scotland was then occupied by an English force under George Monck throughout the Interregnum and incorporated into the Puritan-governed Commonwealth. See article: Royalist rising of 1651 to 1654.

From 1652 to 1660, Scotland was part of the Commonwealth and Protectorate, under English control but gaining equal trading rights. Upon its collapse, and with the restoration of Charles II, Scottish independence returned. Scotland regained its parliament, but the English Navigation Acts prevented the Scots engaging in what would have been lucrative trading with England's growing colonies. The formal frontier between the two countries was re-established, with customs duties which, while they protected Scottish cloth industries from cheap English imports, also denied access to English markets for Scottish cattle or Scottish linens. (Braudel 1984 p 370).

After the Restoration, Charles' Scottish affairs were managed by senior noblemen, the most prominent of whom was John Maitland, Duke of Lauderdale, his Secretary of State and High Commissioner to the Scottish Parliament. Near the outset of the reign Episcopacy was reintroduced. This was to be a source of particular trouble in the south-west of the country, an area particularly strong in its Presbyterian sympathies. Abandoning the official church, many of the people here began to attend illegal field assemblies, known as conventiclers. Official attempts to suppress these led to a rising in 1679, defeated by James Duke of Monmouth, the King's illegitimate son, at the Battle of Bothwell Bridge. In the early 1680s a more intense phase of persecution began, in what was later to be called "the Killing Time". When Charles died in 1685 and his brother, a Roman Catholic, succeeded him as James VII of Scotland (and II of England), matters came to a head.

The Deposition of James VII

James's attempt to introduce religious toleration to England's Roman Catholics alienated his Protestant subjects. Neither this, nor his moves towards absolutism, provoked outright rebellion, as it was believed that he would be succeeded by his daughter Mary, a Protestant and the wife of William of Orange. When, in 1688, James produced a male heir, everything changed. At the invitation of seven Englishmen, William landed in England with 40,000 men, and James fled. Whilst this was primarily an English event, the so-called "Glorious Revolution" had a great impact on Scottish history. Whilst William accepted limits on royal power, under the Bill of Rights (a contract between himself and the English parliament), Scotland had an equivalent document in the Claim of Rights. This is an important document in the evolution of the rule of law and the rights of subjects.

Most significant Scots supported William of Orange, but many (particularly in the Highlands) remained sympathetic to James VII. His cause, which became known as Jacobitism, spawned a series of uprisings. An initial Jacobite rising under John Graham, 1st Viscount Dundee (Bonnie Dundee) defeated William's forces at the Battle of Killiecrankie in 1689, but Dundee was slain in the fighting, and the army was soon defeated at the Battle of Dunkeld. The complete defeat of James in Ireland by William at the Battle of Aughrim (1691), ended matters for a time. (Ironically, the Protestant William had also enjoyed the support of the Pope and the Catholic Habsburg monarchy against the aggressive foreign policy of Louis XIV of France).

The late 17th century was economically difficult for Scotland. The bad harvests of the seven ill years in the 1690s led to severe famine and depopulation. English protectionism kept Scots traders out of the new colonies, and English foreign policy disrupted trade with France. Many Scots emigrated to Ulster (the Ulster-Scots). The Parliament of Scotland of 1695 enacted a number of remedies for the desperate economic situation, including setting up the Bank of Scotland. The Act for the Settling of Schools established a parish-based system of public education throughout Scotland. The Company of Scotland received a charter to raise capital through public subscription to trade with Africa and the Indies.

Scottish overseas colonies

In attempts to expand, the Scots established abortive colonies both in Nova Scotia and also at Stuart's Town in what is now South Carolina. Scottish settlers had also been sent to the English colony of New Jersey.

The Company of Scotland soon became involved with the Darien scheme, an ambitious plan devised by William Paterson to establish a colony on the Isthmus of Panama in the hope of establishing trade with the Far East — the principle that led to the construction of the Panama Canal much later. The Darién scheme became possible because of the cooperation of high, middling and low status men. The landed gentry and the merchant class were in agreement in seeing overseas trade and colonialism as routes to upgrade Scotland's economy. However, the capital resources of the Edinburgh merchants and landholder elite were insufficient. Therefore, representing middling social ranks responded with patriotic fervor to the call for money to fund the project, and the lower classes volunteered as colonists. But the English government opposed the idea: involved in the War of the Grand Alliance from 1689 to 1697 against France, it did not want to offend Spain, which claimed the territory as part of New Granada. The English investors had perforce to withdraw. Returning to Edinburgh, the Company raised 400,000 pounds in a few weeks. Three small fleets with a total of 3000 men eventually set out for Panama in 1698. The exercise proved a disaster. Poorly equipped; beset by incessant rain; under attack by the Spanish from nearby Cartagena; and refused aid by the English in the West Indies, the colonists abandoned their project in 1700. Only 1000 survived and only one ship managed to return to Scotland. A desperate ship from the colony which called at Port Royal received no assistance—on the orders of the English government. Realizing the dangers of the conflicting claims and aims of two independent kingdoms at odds with one another, William of Orange called for a union of the two countries. It did not happen. Union, when it did come in 1707, restored free trade between the countries and gave the Scots access to the burgeoning English Empire.

18th Century

When Scotland ratified the 1707 Act of Union, it was an economic backwater. Union gave Scotland access to England's global marketplace, triggering an economic and cultural boom transforming Scotland into a modern society, and opening up a cultural and social revolution. German Sociologist Max Weber credited the Calvinist "Protestant Ethic," involving hard work and a sense of divine predestination, for the entrepreneurial spirit of the Scots. Others credit the educational system, especially its leading universities and medical faculties at Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Archibald Campbell, Duke of Argyll, and dominant leader of Scotland, 1720s-1761Four factors helped to more fully integrate Scotland into the Empire. To deal with the lingering unrest, avoid blunders by English politicians, the leaders in Parliament found a dominant political figure in Archibald Campbell, Lord Islay (1682–1761) (after 1743 the Duke of Argyle), who was in effect the "viceroy of Scotland" from the 1720s until his death in 1761. The government in London led him make the major decisions in Scotland. Second, the threats from the Jacobites was ended by the Battle of Culloden in 1746. Thirdly, free trade with England enabled emerging sectors of the Scottish economy to flourish, especially the tobacco trade and the linen trade. Finally, and perhaps most important, London and the Empire were open to very attractive career opportunities for ambitious middle-class and upper-class Scots, who seized the chance to become entrepreneurs, intellectuals, and soldiers.

British officials especially appreciated Scottish soldiers. As the Secretary of War told Parliament in 1751, "I am for having always in our army as many Scottish soldiers as possible...because they are generally more hardy and less mutinous.". The national policy of aggressively recruiting Scots for senior civilian positions stirred up resentment among Englishmen, ranging from violent diatribes by John Wilkes, to vulgar jokes and obscene cartoons in the popular press, and the haughty ridicule by intellectuals such as Samuel Johnson. In his great Dictionary Johnson had sarcastically defined oats as, "a grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people." To which Lord Elibank retorted, "Very true, and where will you find such men and such horses?"

The population was about 1.3 million in 1775. Two cities began to grow rapidly afterwards: Glasgow, on the river Clyde, was the center of the tobacco and sugar trade and an emerging textile center; and Edinburgh was the administrative and intellectual center.

End of Clan System
After 1745, Britain systematically destroyed the old clan system. All aspects of Highland culture including the Scottish Gaelic language were forbidden. After Culloden 120 Jacobite officers were executed; many of the soldiers were shipped to the colonies as indentured servants.

The old informal legal system run by clan chiefs was abolished in favor of courts established by the central government, but Scottish law itself was retained. Clan chiefs loyal to the new government were made owners of the land in their control, as opposed to collective ownership by the clan. They often converted land from cattle to more profitable pasture for black-face and cheviot sheep. Tenants faced eviction since they were no longer needed either for their farm work nor for their service as soldiers of the chiefs. In the evictions known as the "Highland Clearances", the population fell sharply. Many Highlanders relocated to the lowland cities, becoming the labor force for the emerging industrial revolution, others moved to the American colonies and the colonies that later became Canada.

At the same time, the Scottish Agricultural Revolution changed the face of the Scottish Lowlands and transformed the traditional system of subsistence farming into a stable and productive agricultural system. This also had effects on population and precipitated a migration of Lowlanders.

As the memory of the Jacobite rebellion faded away, the 1770s and 1780s saw the repeal of much of the draconian laws passed earlier. Most were repealed by 1792 as the Episcopalian and Catholic clergy no longer refused to pray for the reigning monarch, although Unitarians were still affected.

Scottish Enlightenment
The 18th-century Scottish Enlightenment, embodied by such brilliant thinkers as Francis Hutcheson, Adam Smith and David Hume, paved the way for the modernization of Scotland and the entire Atlantic world. Hutcheson, the father of the Scottish Enlightenment, championed political liberty and the right of popular rebellion against tyranny. Smith, in his monumental Wealth of Nations (1776), advocated liberty in the sphere of commerce and the global economy. Hume developed philosophical concepts that directly influenced James Madison and thus the U.S. Constitution. In 19th-century Britain, the Scottish Enlightenment, as popularized by Dugald Stewart, became the basis of classical liberalism.

Scientific progress was led by James Hutton and William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin. James Watt (instrument maker to the University of Glasgow), who perfected the crucial technology of the Industrial Revolution: the steam engine.

Local Affairs
The parish was the main unit of local government, and since it was also part of the church, the elders imposed public humiliation for what the locals considered immoral behavior, including fornication, drunkenness, wife beating, cursing and Sabbath breaking. After 1700 the police powers were focused primarily on sexual misbehavior and profaning the Sabbath. The landlords ("lairds") and gentry, and their servants, were not subject to the parish's scrutiny—their bastards were ignored. The policing system weakened after 1800 and disappeared in most places by the 1850s.

The "democratic" camp meeting began a new form of revival that found a home in the Second Great Awakening in the U.S.

Schooling
The Reformation leaders required that every parish must operate a school. A myth grew up in the 19th century to the effect that many oatmeal-eating poor boys went on to university and became intellectual leaders, so that Scotland thereby became the best educated nation in Europe, and its educational system helped stimulate the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. Historians have exploded the myth. The kirk schools indeed existed (as did similar schools in other Protestant countries), but they were not free and they generally imparted only basic literacy—the ability to read the Bible, which was the original goal. Scots were not significantly better educated than the English. Poor children, starting at age 7, were done by age 8 or 9; the majority were finished by age 11 or 12. The result was widespread basic reading ability; since there was an extra fee for writing, half the people never learned to write. A few talented poor boys did go to university, but usually they were helped by aristocratic or gentry sponsors. Most of them became poorly paid teachers or ministers, and none became important figures in the Scottish Enlightenment or the Industrial Revolution. The kirk schools had a minor role in the Highlands or the islands, and in the fast-growing industrial cities. The Disruption of 1843 proved fatal to the tradition of parish schools, and in 1872 Scotland moved to a system like England's state-sponsored free schools, dedicated to efficiency and high performance.

19th century

Scotland in 1755 was a poor rural, agricultural society with a population of 1.3 million. A handful of powerful families, typified by the dukes of Argyll, Atholl, Buccleuch, and Sutherland, owned the best lands and controlled local political, legal and economic affairs. As late as 1878, 68 families owned nearly half the land.

Scotland's transformation into a rich leader of modern industry came suddenly and unexpectedly. The population grew steadily in the 19th century, from 1,608,000 in the census of 1801 to 2,889,000 in 1851 and 4,472,000 in 1901. The economy, long based on agriculture, began to industrialize after 1790. At first the leading industry, based in the west, was the spinning and weaving of cotton. In 1861 the American Civil War suddenly cut off the supplies of raw cotton and the industry never recovered. Thanks to its many entrepreneurs and engineers, and its large stock of easily mined coal, Scotland became a world center for engineering, shipbuilding, and locomotive construction, with steel replacing iron after 1870.

Nevertheless, there never were enough high-paying jobs, so during the 1841-1931 era, about 2 million Scots emigrated to North America and Australia, and another 750,000 relocated to England. By the 21st century, there were about as many people of Scottish descent in both Canada (see Scotch Canadians) and the U.S. (see Scottish American) as the 5 million remaining in Scotland.

Culture
Pre-eminent in contemporary literature were Robert Burns, an Ayrshire poet, and Sir Walter Scott, a best-selling writer of ballads, poems and the historical novels. Scott's romantic portrayals of Scottish life in centuries past still continue to have a disproportionate effect on the public perception of "authentic Scottish culture," and the pageantry he organized for the Visit of King George IV to Scotland made tartan and kilts into national symbols. George MacDonald also influenced views of Scotland in the latter parts of the 19th century. The world paid attention to their literary redefinition of Scottishness, as they forged an image largely based on characteristics in polar opposition to those associated with England and modernity. This new identity made it possible for Scottish culture to become integrated into a wider European and North American context, not to mention tourist sites, but it also locked in a sense of "otherness" which Scotland began to shed only in the late 20th century.

In the middle 19th century, the historic University of Glasgow reinvented itself, becoming a leader in British higher education by providing the educational needs of youth from the urban and commercial classes, as opposed to the upper class. Glasgow prepared students for non-commercial careers in government, the law, medicine, education, and the ministry. It prepared a smaller group for careers in science and engineering.

Religion: The Disruption of 1843
The Disruption of 1843 was a bitter, nationwide schism which broke the established Church of Scotland in half and lasted until 1929. The evangelical element had been demanding the purification of the Church, and attacked the patronage system that allowed rich landowners to select the local ministers. It became a political battle between evangelicals on one side and the "Moderates" and gentry on the other. The evangelicals secured passage by the church's General Assembly in 1834, of the "Veto Act", asserting that as a fundamental law of the Church that no pastor should be forced by the gentry upon a congregation contrary to the popular will, and that any nominee could be rejected by majority of the heads of families. This direct blow at the right of private patrons was challenged in the civil courts, and was decided (1838) against the evangelicals. In 1843 450 evangelical ministers (out of 1200 ministers in all) broke away, and formed the Free Church of Scotland. Led by Dr. Thomas Chalmers (1780–1847), a third of the membership walked out, including nearly all the Gaelic-speakers and the missionaries, and most of the Highlanders. The established Church kept all the properties, buildings and endowments. The seceders created a voluntary fund of over £400,000 to build new 700 churches; 400 manses (residences for the ministers) were erected at a cost of £250,000; and an equal or larger amount was expended on the building of 500 parochial schools, as well as a college in Edinburgh. After the passing of the Education Act of 1872, most of these schools were voluntarily transferred to the newly established public school-boards. The Church of Scotland was immediately hit by another schism in 1847 that formed the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland. Politically, the Church of Scotland ministers and lay leaders were affiliated with the Conservative Party while the dissidents were Liberals.

Chalmers' ideas shaped the breakaway group. He stressed a social vision that revived and preserved Scotland's communal traditions at a time of strain on the social fabric of the country. Chalmers's idealized small equalitarian, kirk-based, self-contained communities that recognized the individuality of their members and the need for cooperation. That vision also affected the mainstream Presbyterian churches, and by the 1870s it had been assimilated by the established Church of Scotland. Chalmers's ideals demonstrated that the church was concerned with the problems of urban society, and they represented a real attempt to overcome the social fragmentation that took place in industrial towns and cities.

Industrial Revolution
During the Industrial Revolution, Scotland became one of the commercial, intellectual and industrial powerhouses of the British Empire. Beginning about 1790 the most important industry in the west of Scotland became textiles, especially the spinning and weaving of cotton, which flourished until the American Civil War in 1861 cut off the supplies of raw cotton; the industry never recovered. However, by that time Scotland had developed heavy industries based on its coal and iron resources. The invention of the hot blast for smelting iron (1828) had revolutionized the Scottish iron industry, and Scotland became a center for engineering, shipbuilding, and locomotive construction. Toward the end of the 19th century steel production largely replaced iron production. Emigrant Andrew Carnegie built the American steel industry, and spent much of his time and philanthropy in Scotland.

As the 19th century wore on, Lowland Scotland turned more and more towards heavy industry. Glasgow and the River Clyde became a major shipbuilding centre. Glasgow became one of the largest cities in the world, and known as "the Second City of the Empire" after London.

Coal
Coal mining became a major industry, and continue to grow into the 20th century producing the fuel to heat homes factories and drive steam engines locomotives and steamships. By 1914 there were 1,000,000 coal miners in Scotland. The stereotype emerged early on of Scottish colliers as brutish, non-religious and socially isolated serfs; that was an exaggeration, for their life style resembled the minors everywhere, with a strong emphasis on masculinity, equalitarianism, group solidarity, and support for radical labor movements.

Railways
Britain was the world leader in the construction of railways, and their use to expand trade and coal supplies. The first line opened in 1831. Not only was good passenger service established by the late 1840s, but an excellent network of freight lines reduce the cost of shipping coal, and made products manufactured in Scotland competitive throughout Britain. For example, railways open the London market to Scottish beef and milk. They enabled the Aberdeen Angus to become a cattle breed of worldwide reputation.

Rural life
Agriculture in the Lowlands was steadily upgraded after 1700, and standards remained high. However, after the repeal of the Corn Laws in mid-century, when Britain adopted a free trade policy, grain imports from America undermined the profitability of crop production. The result was a continuous exodus from the land—to the cities, or further afield to England, Canada, America or Australia.

The traditional landed interests held their own politically in the face of the rapidly growing urban middle classes, for the electoral reforms of mid-century were less far-reaching in Scotland than in England. The landed interests managed to ensure that the political weight of numbers was skewed disproportionately in their favor.

The Highlands
The Highlands were very poor and traditional, with few connections to the uplift of the Scottish Enlightenment and little role in the Industrial Revolution. Using a complex form of chain migration, many Highlanders migrated to America. Clan leaders would designate which young people should emigrate, where to, and in which order. The first arrivals would prepare the way for their kinsmen who continued to arrive in the chain migration.

Religion was a central fact of life. Long after the triumph of the Church of Scotland in the Lowlands, Highlanders clung to an old-fashioned Christianity infused with animistic folk beliefs and practices. The remoteness of the region and the lack of a Gaelic-speaking clergy undermined the missionary efforts of the established church. The later 18th century saw somewhat greater success, owing to the efforts of the SSPCK missionaries and to the disruption of traditional society after the Battle of Culloden in 1745. Nevertheless, in the 19th century, the evangelical Free Churches, which were more accepting of Gaelic language and culture, grew rapidly, appealing much more strongly than did the established church.

The era of the Napoleonic wars, 1790–1815, brought prosperity, optimism, and economic growth to the Highlands. The economy grew thanks to wages paid by kelping industry (where men burned kelp for the ashes), fisheries, and weaving, as well as and large scale infrastructure spending such as the Caledonian Canal project. On the East Coast, farmlands were improved, and high prices for cattle brought money to the community. Service in the Army was also attractive to young men from Highlands, who sent pay home and retired there with their army pensions. The prosperity ended after 1815, and long-run negative factors began to undermine the economic position of the poor tenant farmers or "crofters," as they were called. The adoption by the landowners of a market orientation in the century after 1750 dissolved the traditional social and economic structure of the northwest Highlands and Hebrides Islands, causing great disruption for the crofters. The Highland Clearances and the end of the township system followed changes in land ownership and tenancy and the replacement of cattle by sheep.

The Irish potato famine of the 1840s was caused by a plant disease that reached the Highlands in 1846, where 150,000 people faced disaster because their food supply was largely potatoes (with a little herring, oatmeal and milk). They were rescued by an effective emergency relief system that stands in dramatic contrast to the failures of relief in Ireland.

The unequal concentration of land ownership remained an emotional subject, of enormous importance to the vexed question of the Highland economy, and eventually became a cornerstone of liberal radicalism. The poor crofters (tenant farmers who rented a few acres) were politically powerless, and in the first half of the century they turned to religion. They embraced the popularly oriented, fervently evangelical Presbyterian revival after 1800. Most joined the breakaway "Free Church" after 1843. This evangelical movement was led by lay preachers who themselves came from the lower strata, and whose preaching was implicitly critical of the established order. The religious change energized the crofters and separated them from the landlords; it helped prepare them for their successful and violent challenge to the landlords in in the 1880s through the Highland Land League. Violence erupted starting on the Isle of Skye when Highland landlords cleared their lands for sheep and deer parks. It was quieted when the government stepped in passing the Crofters' Holdings (Scotland) Act, 1886 to reduce rents, guarantee fixity of tenure, and break up large estates to provide crofts for the homeless. In contrast to the Irish Land War underway at the same time, the Irish were intensely politicized through roots in Irish nationalism, while political dimensions were limited. In 1885 three Independent Crofter candidates were elected to Parliament, which listened to their pleas. The results included explicit security for the Scottish smallholders; the legal right to bequeath tenancies to descendants; and creating a Crofting Commission. The Crofters as a political movement faded away by 1892, and the Liberal Party gained their votes.

Cities
For all the romanticisation of Scotland and its misty historic mountain roots by romantic novelists such as Walter Scott, Scotland was already one of the most urbanized societies in Europe by 1800. The industrial belt ran across the country from southwest to northeast; by 1900 the four industrialized counties of Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire, Dunbartonshire, and Ayrshire contained 44% of the population. The mechanical technology of the 19th century typified by the steam engine, appealed to bright lads, and stimulated the success of heavy engineering by the 1890s.

Liberalism emerged from urban Scotland, the free-trade sentiments and strong individualism of entrepreneurs merging with the radical emphasis on education and self-reliance as a means of community betterment. Despite political challenges, especially by the 1900s, these distinctive liberal values remained strong.

The industrial developments, while they brought work and wealth, were so rapid that housing, town-planning, and provision for public health did not keep pace with them, and for a time living conditions in some of the towns and cities were notoriously bad, with overcrowding, high infant mortality, and growing rates of tuberculosis.

National politics
For half a century after 1832 Scotland was predominantly, and often overwhelmingly, Whig or Liberal. However there were few Scots in the Cabinet and they were mainly peers. The Queen's residence in the Highlands helped make Scottishness fashionable and there was no protest when Lord Aberdeen (1784–1860) formed a coalition government in 1852. Beginning in the mid 19th century the Scottish people provided Britain with a stream of important prime ministers, notably William E. Gladstone (1809–98). When Lord Salisbury became prime minister in 1885 he responded to calls for more attention to be paid to Scottish issues by reviving the post of Secretary of State for Scotland, which had been in abeyance since 1746. He appointed the Duke of Richmond, a wealthy landowner who was both Chancellor of Aberdeen University and Lord Lieutenant of Banff. Scots who became prime minister included the Earl of Rosebery (1847–1929), Arthur Balfour (1848–1930), Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1836–1908), Andrew Bonar Law (1858–1923), Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) and Alec Douglas-Home (1903–95). The prominence of Scots in the leadership of the Edwardian Liberal and Conservative parties was more than matched in the leadership of the early Labor Party. Scottish working-class Liberals were particularly attracted to the idea of independent Labor representation because they found it hard to become parliamentary candidates. The first two chairmen of the Independent Labor Party, established in 1893, were Scots: Keir Hardie (1856–1915) and John Glasier (1859–1920). Some Scottish connection also characterized Harold Macmillan (1894–1986) (Scots on his father's side) and Tony Blair (1953- ), who grew up in Scotland. From 1945 the Labor Party secured around half or more of the Scottish parliamentary seats, whereas the Tory share of the Scottish representation declined steadily from 1959 until it virtually ended in 1997. The tension between devolution, with more control of local affairs, and playing a central role in Westminister, continues into the 21st century. In 2007-2010 Gordon Brown (1951- ), with deep Scottish roots, was the Labor Prime Minister.

20th century Scotland 

The years before the First World War were the golden age of the inshore fisheries. Landings reached new heights, and Scottish catches dominated Europe's herring trade, accounting for a third of the British catch. High productivity came about thanks to the transition to more productive steam-powered boats, while the rest of Europe's fishing fleets were slower because they were still powered by sails.

First World War
Scotland played a major role in the British effort in the First World War. It especially provided manpower, ships, machinery and fish, as well as money and enthusiasm.

With a population of 4.8 million in 1911, Scotland sent 690,000 men to the war, of whom 74,000 died in combat or from disease, and 150,000 were seriously wounded. Concern for their families' standard of living made men hesitate to enlist; voluntary enlistment rates went up after the government guaranteed a weekly stipend for life to the survivors of men who were killed or disabled.

Clydeside shipyards before the war had been the busiest in the world, turning out more than a third of the entire British output. They expanded dramatically during the war, primarily to produce transports of the sort that German submarines were busy sinking. Confident of post-war expansion, the companies borrowed heavily to expand their facilities. But after the war, employment tumbled as the yards proved too big, too expensive, and too inefficient; in any case world demand was down. The most skilled craftsmen were especially hard hit, because there were few alternative uses for their specialized skills. The yards went into a long period of decline, interrupted only by the Second World War's temporary expansion.

1920's
The war saw the emergence of a radical movement called "Red Clydeside" led by militant trades unionists. John MacLean became a key political figure in what became known as Red Clydeside, and in January 1919, the British Government, fearful of a revolutionary uprising, deployed tanks and soldiers in central Glasgow. Formerly a Liberal stronghold, the industrial districts switched to Labor by 1922, with a base in the Irish Catholic working class districts. Women were especially active in building neighborhood solidarity on housing and rent issues. However, the "Reds" operated within the Labor Party and had little influence in Parliament; in the face of heavy unemployment the workers' mood changed to passive despair by the late 1920s.

Tied as it was to the health of the Empire, Scotland suffered after the war as it had gained beforehand. Service abroad on behalf of the Empire lost its allure to ambitious young people.

The shipbuilding industry had expanded by a third during the war and had expected continued prosperity, but instead it shrank drastically. A serious depression hit the economy by 1922 and it did not fully recover until 1939. The interwar years were marked by economic stagnation in rural and urban areas, and high unemployment. Indeed, the war brought with it deep social, cultural, economic, and political dislocations. Thoughtful Scots pondered their declension, as the main social indicators such as poor health, bad housing, and long-term mass unemployment, pointed to terminal social and economic stagnation at best, or even a downward spiral. The heavy dependence on obsolescent heavy industry and mining was a central problem, and no one offered workable solutions. The despair reflected what Finlay (1994) describes as a widespread sense of hopelessness that prepared local business and political leaders to accept a new orthodoxy of centralized government economic planning when it arrived during the Second World War.

A few industries did grow, such as chemicals and whisky, which developed a global market for premium "Scotch."

In the Highlands, which had provided a disproportionate number of recruits for the army, a whole generation of young men were lost, and many villages and communities suffered greatly. In the Lowlands, particularly Glasgow, poor working and living conditions led to industrial and political unrest.

In the Highlands, which had provided a disproportionate number of recruits for the army, a whole generation of young men were lost, and many villages and communities suffered greatly. In the Lowlands, particularly Glasgow, poor working and living conditions led to industrial and political unrest.

Emigration of young people continued apace. The economic stagnation was only one factor; other push factors included a zest for travel and adventure, and the pull factors of better job opportunities abroad, personal networks to link into, and the basic cultural similarity of the United States, Canada, and Australia. Government subsidies for travel and relocation facilitated the decision to emigrate. Personal networks of family and friends who had gone ahead and wrote back, or sent money, prompted emigrants to retrace their paths.

Reunification of the Presbyterians
In 1900, 1077 congregations of the Free Church entered a union with 599 congregations with the United Presbyterian Church, another group that had split from the established church. The result was the United Free Church of Scotland, with 500,000 members (compared to 700,000 in the established Church of Scotland). It supported 300 missionaries in Asia and Africa.

The competition after 1843 between the established and the Free Church caused both to turn to voluntary subscriptions; both grew steadily. The established church in 1874 abolished the patronage system that had caused the 1843 disruption. In 1929 the United Free Church rejoined the Church of Scotland, apart from a hundred congregations that remained separate.

Talks began in the 1950s aiming at a grand merger of the main Presbyterian, Episcopal and Methodist bodies in Scotland. The talks were disrupted in 2003, however, when the rank and file of the Church of Scotland revolted against any recognition of bishops. In the 21st century it enrolls about 600,000 members, but has been steadily shrinking in membership and influence.

Second World War 

Military Role
In the Second World War (1939–45) naval bases and infrastructure in Scotland were primary German targets. Attacks on Scapa Flow and Rosyth gave RAF fighters their first successes downing bombers in the Firth of Forth and East Lothian. The shipyards and heavy engineering factories in Glasgow and Clydeside played a key part in the war effort, and suffered attacks from the Luftwaffe. Clydebank endured great destruction and loss of life. The Highlands again provided a large number of troops for the war effort. Commandos and resistance fighters received training in the harsh conditions of the Lochaber mountains.

Clydeside built ships for World War II and later pleasure,
launching the QE2 in 1967.

As transatlantic voyages involved negotiating the north-west, Scotland played a key part in the battle of the North Atlantic. As in World War I, Scapa Flow in Orkney served as an important Royal Navy base. Shetland's relative proximity to occupied Norway, resulted in the Shetland Bus — fishing boats helping Norwegians flee the Nazis, and expeditions across the North Sea to assist resistance. Perhaps Scotland's most bizarre wartime episode occurred in 1941 when Rudolf Hess flew to Renfrewshire, possibly intending to broker a peace deal through the Duke of Hamilton.

Industry
Scottish industry came out of the depression slump by a dramatic expansion of its industrial activity, absorbing unemployed men and many women as well. The shipyards were the center of more activity, but many smaller industries produce the machinery needed by the British bombers, tanks and warships. Agriculture prospered, as did all sectors except for coal mining, which was operating mines near exhaustion. Real wages, adjusted for inflation, rose 25%, and unemployment temporarily vanished. Increased income, and the more equal distribution of food, obtained through a tight rationing system, dramatically improved the health and nutrition of the war; the average height of 13 year-olds in Glasgow jumped by 2 inches. Prime Minister Winston Churchill appointed Labor politician Tom Johnston as Secretary of State for Scotland in February 1941; he controlled Scottish affairs until the war ended. As Devine (1999) concludes, "Johnson was a giant figure in Scottish politics and is revered to this day as the greatest Scottish Secretary of the century....In essence, Johnson was promised the powers of a benign dictator.".

Johnston launched numerous initiatives to promote Scotland. Opposed to the excessive concentration of industry in the English Midlands, he attracted 700 businesses and 90,000 new jobs through his new Scottish Council of Industry. He set up 32 committees to deal with any number of social and economic problems, ranging from juvenile delinquency to sheep farming. He regulated rents, and set up a prototype national health service, using new hospitals set up in the expectation of large numbers of casualties from German bombing. His most successful venture was setting up a system of hydro electricity using water power in the Highlands.

A long-standing supporter of the Home Rule movement, Johnston persuaded Churchill of the need to counter the nationalist threat north of the border and created a Scottish Council of State and a Council of Industry as institutions to devolve some power away from Whitehall.

Postwar 

After World War II, Scotland's economic situation became progressively worse due to overseas competition, inefficient industry, and industrial disputes. This only began to change in the 1970s, partly due to the discovery and development of North Sea oil and gas and partly as Scotland moved towards a more service-based economy. This period saw the emergence of the Scottish National Party and movements for both Scottish independence and more popularly devolution. However, a referendum on devolution in 1979 was unsuccessful as it did not achieve the support of 40% of the electorate (despite a small majority of those who voted supporting the proposal.)

As the Cold War intensified, the United States deployed Polaris ballistic missiles, and submarines, in the Firth of Clyde's Holy Loch (1961). This was despite opposition from CND campaigners. A Royal Navy nuclear submarine base followed for Resolution class Polaris submarines at the expanded Faslane Naval Base on the Gare Loch. The first patrol of a Trident-armed submarine occurred in 1994, although the US base was closed at the end of the Cold War.

Deindustrialization
Deindustrialization took place rapidly in the 1970s and 1980s, as most of the traditional industries drastically shrank or were completely closed down. A new service oriented economy emerged to replace traditional heavy industries

North Sea Oil
The discovery of the giant Forties oilfield in October 1970 signaled that Scotland was about to become a major oil producing nation, a view confirmed when Shell Expro discovered the giant Brent oilfield in the northern North Sea east of Shetland in 1971. Oil production started from the Argyll field (now Ardmore) in June 1975 followed by Forties in November of that year

Postwar Politics
From 1945 to the present day, the Labor Party usually won most Scottish parliamentary seats, losing this post briefly to the Unionists in the 1950s. The number of Scottish seats represented by Unionists (known as Conservatives from 1965 onwards) went into steady decline from 1959 onwards until it fell to zero in 1997. The Scottish National Party (SNP) was founded in 1934 with the goal of creating an independent Scotland and it became a party of national prominence during the 1970s, achieving 11 MPs at one point. However the SNP went into decline during the 1980s. The city of Glasgow also provided the base for several left-wing and socialist political parties towards the end of the century, such as the Scottish Socialist Party.

On 11 September 1997, the 700th anniversary of Battle of Stirling Bridge, the Labor government of Tony Blair held a referendum on the issue of devolution. With 74.3% of those who voted in favor of the proposal, a devolved Scottish Parliament was established in 1999. The Scottish Parliament Building is adjacent to Holyrood House in Edinburgh. The Scottish Parliament uses mixed member proportional representation, which involves a mixture of the First-past-the-post system of voting, already used in the UK House of Commons and proportional representation. As Labor is traditionally the victor in Scotland under First-past-the-post , this allowed the other 3 main Scottish political parties; the SNP, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, to have the ability to form considerable opposition in parliament. Minor parties such as the Scottish Socialist Party and the Scottish Green Party achieved representation through this system of voting.

A coalition government was formed between Labor and the Liberal Democrats, with Donald Dewar as First Minister of Scotland. This coalition lasted until 2007.

21st Century Scotland 

The feudal system lingered on in Scots law on land ownership, so that a landowner still had obligations to a feudal superior including payment of feu duty. In 1974 legislation began a process of redeeming feu duties so that most of these payments were ended, but it was only with the attention of the Scottish Parliament that a series of acts were passed, the first in 2000, for The Abolition of Feudal Tenure on November 28, 2004.

In 2007, the Scottish National Party (SNP) won the Scottish parliament elections and formed a minority government. New First Minister, Alex Salmond, failed to pass a bill into law called the Referendum Bill in 2010, which would have given the Scottish people a chance to vote for or against independence. It failed because he headed a minority government and the bill was opposed by the three main opposition parties.