Scotland's Story

The story of Scotland goes back many thousands of years to the unknown days of pre-history. This time line outlines just a few of the main events in a long and glorious history.

3,000 - 2,000 BC

Our earliest ancestors built stone circles, burial chambers and hill forts and traded flints and other materials with Europe.

Many of our prehistoric ancestors lived in crannogs - Iron Age dwellings built on stilts above the waters of our lochs as protection from wild animals and wild neighbours. Loch Tay has the largest number of crannogs in Scotland, suggesting that Great Scotland has always been a very important area.

1st Century AD

The Romans had conquered England almost a hundred years previously and now invaded Scotland where they found a wild land populated by a wild, fierce people - the Picts. In 84AD, the Romans under the command of Agricola defeated an army of 30,000 Picts at Ardoch in Perthshire. The Romans then built a mighty line of fortifications along the Gask Ridge at the start of the Highlands. However, they never totally conquered Scotland and retreated southwards first building the Antonine Wall in Central Scotland and then Hadrians Wall in the North of England as major defence works. Eventually they left the British Isles in the 5th century AD.

5th - 6th Century AD

In the 5th and 6th century a small number of Scots came over from Ireland and colonised the west of the country, forming a kingdom called Dalriada. With them came missionaries like St Ninian and St Columba who brought Christianity. It is thought that the name "Scots" meant a wanderer or rover and that the Scots originally came from Spain.

9th Century

Over the years, the Scots grew in number and power which brought them into conflict with the Picts who maintained their own kingdoms and customs. In 843 AD, Kenneth McAlpin, the King of the Scots, united the Scots and the Picts into one kingdom - the Scotland we know today.

Kenneth McAlpin established his political capital at Forteviot near Perth and his ecclesiastical capital at Dunkeld on the River Tay. He brought the Stone of Destiny from St Columba's abbey on the west coast island of Iona to Scone, where all Scottish monarchs were crowned for centuries.

13th Century

As the nation of Scotland developed, it's main problem was its neighbours - the English. The Scots invaded England and the English invaded Scotland many, many times over the next five centuries. The Scots usually came off worse.

In 1290, the line of Scottish monarchs died without hiers and King Edward I of England took the opportunity to impose his authority on Scotland. This led to the uprising led by "Braveheart" William Wallace, who defeated the English at the Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297. However, Wallace's victory was shortlived and he went into hiding until he was betrayed and killed by Edward in 1305.

14th Century

In 1306, Robert the Bruce seized the Scottish throne and was crowned at Scone. Edward was furious and launched a ferocious attack on Scotland. Bruce was forced into hiding until Edward died in 1307.

Edward's successor, King Edward II was made of weaker stuff and Bruce gradually asserted his authority over Scotland. Eventually Edward was roused to invade with a huge army that met the Scots at the Battle of Bannockburn in June 1314. Despite being massively outnumbered, the Scots routed the English and confirmed their freedom. This was formally acknowledged in 1320 in the Declaration of Arbroath, which gained the Pope's recognition of Scottish independence.

17th Century

Over the next three centuries, the Scots and the English continued to take up arms against each other, although their royal families also inter-married, generally to try to secure peace between the nations.

In 1603, Queen Elizabeth I of England, the Virgin Queen, died without an heir. Her closest relative was King James VI of Scotland, the son of Mary, Queen of Scots, who succeeded to the English throne as King James I of England. James is probably best known for commissioning the King James Bible and for foiling the Gunpowder Plot of Guy Fawkes.

18th Century

Although there continued to be frictions between the two nations, Scotland and England were united in the Act of Union of 1707, which established the United Kingdom under one monarch.

The Union was very unpopular in Scotland and, in 1745, Bonnie Prince Charlie led a rebellion of Scots that almost succeeded in seizing the Throne of the United Kingdom. However, Charlie lost his nerve when little more than 100 miles from London and was eventually defeated at the Battle of Culloden in 1746, the last real battle fought on British soil.

Today

In the 18th and 19th centuries, Scotland was at the forefront of the Industrial Revolution and the Scots made major contributions to the growth of the British Empire.

Today, Scots have major influence in government and English commentators often complain that they are governed by a Scots minority. British Prime Minister Tony Blair was born and educated in Edinburgh and his Number 2, Chancellor Gordon Brown, is from Fife. One of the other two major UK political parties, the Liberal Democrats, is led by Sir Menzies Campbell, a Scot with a distinguished record as an international athlete.

In elections, between a quarter and a third of Scots vote for the Scottish National Party, which presses for independence from the United Kingdom and Scotland still maintains its own national sports teams, which enjoy nothing more than beating the English.

However, relations between England and Scotland today are friendly and good humoured and at last the two nations live together in peace.