The Rise of Politiphobia: Once to Every Man and Establishment

(srouce) James Russell Lowell, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing right / engraved by J.A.J. Wilcox, from the original crayon in the possession of Charles Eliot Norton, drawn by S.W. Rowse in 1855

(source)

Just read a great article in The Atlantic that cuts the heart of Establishment thinking right now.

It's called "How American Politics Went Insane" by Jonathan Rauch. Very anti-Trump of course. The author decries the current "anti-establishment nihilism" of "politiphobes," whom he defines as Americans who display a bigoted hatred of politicians. They are ruining American government, and by extension, American society.

There's some really good stuff in the article. I liked how he talked about the "informal constitution" which he asserts is the real governing document of America (mostly for the good), and how the arrangement is endangered by the current "insanity."

In this paragraph, the author comes close to hitting on some core features of the Establishment [emphasis mine]:

The informal constitution’s intermediaries have many names and faces: state and national party committees, county party chairs, congressional subcommittees, leadership pacs, convention delegates, bundlers, and countless more. For purposes of this essay, I’ll call them all middlemen, because all of them mediated between disorganized swarms of politicians and disorganized swarms of voters, thereby performing the indispensable task that the great political scientist James Q. Wilson called “assembling power in the formal government."

Historically, the Establishment was based on the idea that there is definitely such a thing as too much democracy. Furthermore the danger of having too much democracy would only increase over time as society modernized, and became more open. World War II, and its aftermath, was seen as providing the proof that having too much democracy could actually destroy the world.

During the Franklin Roosevelt administration, the expansion of the informal constitution was portrayed successfully as a democratizing influence, partly because there were so many new federal government jobs available for people of many diverse backgrounds. Moreover the new powers acquired by federal bureaucracies to intervene in American society in unprecedented ways were viewed broadly by the middle and lower classes as benefiting them. 

The golden age of the Establishment was during the post World War II era when both the elite and much of the American people could view the expansion of the federal government as serving their interests. Not surprisingly this was the era when there was bipartisan cooperation of the expansion of government up through the Nixon Administration, which ended in 1974.




2016 "How American Politics Went Insane" by Jonathan Rauch. "Rauch is an American author, journalist and activist. After graduating from Yale University, Rauch worked at the Winston-Salem Journal in North Carolina, for the National Journal magazine, and later for The Economist magazine and as a freelance writer. He has in the past described himself as "an unrepentantly atheistic Jewish homosexual."'

"Populism, individualism, and a skeptical attitude toward politics are all healthy up to a point, but America has passed that point. Political professionals and parties have many shortcomings to answer for—including, primarily on the Republican side, their self-mutilating embrace of anti-establishment rhetoric—but relentlessly bashing them is no solution. You haven’t heard anyone say this, but it’s time someone did: Our most pressing political problem today is that the country abandoned the establishment, not the other way around.

2014 "The Case for Reparations" by Ta-Hehisi Coates, published in The Atlantic. 

"Plunder in the past made plunder in the present efficient. The banks of America understood this. In 2005, Wells Fargo promoted a series of Wealth Building Strategies seminars. Dubbing itself “the nation’s leading originator of home loans to ethnic minority customers,” the bank enrolled black public figures in an ostensible effort to educate blacks on building “generational wealth.” But the “wealth building” seminars were a front for wealth theft."

2010 The Atlantic posts its first profit in a decade. The New York Times noted the accomplishment was the result of "a cultural transfusion, a dose of counterintuition and a lot of digital advertising revenue."

2008 TheAtlantic.com drops its subscriber wall.

2006 James Bennett becomes editor-in-chief of The Atlantic. "James Bennet was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He studied at Yale University, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree and was editor-in-chief of The New Journal. Bennet was due to become the Times''s Beijing correspondent in late 2006. He resigned from the paper in March of that year to accept an offer to become the 14th editor-in-chief of The Atlantic. Bennet was selected by the magazine's publisher, David G. Bradley, following an exhaustive selection process. Bradley conferred with 80 journalists around the United States."

2005 George F. Kennan (b. 1904) dies in Princeton.

2005 Ownership group of The Atlantic announces move of the magazine to Washington, D.C. " the publishers announced that the editorial offices would be moved from its long-time home at 77 North Washington Street in Boston to join the company's advertising and circulation divisions in Washington, D.C.  Later in August, Bradley told the New York Observer, cost cutting from the move would amount to a minor $200,000–$300,000 and those savings would be swallowed by severance-related spending. The reason was to create a hub in Washington where the top minds from all of Bradley's publications could collaborate under the Atlantic Media Company umbrella. Few of the Boston staff agreed to relocate, and Bradley embarked on an open search for a new editorial staff"

2003 "Caring for Your Introvert: The habits and needs of a little-understood group" by Jonathan Rauch published in The Atlantic Monthly.

2003 Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America by Jonathan Rauch.
 
1999 Government's End: Why Washington Stopped Working by Jonathan Rauch
 
1999 (Sept.) Mortimer Zuckerman transferred ownership of The Atlantic to David G. Bradley, owner of the Beltway news-focused National Journal Group. Bradley had promised that the magazine would stay in Boston for the foreseeable future, as it did for the next five and a half years.

1994 Demosclerosis: The Silent Killer of American Government by Jonathan Rauch.

1989 "The Last Wise Man: An introduction to the diaries of George F. Kennan" published in The Atlantic Monthly.  "(Editorial) We derive the title of this month’s cover article from Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas's book, The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made, about Robert Lovett, John J. McCloy, Averell Harriman, Charles Bohlen, Dean Acheson, and George F. Kennan, whom it calls the "architects of the American century." Two of these men are still living, and one of them, Kennan, is still highly visible in public life-especially, in recent years, in his passionate opposition to the nuclear-arms race."

1982 "Broken Windows: The police and neighborhood safety" by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling, published in The Atlantic Monthly.

1980 The Atlantic Monthly acquired by Mortimer Zuckerman, property magnate and founder of Boston Properties, who became its Chairman.

1963 "Letter from Birmingham Jail" by Martin Luther King, Hr. published in The Atlantic Monthly.

1945 "As We May Think" by Vannevar Bush published in The Atlantic Monthly. "described as visionary and influential, anticipating many aspects of information society. It was first published in The Atlantic in July 1945 and republished in an abridged version in September 1945—before and after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Bush expresses his concern for the direction of scientific efforts toward destruction, rather than understanding, and explicates a desire for a sort of collective memory machine with his concept of the memex that would make knowledge more accessible, believing that it would help fix these problems. Through this machine, Bush hoped to transform an information explosion into a knowledge explosion."

1880 James Russell Lowell appointed Minister to England. "He was granted a salary of $17,500 with about $3,500 for expenses. While serving in this capacity, he addressed an importation of allegedly diseased cattle and made recommendations that predated the Pure Food and Drug Act. Queen Victoria commented that she had never seen an ambassador who "created so much interest and won so much regard as Mr. Lowell." Lowell held this role until the close of Chester A. Arthur's presidency in the spring of 1885, despite his wife's failing health. Lowell was already well known in England for his writing and, during his time there, he befriended fellow author Henry James, who referred to him as "conspicuously American." Lowell also befriended Leslie Stephen many years earlier and became the godfather to his daughter, future writer Virginia Woolf. Lowell was popular enough that he was offered a professorship at Oxford after his recall by president Grover Cleveland, though the offer was declined

1877 James Russell Lowell appointed Ambassador to Spain.

1876 James Russell Lowell serves as a delegate to the Republican National Convention in Cincinnati, Ohio, speaking on behalf of presidential candidate Rutherford B. Hayes.

1869 "The New Education" by Charles W. Eliot published in The Atlantic Monthly.

1866 "The Freedman's Story" by William Parker published in The Atlantic Monthly.

1862 "Battle Hymn of the Republic" by Julia Ward Howe published in The Atlantic Monthly.

1861 Lowell steps down as editor-in-chief of The Atlantic Monthly.

1860 The term "Boston Brahmin" is coined in an article in The Atlantic Monthly. by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

1858 The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., the first of Breakfast-Table" series.

1857 The Atlantic Monthly founded in Boston, with James Russell Lowell as the first editor. First issue published Nov. 1. "The magazine's initiator and founder was Francis H. Underwood, an assistant to the publisher, who received less recognition than his partners because he was "neither a 'humbug' nor a Harvard man". The other founding sponsors were prominent writers, including Ralph Waldo Emerson; Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.; Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; Harriet Beecher Stowe; John Greenleaf Whittier; and James Russell Lowell, who served as its first editor. With its first issue in November of that year, Lowell e at once gave the magazine the stamp of high literature and of bold speech on public affairs

1854 Lowell accepts professorship at Harvard.

1851 Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe.

1848 A Fable for Critics, by James Russell Lowell. " It was published anonymously, a book-length poem satirizing contemporary critics and poets. It proved popular, and the first three thousand copies sold out quickly. In it, Lowell took good-natured jabs at his contemporary poets and critics. Not all the subjects included were pleased, however. Edgar Allan Poe, who had been referred to as part genius and "two-fifths sheer fudge," reviewed the work in the Southern Literary Messenger and called it "'loose'—ill-conceived and feebly executed, as well in detail as in general. ... we confess some surprise at his putting forth so unpolished a performance."

1845 "The Present Crisis", by James Russell Lowell. "It addressed the national crisis over slavery leading up to the Civil War, has had an impact in the modern civil rights movement. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People named its newsletter The Crisis after the poem, and Martin Luther King, Jr. frequently quoted the poem in his speeches and sermons. The poem was also the source of the hymn Once to Every Man and Nation."

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight,
Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right,
And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light.

1844 James Russell Lowell marries Maria White. "He and his wife had several children, though only one survived past childhood. The couple soon became involved in the movement to abolish slavery, with Lowell using poetry to express his anti-slavery views and taking a job in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as the editor of an abolitionist newspaper. After moving back to Cambridge, Lowell was one of the founders of a journal called The Pioneer, which lasted only three issues."

1841 James Russell Lowell publishes his first collection of poetry.


1838 James Russell Lowell graduates from Harvard College.  Becomes friends with Ralph Waldo Emerson.

1819 James Russell Lowell born "the son of the Reverend Charles Russell Lowell, Sr. (1782–1861), a minister at a Unitarian church in Boston, who had previously studied theology at Edinburgh, and Harriett Brackett Spence Lowell. By the time James Russell Lowell was born, the family owned a large estate in Cambridge called Elmwood.

1782 John Lowell, grandfather of James Russell Lowell, iss elected to represent the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as a Delegate to the Third Congress of the Confederation in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1639 The Lowell family settles in Cape Ann after arriving in Boston. "The patriarch, Percival Lowle (1571–1665), described as a "solid citizen of Bristol", determined at the age of 68 that the future was in the New World. By the 19th and 20th centuries, the Lowells descended from John Lowell (1743–1802) were widely considered to be one of America's most accomplished families."

1636 Harvard College founded.

Woman With a Melon on Her Shoulder, Corner of Burnside and 28th

6-29-2016 8:36 pm

Pedestrian Crossing Mississippi at Russell

6-29-2016, 8:53 AM. Looking south down Mississippi Ave.

Clinton Sticker on the Back of a Parking Sign, Mississippi Ave Near Knott St.

photo of 6-27-2016

This is the very first (and one of the very few) permanently fixed pro-Hillary sign I have seen so far (I previously saw a bumper sticker on a car parked in a low-income maternity clinic on Burnside). It was one of two that I saw the same morning while making my rounds, about a month ago, the other have been put on the side of the one of concrete pillars that supports the Fremont Bridge. I surmised from the evidence someone had gone through the neighborhood putting them up over the previous night.  The loose haphazardness of the sticker placement (not even fully pressed down onto the sign and concrete) made me think it had been done as  quick sweep through the neighborhood. The one of the concrete bridge pillar has since been peeled off, leaving its scraped residue (although although stickers next to it are still affixed). This one on the sign, right next to the Lyft inspection station in north Portland, seems to have a nice aesthetic placement to it, creating a well-balanced composition of stickers on the back of the sign. So far I haven't seen any others.

Oct. 30, 1967: Arthur Treacher Loses It on the Merv Griffin Show Over Cheap Suits

"We are all idiots for tolerating this nonsense." Arthur Treacher (1894-1975) (left) broods while Hippie Fashion Expert Howard Smith (right) talks to Merv (unseen). Comedian Rip Taylor is in the middle.

1967 is the year the Sexual Revolution went mainstream within Pop Culture, at least as portrayed on television. Merv went to color that year (I think), in his fifth year. Treacher had been his announcer since the beginning. He treated Merv's New York show as a classy affair when guests came dressed smartly, as if out on the town for the evening. Here he is, feeling betrayed, as Merv interviews Howard Smith, a Village Voice columnist billed as a "youth fashion expert." His first words: "I have an electric flower in my lapel." There is a giddiness among the guests, as if everyone feels that the rules are loosening, and everyone is going to have fun. Multiple jokes about LSD, coming from nowhere, making one wonder if they had passed around tabs before the show.  Smith begins bragging about how he bought his suit at a thrift store, proclaiming such second-hand purchases to be in the new trend. "It's the latest thing, to go shopping in a thrift store." Treacher is having none of it, and confronts Smith with genuine anger at one point.  "I don't want to discuss this," he warns Merv, who backs off. Later Smith hands around bells as the new trend for male necklaces. Treacher to the audience, "We are all idiots tolerating all this nonsense!" It is everything about the Sixties in one moment.  The network wanted to dump Treacher in 1969. Merv fought to keep him, and won, but Treacher quit when Merv moved the show to L.A. in 1970. Like many men of his generation, he couldn't make the transition to what was happening.

Just one month earlier, on Sept. 25, Merv had interviewed Robert F. Kennedy. Bobby spoke in his soft mumbling cadence about the need for social justice and also the need to do something about Vietnam. Merv leaned in and practically worshiped Bobby as he spoke.  Boddy said he wasn't going to run for president. It was a very classy evening. Maybe the last one.

1967 (late Sept.)  Magical Mystery Tour filmed. LSD supplied to the Beatles by Owsley Stanley. "The film was unscripted and shooting proceeded on the basis of a mostly handwritten collection of ideas, sketches and situations, which McCartney called the "Scrupt". Magical Mystery Tour was ultimately the shortest of all Beatles films, although almost ten hours of footage was shot over a two-week period. The core of the film was shot between 11 September and 25 September 1967."

1967 Term "Summer of Love" originates in San Francisco with the formation of the Council for the Summer of Love during the spring of 1967 as a response to the convergence of young people on the Haight-Ashbury district. The Council was composed of The Family Dog, The Straight Theatre, The Diggers, The San Francisco Oracle, and approximately twenty-five other people, who sought to alleviate some of the problems anticipated from the influx of people expected during the summer. The Council also assisted the Free Clinic and organized housing, food, sanitation, music and arts, along with maintaining coordination with local churches and other social groups.

1967 Monterey Pop Festival (June 16-18)

1967 Human Be-In at Golden Gate Park (January 14).

1967 Aretha Franklin signs with Atlantic Records. choosing not to renew her Columbia contract after six years with the company, Franklin signed to Atlantic Records. That month, she traveled to Muscle Shoals, Alabama to record at FAME Studios to record the song, "I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)" in front of the musicians of the famed Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section. The song was later issued that February and shot up to number-one on the R&B chart, while also peaking at number nine on the Billboard Hot 100, giving Franklin her first top ten pop single. The song's b-side, "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man", reached the R&B top 40, peaking at number 37. In April, Atlantic issued her frenetic version of Otis Redding's "Respect", which shot to number-one on both the R&B and pop charts and later became her signature song and was later hailed as a civil rights and feminist anthem."

1966 Ronald Reagan elected governor of California, defeating incumbent Pat Brown (Nov.)

1966 (Jan 1) "The Sound of Silence" No. 1 single on Billboard Hot 100.

1965 200,000 Marines now in Vietnam (Dec.)

1965 (Sept.) Owsley Stanley becomes the primary LSD supplier to Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters. By this time, Sandoz LSD was hard to come by, and "Owsley Acid" had become the new standard. He was featured (most prominently his freak-out at the Muir Beach Acid Test in November 1965) in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968)

1965 Battle of Dong Xoai (Jun. 9-13). Army of the Republic of Vietnam troops overwhelmed by Viet Cong. "The fight for Đồng Xoài began on the evening of June 9, 1965, when the Viet Cong 272nd Regiment attacked and captured the Civilian Irregular Defense Group and U.S. Special Forces camp there. In response to the sudden Viet Cong assault, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) Joint General Staff ordered the ARVN 1st Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment, to retake Đồng Xoài district. They arrived on the battlefield on June 10, but were quickly overwhelmed by the Viet Cong 271st Regiment near Thuận Lợi. On June 13 U.S. Army General William Westmoreland decided to insert elements of the U.S. 173rd Airborne Brigade into a major battle for the first time, because he feared the Viet Cong could secure a major base area in Phước Long Province. By that time, however, the Viet Cong had already withdrawn from the battlefield, so the U.S. paratroopers were ordered to return to base without a fight."

1965 Griswold v. Connecticut decided by U.S. Supreme Court. Argued Mar. 29.. 381 U.S. 479 (1965), ^"is a landmark case in the United States in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Constitution protected a right to privacy. The case involved a Connecticut "Comstock law" that prohibited any person from using "any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception." By a vote of 7–2, the Supreme Court invalidated the law on the grounds that it violated the "right to marital privacy", establishing the basis for the right to privacy with respect to intimate practices."

1965 (May 22) Vietnam Day Committee formed in Berkeley. LBJ burned in effigy. The VDC was formed by Jerry Rubin, Paul Montauk, and a number of others including Abbie Hoffman and Stew Albert, between May 21 and May 22, 1965 during a 35‑hour‑long anti-Vietnam war protest that took place inside and around the University of California, Berkeley, and attracted over 35,000 people. The VDC laid out three main objectives: to achieve national and international solidarity and coordination on action, to take part in militant action, including civil disobedience and to work extensively in the community to develop the movement outside of the university campus.Attending the event were several notable anti-war activists, including Dr. Benjamin Spock, however the State Department declined to send a representative, despite the burning of an effigy of president Lyndon Johnson."

1965 (May) The Merv Griffin Show begins in syndication."After a short run on NBC, Merv Griffin launched a syndicated version of his talk show produced by Westinghouse (Group W) Broadcasting, which made its debut in May 1965. Intended as a nighttime companion to The Mike Douglas Show, this version of the Griffin program aired in multiple time slots throughout North America (many stations ran it in the daytime, and other non-NBC affiliates broadcast it opposite The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson). Stations had the option of carrying either a 60-minute or a 90-minute version. Griffin's announcer-sidekick was the veteran British character actor Arthur Treacher, who had been his mentor. Treacher would introduce Griffin with the phrase: "...and now, here's the dear boy himself, Meeeer-vin!" after reading off the list of guests for that evening's show."

1965 (Apr. 15) "What the World Needs Now is Love" released. Lyrics by Hal David and music composed by Burt Bacharach. First recorded and made popular by Jackie DeShannon, it was released on April 15, 1965, on the Imperial label. The song reached number 7 on the US Hot 100 charts in July of that year. The song was originally offered to Dionne Warwick, who turned it down at the time."

1965 (Mar. 23) Launch of Gemini 3. First U.S. space mission with two astronauts. 

1965 (Mar. 8) 3,500 U.S. Marines are dispatched to South Vietnam. "This marked the beginning of the American ground war. U.S. public opinion overwhelmingly supported the deployment"

1965 (Mar. 2)  Large-scale U.S. bombing of North Vietnam commences following attack on the U.S. Marine barracks at Pleiku,. "The bombing campaign, which ultimately lasted three years, was intended to force North Vietnam to cease its support for the Viet Cong by threatening to destroy North Vietnam's air defenses and industrial infrastructure. As well, it was aimed at bolstering the morale of the South Vietnamese. Between March 1965 and November 1968, "Rolling Thunder" deluged the north with a million tons of missiles, rockets and bombs"

1965 (Jan. 20) Johnson gives first and only inaugural address as elected president ."I do not believe that the Great Society is the ordered, changeless, and sterile battalion of the ants. It is the excitement of becoming-always becoming, trying, probing, falling, resting, and trying again--but always trying and always gaining."

1964 (Dec. 28-Jan. 3, 1965) Battle of Binh Gia."Over a period of four days, the Viet Cong 9th Division held its ground and mauled the best units the South Vietnamese army could send against them, only breaking after intense attack by U.S. bombers."

1964 (Dec. 27) Cleveland Browns win NFL championship.

1964  (Dec. 2) Between 1,500 and 4,000 students at Univ. of Calif. got in to Sproul Hall to re-open negotiations with the administration on the subject of restrictions on political speech and action on campus.

1964 The Sound of Silence, 2nd album of Simon and Garfunkel. "Released in October 1964, the album was a commercial failure and led to the duo breaking apart, with Paul Simon returning to England and Art Garfunkel to his studies at Columbia University. In spring 1965, the song began to attract airplay at radio stations in Boston, Massachusetts, and throughout Florida. The growing airplay led Tom Wilson, the song's producer, to remix the track, overdubbing electric instrumentation with the same musicians who backed Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone". Simon & Garfunkel were not informed of the song's remix until after its release. The single was released in September 1965."


1964  (Oct. 1) Jack Weinberg arrested by University of California campus police, starting the Free Speech movement in Berkeley.
1964  (Aug. 7) Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.
1964  (Aug. 2) Incident with USS Maddox
1964  (Feb. 9) Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show .

1963 (Nov 22) Aldoux Huxley dies. "On his deathbed, unable to speak due to advanced laryngeal cancer, Huxley made a written request to his wife Laura for "LSD, 100 µg, intramuscular". According to her account of his death^[47] in This Timeless Moment, she obliged with an injection at 11:20 a.m. and a second dose an hour later; Huxley died aged 69, at 5:20 p.m. (Los Angeles time), on 22 November 1963"

1963 Sandoz patent expires on LSD.  "Several figures, including Aldous Huxley, Timothy Leary, and Al Hubbard, began to advocate the consumption of LSD. LSD became central to the counterculture of the 1960s. In the early 1960s the use of LSD and other hallucinogens was advocated by new proponents of consciousness expansion such as Leary, Huxley, Alan Watts and Arthur Koestler, and according to L. R. Veysey they profoundly influenced the thinking of the new generation of youth."

1962 (Oct. 1) Debut of the Merv Griffin Show on NBC. Runs until May 1963.

May 3, 1544: The Rough Wooing of Mary begins with the Burning of Edinburgh

Mary, Queen of Scots, House of Stuart (shown here as an older girl). She became the focus of the 'Rough Wooing' when she was less than a year old (source)

1544 The Rough Wooing begins. Henry VIII, King of England, invades of Scotland over its alliance with France. Major hostilities begin with an attack on Edinburgh on 3 May,"

"Henry ordered his son Edward's uncle, Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, to invade Scotland and "put all to fire and sword, burn Edinburgh town, so razed and defaced when you have sacked and gotten what ye can of it, as there may remain forever a perpetual memory of the vengeance of God lightened upon [them] for their falsehood and disloyalty".Seymour responded with the most savage campaign ever launched by the English against the Scots. The war, which continued into Edward's reign, has become known as "The Rough Wooing" England was feeling trapped and surrounded by Catholic powers, and wished to break the Auld Alliance in order to prevent Scotland being used as a springboard for future invasion by France. War was declared by Henry VIII of England in an attempt to force the Scots to agree to a marriage between his son Edward and the infant Mary, Queen of Scots, thereby creating a new alliance between Scotland and England. After Henry's death in 1547, his son Edward VI continued the war until changing circumstances made it irrelevant in 1550. It was the last major conflict between Scotland and England before the Union of the Crowns in 1603, excepting perhaps the English intervention at the Siege of Leith in 1560, and was part of the Anglo-Scottish Wars of the 16th century."

May 3: The Burning of Edinburgh in 1544 by an English sea-borne army was the first major action of the war of the Rough Wooing. A Scottish army observed the landing on 3 May 1544 but did not engage with the English force. The Provost of Edinburgh was compelled to allow the English to sack Leith and Edinburgh. However, the Scottish artillery within Edinburgh Castle harassed the English forces, who had neither the time nor the resources to besiege the Castle. The English fleet sailed away loaded with captured goods, and with two ships that had belonged to James V of Scotland."

1543 Scots repudiate Treaty of Greenwich, sign alliance with France (Dec.). Henry enraged.

1543 Henry VIII signed the Treaty of Greenwich with the Scots, sealing the peace with his son Edward's betrothal to the seven-month-old Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots. The Scots were in a weak bargaining position after their defeat at Solway Moss the previous November, and Henry, seeking to unite the two realms, stipulated that Mary be handed over to him to be brought up in England.

1543 Third Succession Act of Henry VIII's reign passed by the Parliament of England  (July), and returned both Mary and Elizabeth to the line of the succession behind their half-brother Edward. 

1542 Battle of Solway Moss (Nov. 24).  Scots defeated by England. James V Stuart dies soon after (Dec. 14).  Six-day infant daughter of James, Mary, becomes Queen of the Scots. "When Henry VIII of England broke from the Roman Catholic Church, he asked James V of Scotland, his nephew, to do the same. James ignored his uncle's request and further insulted him by refusing to meet with Henry at York. Furious, Henry VIII sent troops against Scotland. In retaliation for the massive English raid into Scotland, James responded by assigning Robert, Lord Maxwell, the Scottish Warden of West March, the task of raising an army. On 24 November 1542, an army of 15,000–18,000 Scots advanced into England. 3,000 men. The battle was uncoordinated and may be described as a rout. Sir Thomas Wharton described the battle as the overthrow of the Scots between the rivers Esk and Lyne. The Scots were 'beguiled by their own guiding', according to one Scottish writer. Several hundred of the Scots may have drowned in the marshes and river. James, who was not present at the battle (he had remained at Lochmaben), withdrew to Falkland Palace humiliated and ill with fever. The news that his wife had given birth to a daughter instead of a son further crushed his will to live, and he is reported to have stated that the House of Stewart "came with a lass and will go with a lass". He died at Falkland two weeks later at the age of thirty. "

1539 Jane Seymour gives birth to Edward, who automatically becomes heir to the throne. She dies two weeks later of post-natal complications. "She was the only one of Henry's wives to receive a queen's funeral, and his only consort to be buried beside him in St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle."

1536-1541 The Dissolution of the Monasteries.  "...one of the most revolutionary events in English history" "the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded Catholic monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland, appropriated their income, disposed of their assets, and reassigned or dismissed their former members and functions. Although the policy was originally envisaged as increasing the regular income of the Crown, much former monastic property was sold off to fund Henry's military campaigns in the 1540s. He was given the authority to do this in England and Wales by the Act of Supremacy, passed by Parliament in 1534, which made him Supreme Head of the Church in England, thus separating England from Papal authority, and by the First Suppression Act (1536) and the Second Suppression Act (1539)."

1536 Anne Boleyn executed "for high treason, incest and adultery". Henry marries Jane Seymour, who is named Queen Consort of England. "Henry VIII was betrothed to Jane on 20 May 1536, just one day after Anne Boleyn's execution. The couple were married at the Palace of Whitehall, Whitehall, London, in the Queen's closet by Bishop Gardiner on 30 May 1536. As a wedding gift the King made her a grant of 104 manors in four counties as well as a number of forests and hunting chases for her jointure, the income to support her during their marriage. She was publicly proclaimed as queen consort on 4 June 1536. Jane’s well-publicised sympathy for the late Queen Catherine and the Lady Mary showed her to be compassionate and made her a popular figure with the common people and most of the courtiers. She was never crowned because of plague in London, where the coronation was to take place. Henry may have been reluctant to crown Jane before she had fulfilled her duty as a queen consort by bearing him a son and a male heir."

1534 Henry openly discussing leaving Anne and going back to Catherine. "The king and queen were not pleased with married life. The royal couple enjoyed periods of calm and affection, but Anne refused to play the submissive role expected of her. The vivacity and opinionated intellect that had made her so attractive as an illicit lover made her too independent for the largely ceremonial role of a royal wife and it made her many enemies. For his part, Henry disliked Anne's constant irritability and violent temper. After a false pregnancy or miscarriage in 1534, he saw her failure to give him a son as a betrayal."

1533  The Act of Succession 1533. Act of English Parliament. Catherine's daughter Mary declared illegitimate as heir to England. "Henry's marriage to Anne was declared legitimate; and Anne's issue was decided to be next in the line of succession. With the Acts of Supremacy in 1534, Parliament also recognized the King's status as head of the church in England and, with the Act in Restraint of Appeals in 1532, abolished the right of appeal to Rome. It was only then that Pope Clement took the step of excommunicating Henry and Thomas Cranmer, although the excommunication was not made official until some time later."

1533 Anne Boleyn crowned Queen Consort of England (Jun 1). "The queen gave birth to a daughter slightly prematurely on 7 September 1533. The child was christened Elizabeth, in honour of Henry's mother, Elizabeth of York."

1532 Henry VIII meets with Francis I, King of France, "Henry enlisted the support of the French king for his new marriage. Immediately upon returning to Dover in England, Henry, now 41, and Anne, now 32, went through a secret wedding service. She soon became pregnant, and there was a second wedding service in London on 25 January 1533."

1527 Henry VIII appeals to to Pope Clement VII in the hope of having his marriage to Catherine of Aragon annulled. "Certainly, by 1527 Henry had convinced himself that in marrying Catherine, his brother's wife, he had acted contrary to Leviticus 20:21, an impediment the Pope had never had (he now believed) the authority to dispense with."

1526 Henry VIII begins pursuit of Anne Boleyn. "She resisted his attempts to seduce her, refusing to become his mistress – which her sister Mary had been. It soon became the one absorbing object of Henry's desires to annul his marriage to Queen Catherine so he would be free to marry Anne"

1521 Henry VIII Tudor publishes Assertio Septem Sacramentorum ("Defence of the Seven Sacraments", earning him the title of Fidei Defensor (Defender of the Faith) from Pope Leo X.

1513 James V Stuart, nephew of Henry VIII Tudor, becomes King of Scotland.

1512 First recorded mention of the Brig o' Doon.

1509 Henry VIII Tudor, King of England at age 18."the second monarch of the Tudor dynasty, succeeding his father, Henry VII."

1451 University of Glasgow founded.

1371 Robert II Stuart, King of Scots. Founding of the House of Stuart.

1332–1357 Second War of Scottish Independence. Begins with the English-supported invasion by Edward Balliol and the "Disinherited" in 1332. King David II of Scotland caputured at the Battle of Neville's Cross (1346). Ends in 1357 with the signing of the Treaty of Berwick. "Under the terms of the treaty, David II was released by the English, who had captured him at the Battle of Neville's Cross in 1346. The English demanded a ransom of 100,000 merks (around £150,000 Scots, or £67,000 sterling) for his release, payable in annual installments over a period of ten years, but only the first two payments were made.The first installment of the ransom was paid punctually, the second was late, and after that no more could be paid. Taxation was increased in order to pay the ransom, and David began to embezzle from his own ransom fund, causing widespread resentment. David II also agreed to name Edward III of England as his successor, which was rejected by the Scottish people, as evidenced by continuing cross-border raids.^[1][2][4] The issue of succession was settled when Robert Stewart assumed the throne on David's death in 1371."

1320 Declaration of Arboath (Apr. 6). Scottish nobles declare independence from the English.

Portrait of a Young Globalist

Check this guy out (courtesy Yahoo News).

“There is this trope that globalism only benefits the elites. That drives me bat shit! My parents lived very circumscribed lives," he said, noting that his father lived pretty much all of his life within five miles of where he was born. "Immigration and globalism greatly improved life for everyone in my family.”

Travel=improvement. Who can disagree with that? Certainly not me.

Moreover, I agree very strong that no matter how one defines improvement, it is a fallacy that globalism benefits only the elite. It was a successful system in the Post World War II era that saw great benefits for many, many people, including travel and its corresponding cosmopolitan awakening of the masses, accompanied by widespread middle class prosperity. It is ironic now that it is all being sustained by a political movement that sees all existing order as oppression to some faction within society, and therefore needs to be radically changed and even overthrown. Here is the crux of the matter of why it is now failing, as I mentioned.

Here's the chap's final judgment on globalism:

Globalism can’t be rolled back, Elliott says: “You have some guy in Mali who can Facetime his brother in Paris and say, ‘hmm, that looks pretty good, I’m going to go there.”

Here's where I differ from him. He and I define globalism completely differently. He defines it broadly. I define it more narrowly, in terms of a specific network of cooperative relationships via existing and proposed transnational and international organs and institutions, and through the extended network of informal relationships among world leaders and people of international stature and respect.

He thinks the two things are inseparable---- the fact that people in Africa and France "live on top of each other" now, and the international system of existing treaties and institutions. I think it is a fallacy to assume that they are dependent on each other. In fact, I believe the cultural situation actually makes the institutional version of globalism (my definition) to be ever more unlikely. Such institutions worked well when they were the invisible eminence grise within the galaxy of world nations who lived separate national existences within the global community. The current round of institutions and organs are crafted by plans made in a previous zeitgeist and will look stilted and out-of-touch by evolving contemporary standards of taste. 

That's why all of a sudden the E.U. looks like a soft postmodern version of the old Soviet Union in its waning days, or even (and this is actually more historically accurate given its origins) what the Third Reich would have looked like, if it had survived but gotten over its racism and repudiated its shitlord past, embracing a post-Sixties German-led internationalism with ethic race mixing in such a way to turn its bureaucratic colossus into a force of social justice. After all it's just Germany we're talking about.

At some point, we will need new types of international cooperative institutions that better reflect the unanticipatable cultural shifts that are being played out.  But they are not designable right now, so long as the current order exists, since the crafting of any such institutions would simply be an attempt to buttress the existing ones through a rebooting. That won't work. The E.U. may soon look like the Holy Roman Empire after Napoleon.  Only when the old one is completely gone will the new one even begin to take shape. Let us hope we can impart some wisdom to the people who are in charge of it, when it happens.

Why the Establishment (and the Left) is Failing So Hard Now

Why is the Establishment failing so hard at this moment of history, when it has been so successful for over seven decades?

In a nutshell, it is because in order to sustain itself thus far, deep into its run, it has needed to embrace and embody two basic propositions which are completely incompatible with each other, both logically and in practice.

The first notion, one that is at the philosophic core of all conservative Establishment-like systems over history, is that order is good, and that the larger the scale of the order, the better.  In a political sense, this is reflected in the love that liberals have not only for larger government, but for bigger scales of it. For example, the federal government is better than state government (which is dubious altogether in the case of ex-CSA states). But international government is better than national  government.

Higher virtue is considered to be found in scales of political organization that are trans-national and global in scope. Those within such organizations are considered to embody and act on higher values than those on lower rungs. The further up you go up in scale of internationalism, the greater the virtue of the participants.

This is because such participants are held to be more cosmopolitan in general (which is how liberals see themselves too---the intellectual, sophisticated ones that have transitioned beyond parochial limitations). They can see beyond the petty concerns of nation and ethnic group, etc, and thus they can act with empowered wisdom to make the world fair and just, if given the chance and opportunity.

Most liberals would have little problem with a plan that would transfer the sovereignty of all nations over to the United Nations, which is held in the highest esteem by them, in the way that Catholics once held the Pope. Many would no doubt welcome a U.N. invasion of America if it meant confiscation of guns and the end to antiquated "redneck rights."

The second notion, that is completely at odds with this, is the concept of constant social revolution driven by grassroots democracy. The traditional means by which the upper class has garnered the consent of the lower classes, since the middle of the 19th century, has been by some form of democratic socialism. "Let us run things, and we will give you part of the spoils, in a far that you will find fair. Just come to polls every so often and register your consent. We will arrange the rest."

This has worked well in many cases over the last century, and help keep much of Western Europe in a peasant-like mentality of society even in the midst of post-modern interconnected global village. The same families still run Europe as in ages past, so it has been undeniably successful.

But at this point, the rhetoric of constant social revolution is in overdrive. Under Obama, it has reached its apotheosis. The velocity cannot be increased to any higher rate, it seems, and moreover the entire concept of constant social revolution is itself a disruptive and destructive force which is now working against the Establishment, even by people who would seem to embrace it. It was fine when confined to certain segments of society (e.g. complete destruction of the black communities in America since 1965), but now it is eating into the very core of the Establishment itself. Hillary Clinton's ongoing campaign to win over the hearts and minds of Bernie Sanders supporters is the latest obvious example of this. The sheepdogging process doesn't work as well as it used to. Many Bernie supporters, especially the younger ones who are not "Party Democrats," don't like the taste of the Establishment bit in their mouth. They rebel at feeling the lash of Hillary's whip on their hide to pull her sleigh to victory, in the same old way as before. They believed she was to be fought against, not for. The Establishment (and Left) is reduced to inflating Donald Trump into cartoon proportions of evil in order to force them in line. But the enthusiasm is not there, and it simply won't be, now matter how hard they harangue.

Liberals of my generation and older have no problem adjusting to this slog, because we are "Party Democrats" and like Order. We were told to distrust revolution as being something that hippies do. We are flower children at heart, but not hippies in practice. Folks just a bit younger than Generation X, however, won't go along so easily.  They weren't raised on Family Ties. Even Bush is a dim memory for them. For a lot of them, the Democratic Party is the Establishment, just as it was in the days of Hubert Humphrey and Lyndon Johnson, who conned the country into a bloody war that cost millions of people their lives in Southeast Asia. Older Democrats can forgive all that, but the younger ones see it all differently.

As for the E.U., a year ago, Angela Merkel was leading a cadre of international bankers that were all but wiping out the sovereignty of Greece and turning it into a debt colony, where the future generations of the country will have their wealth harvested to satisfy the demands of the German Central Bank which is unwilling to take a haircut on the ruinous, speculative debt that they pushed on the Greek Parliament. Watching the negotiations over this was like watching tanks roll up to the edge Athens. It was disgusting. How anyone who believes in social justice could walk away thinking Merkel was anything but a apparatchik thug is beyond me.

Now the Euro-liberals are fainting over the end of the E.U. like it is the disbanding of their Church, with the racist barbarians sacking the Order they love.

"Workers of the world, and oppressed peoples of the world, unite to support the existing Order and international system which is bringing you social justice and the reasonable rate at which you should  expect, within the stable confines of the existing global system! Build the revolution by solidifying what already is!"

Whether it was good or bad or both, the Establishment as we know it is cooked. It was bound to fail. The miracle was that it lasted as long as it did. As I've said before, personally I think the Establishment was a highly successful project, as far as historical systems go, whether it was good or evil, etc. It was so successful that no one thought it could end, and yet it is. So folks are losing their minds, because they can't see what could be beyond it, other than horrible chaos.

Nevertheless fans of Order can be assured: something new will come along. It always does.

Apr. 6, 1320: Scotland Declares Independence from England at Arboath Abbey

(source)

Letter to the Pope is Sealed by 51 Scottish Magnates and Nobles
Robert the Bruce Asserted as Lawful King of Independent Scotland

Declaration follows long war of independence from England

1320 Declaration of Arbroath. Scots Declare Independence at Arboath Abbey. Scottish nobility submit the Declaration of Arbroath to Pope John XXII, declaring Robert the Bruce as their rightful monarch and asserting Scotland's status as an independent kingdom. Generally believed to have been written in the Arbroath Abbey by Bernard of Kilwinning, then Chancellor of Scotland and Abbot of Arbroath,and sealed by fifty-one magnates and nobles, the letter is the sole survivor of three created at the time. The others were a letter from the King of Scots, Robert I, and a letter from four Scottish bishops which all presumably made similar points.

1314 Battle of Bannockburn (Jun 24). (Blàr Allt nam Bànag).  De facto independence of Scotland established with crushing Scottish victory over English Army. "a significant Scottish victory in the First War of Scottish Independence, and a landmark in Scottish history. Stirling Castle, a Scots royal fortress, occupied by the English, was under siege by the Scottish army. The English king, Edward II, assembled a formidable force to relieve it. This attempt failed, and his army was defeated in a pitched battle by a smaller army commanded by the King of Scots, Robert the Bruce.".

1314 Edinburgh Castle captured by Robert the Bruce (Mar. 14), who destroys all the buildings except St. Margaret's Chapel.

1307 Edward I dies (Jul 7). Edward II becomes King of England.
1307 Robert the Bruce defeats English army at Loudoun Hill, wages successful guerilla war against English.
1306 Robert the Bruce crowned King of Scotland at Scone after killing John II Comyn
1305 William Wallace captured by English Army and executed on orders of Edward II.
1304 Fall of Stirling Castle to the English Army.

1298 Battle of Falkirk.
1297 Battle of Stirling Bridge.
 
1296 Battle of Dunbar. Edward II of England invades England . Edward captures the Stone of Scone and takes it to England.

1296 Sack of Berwith-upon-Tweed

1296–1328 First War of Scottish Independence. Begins with English invasion of Scotland. Ends with  signing of the Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton in 1328.

1295 Auld Alliance signed between Scotland and France. The treaty was signed by John Balliol (on behalf of the Council) and Philip IV of France in 1295 against Edward I of England. The terms of the treaty stipulated that if either country was attacked by England, the other country would invade English territory."

1292 John Balliol chosen as the new King of Scotland by a group of auditors. Crowned at Scone (Nov. 20). ""Edward I of England constantly tried to undermine his reign and demanded that Balliol treat Scotland as a vassal state. As a result, the Scottish grew tired of him and appointed a council of twelve to rule instead."

1290 Margaret, Maid of Norway, dies at seven years old. "Upon her death, there arose a number of claimants to the throne of Scotland. The Guardians of Scotland were the de facto heads of state until such time as a king would be chosen."

1290 Treaty of Birgham,  "the Guardians of Scotland, who had been appointed to govern the realm during the young Queen Margaret's minority, drew up the Treaty of Birgham, a marriage contract between Margaret and the five-year-old Edward of Caernarvon, heir apparent to the English throne. The treaty, amongst other points, contained the provision that although the issue of this marriage would inherit the crowns of both England and Scotland, the latter kingdom should be 'separate, apart and free in itself without subjection to the English Kingdom'"

1286  King Alexander III dies. "the crown of Scotland passed to his only surviving descendant, his three-year-old granddaughter Margaret."

1250 Pope Innocent IV canonizes Saint Margaret of Scotland "in recognition of her personal holiness, fidelity to the Church, work for religious reform, and charity. On 19 June 1250, after her canonisation, her remains were moved to a chapel in the eastern apse of Dunfermline Abbey.[

1178 Founding of Arboath Abbey.

1164 Status of Scone Priory raised to an abbey, during the reign of King Malcom IV (Máel Coluim IV,) "The abbey had important royal functions, as it was located next to the coronation site of Scottish kings and housed the Stone of Destiny."

1153 David I dies.

1128 Dumferline Abbey founded.

1124 David I, (Dauíd mac Maíl Choluim), King of the Scots

My Own View About Race in History

My Own View About Race in History is: I don't have one yet. I'm still making up my mind about a lot of things. I'm still gathering facts. As much I love history, the question really isn't that important to me actually. I'm looking at other things that fascinate me more than that.

But knock yourself  out. You have a theory of history, you say? Am I free to disagree with it? In any case, you better come loaded with information and facts to make your case or I will kick your fucking ass.

Leftist View of the Role of White People in History

What drives history above all is the simply truth that white people are rotten.

Other races are able to get along with each other, and form civilizations in which many races can interact and interbreed, but white people are not able to do this. They think of themselves as better than the other races. They inevitably dominate, exploit and even enslave these other races. They do this whenever they have a majority. The more white people a society has, the more social injustice it will tend to have. White people are responsible for most if not nearly all the social injustice in the world right now, and throughout history.*

* (even social justice issues of sexuality and gender are far worse among white people than they they for other races)

Many leftists have come to believe that because of this fact, it is necessary, for the good of humanity and all races, that white people be made a minority everywhere on Earth, or at least in most places where people currently live. We will not have true social justice in the world until this is accomplished.

The Leftist view is therefore best understood as a simple inversion of the previous tenet of American civilization (in the Classic Hollywood era, for example), that whiteness was the reason that the world had any civilization at all.

In both cases, white people have unique abilities and unique responsibilities. In the present era, this responsibility involves a special abasement of one's whiteness, as a form of ritual balancing for the previous era's pride for white civilization.

Brexit Means Nothing. Brexit Means Everything

Brexit (vote by Britons on June 23 to leave the E.U.) means nothing. Nothing will change. The stock market will go on as before. The pound will go on as before. The government will not invoke Article 50 to trigger secession, because they are not obligated to do so. They will have a new vote. The Scottish Parliament will veto it. Something else will stop it. It simply won't happen.

On the other hand, Brexit means everything, because even despite all that, the E.U. as we know it is doomed. If Britain doesn't bother to formally leave, then perhaps they will be the last one standing in it (unlikely).

This is what is freaking people out the most right now, more than the reality of the political change. It is the undisputed reality that we are now in a post-globalist world. Many people don't realize it yet, because they were not aware of how much we were embedded in a globalist system. The reality of the time just seems like, well, reality. No one thinks it could be any other way until it ends, and then it was obvious how much of a "system" it was, and recognizable and describable it became by the shifts of history that let people see it, while not having to swim within it.

The Great Surliness

There is a great surliness about. One can feel it on social media, and the Internet. The Brexit vote took everyone by surprise, who wasn't following the event closely, and who understood why many were voting Leave. For a lot of people, it came completely out of the blue. Now comes the stunned and angry reaction. 

Facebook has become very difficult. More and more, friends who actually know me, and have treated me with warmth, have signaled openly in posts their intolerance for anyone who disagrees with them on certain issues. I've seen this coming for years, but now it has gone to a whole new level. Most of them I will not be able to talk to again, unless we can negotiate a situation where politics never comes up, or if it does, I can segue to something else with a kindly anyhoo...

I'm cool with disagreeing about certain things, and still being friends---even things I strongly believe in, and where I see something at stake akin to good and evil. Is anyone else?

Coronation

One of the things that I started to do after I first moved into this neighborhood in Jan. 2015 is to start taking photographs of the posters on the light poles along Burnside. Usually the posters are for music shows, but there are posters for other things to, including people selling services, and well as political causes.

After a year a half of doing this, I have a pretty good library now. I also have an eye for when a new poster goes up. I can tell when something looks different. Over time I've tried to expand the shot to get a section of the post down to the pavement like this, partly so I can get more stuff in one shot, but also because it often looks cool. It's an extra treat if there is something out of the ordinary in the background, like this yellow bicycle.

Homeless Person Sleeping in the Doorway Across Burnside

Sunday afternoon. 6:30. No good photo, unless I went down and took one, which I don't feel like.

There's a homeless guy sleeping in the recessed doorway of the parking garage for the furniture store across the street. I can look down out the window and see his feet sticking out from behind the shopping cart. Last fall I made the comment, shocking to myself, that homeless would soon set up shop in the then newly shuttered Chinese karoake place next door, after it closed and moved to Sandy. Now it seems strange that I wouldn't find someone sleeping there.

And now, they're right across the street. I feel like I am getting a balcony seating to the performance. Things moved fast.

I'm enjoying the neighborhood in that deep sense of awareness that comes from knowing that one's time in a given place is about to end. Even after I come back here, it won't be my neighborhood anymore. This apartment, and the view across the street, will belong to someone else. I'll be a stranger in the place where I am now typing. That's the way of things.

1124: David I Brings Norman Feudalism to Scotland

David I of Scotland, detail of an illuminated initial on the Kelso Abbey charter of 1159 (source).

The Davidian Revolution

1124 David I, (Dauíd mac Maíl Choluim), approximately 40 years old, crowned King of the Scots (elevated from Prince of the Cumbrians).

Eighth and youngest son of Malcom III and Margaret of Wessex. Crowned at Scone (Apr. or May). Reigns for 29 years until his death in 1153, at age 69.

"widely regarded as one of the most significant rulers in Scotland's history." 

Institutes sweeping Normanization of Scottish government, partly through widespread enfeoffment of foreign knights (the deed by which a person was given land in exchange for a pledge of service).

Greatly expanded reach of royal taxation through sheriffdoms and the "Continental Model."

Beginning of the Scoto-Norman age.

Davidian Revolution: a term given by many scholars to the changes which took place in the Kingdom of Scotland during David's reign (1124–1153). These included his foundation of burghs,..., foundation of monasteries, Normanization of the Scottish government, and the introduction of feudalism through immigrant Norman and Anglo-Norman knights.

"Barrow summarizes the many and varied goals of David I, all of which began and ended with his determination "to surround his fortified royal residence and its mercantile and ecclesiastical satellites with a ring of close friends and supporters, bound to him and his heirs by feudal obligation and capable of rendering him military service of the most up-to-date kind and filling administrative offices at the highest level""  "

The widespread enfeoffment of foreign knights and the processes by which land ownership was converted from customary tenures into feudal, or otherwise legally-defined relationships, would revolutionise the way the Kingdom of Scotland was governed, as did the dispersal and installation of royal agents in the new mottes that were proliferating throughout the realm to staff newly created sheriffdoms and judiciaries for the twin purposes of law enforcement and taxation, bringing Scotland further into the "continental" model."

"The earliest assessments of David I portray him as a pious king, a reformer and a civilising agent in a barbarian nation. For William of Newburgh, David was a "King not barbarous of a barbarous nation", who "wisely tempered the fierceness of his barbarous nation". William praises David for his piety, noting that, among other saintly activities, "he was frequent in washing the feet of the poor".Another of David's eulogists, his former courtier Ailred of Rievaulx, echoes Newburgh's assertions and praises David for his justice as well as his piety, commenting that David's rule of the Scots meant that "the whole barbarity of that nation was softened ... as if forgetting their natural fierceness they submitted their necks to the laws which the royal gentleness dictated""

feudalism: "The classic François-Louis Ganshof version of feudalism describes a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations among the warrior nobility, revolving around the three key concepts of lords, vassals and fiefs. A lord was in broad terms a noble who held land, a vassal was a person who was granted possession of the land by the lord, and the land was known as a fief. In exchange for the use of the fief and the protection of the lord, the vassal would provide some sort of service to the lord. There were many varieties of feudal land tenure, consisting of military and non-military service. The obligations and corresponding rights between lord and vassal concerning the fief form the basis of the feudal relationship."

1114-1122 Founding of Scone Priory, a house of Augustinian canons.

1113 Foundation of Selkirk Abbey, by David, Prince of the Cumbrians.

1113 David, son of Malcom III, becomes Prince of the Cumbrians.

1107 Alexander I crowned King of Scots, upon death of his brother Edgar. "the fifth son of Malcolm III by his wife Margaret of Wessex, grandniece of Edward the Confessor. Alexander was named after Pope Alexander II"

1100-1107 Turgot of Durham writes the life of Malcolm's wife, Margaret of Scotland, at the request of her daughter, Matilda, wife of king Henry I of England.

1097 Edgar or Étgar mac Maíl Choluim, nicknamed Probus, "the Valiant" (b. 1074), becomes King of Scotland. He was the fourth son of Malcolm III and Margaret of Wessex but the first to be considered eligible for the throne after the death of his father. "William Rufus, King of England, opposed Donald III's accession to the northerly kingdom. He sent the eldest son of Malcolm III, Donnchad, into Scotland with an army. Donnchad was killed within the year, and so in 1097 William sent Donnchad's half-brother Edgar into Scotland. The latter was more successful, and was crowned King by the end of 1097."

1093-1133 Construction of Durham Cathedral.

1093–97 Power struggle in Scotland following death of Malcolm III. Donald III (son of Duncan I) becomes King of Scots.

1093 Battle of Alnwick. Malcom III, King of Scots, killed in ambush by Robert de Mowbray, Earl of Northumbria (Nov. 13) Queen Margaret dies at Edinburgh Castle, after receiving news of her husband's death in battle. "While marching north again, Malcolm was ambushed by Robert de Mowbray, Earl of Northumbria, whose lands he had devastated, near Alnwick on 13 November 1093. There he was killed by Arkil Morel, steward of Bamburgh Castle. The conflict became known as the Battle of Alnwick. Edward was mortally wounded in the same fight. Margaret, it is said, died soon after receiving the news of their deaths from Edgar. The Annals of Ulster say: "Mael Coluim son of Donnchad, over-king of Scotland, and Edward his son, were killed by the French [i.e. Normans] in Inber Alda in England. His queen, Margaret, moreover, died of sorrow for him within nine days."'

1087 William I dies (Sept. 9). Succeeded on the throne of England by his son William II (William Rufus). "William I left England towards the end of 1086. Following his arrival back on the continent he married his daughter Constance to Alan Fergant, the Duke of Brittany, in furtherance of his policy of seeking allies against the French kings. William's son Robert, still allied with the French king Philip I, appears to have been active in stirring up trouble, enough so that William led an expedition against the French Vexin in July 1087. While seizing Mantes, William either fell ill or was injured by the pommel of his saddle. He was taken to the priory of Saint Gervase at Rouen, where he died on 9 September 1087.

1086 Yorkshire and the North Riding in northern England still had large areas of waste territory, the Domesday Book entries indicate wasteas est or hoc est vast (it is wasted) for estate after estate, in all a total of 60% of all holdings were waste. It states that 66% of all vills contained wasted manors. Even the prosperous areas of the county had lost 60% of its value compared to 1066. There was only 25% of the population and plough teams remaining and 80,000 oxen and 150,000 people fewer.

1080 Walcher, the Bishop of Durham, is murdered by the local Northumbrians. In response, William of England sends his half-brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux north with an army to harry the Northumbrian countryside. Odo destroyed much land north of the Tees, from York to Durham, and stole valuable items from Durham monastery. Many of the Northumbrian nobility were driven into exile. "As a result of the depopulation, Norman landowners sought settlers to work in the fields. Evidence suggests that such barons were willing to rent lands to any men not obviously disloyal. Unlike the Vikings in the centuries before, Normans did not settle wholesale in the shire, but only occupied the upper ranks of society. This allowed an Anglo-Scandinavian culture to survive beneath Norman rule. Evidence for continuity can be seen in the retention of many cultural traits."

1071 William appointed another Earl of Northumbria, William Walcher, a Lotharingian, who was the first non-English bishop of Durham. "Having effectively subdued the population, William carried out a wholesale replacement of Anglo-Saxon leaders with Norman ones in the North."
 
1070 Malcolm III marries Margaret of Wessex, sister of Edgar Ætheling, the short-ruling and uncrowned Anglo-Saxon King of England. Margaret becomes Queen of Scotland."An English princess of the House of Wessex. Margaret was sometimes called "The Pearl of Scotland". Born in exile in Hungary,... she was a pious woman, and among many charitable works she established a ferry across the Firth of Forth for pilgrims traveling to Dunfermline Abbey, which gave the towns of South Queensferry and North Queensferry their names. Margaret was the mother of three kings of Scotland (or four, if one includes Edmund of Scotland, who ruled Scotland with his uncle, Donald III) and of a queen consort of England." "The marriage of Malcolm to Edgar's sister profoundly affected the history of both England and Scotland. The influence of Margaret and her sons brought about the Anglicisation of the Lowlands and provided the Scottish king with an excuse for forays into England, which he could claim were to redress the wrongs against his brother-in-law."

1069-1072 The Harrying of the North. "a series of campaigns waged by William the Conqueror in the winter of 1069–70 to subjugate northern England. The presence of the last Wessex claimant, Edgar Atheling, had encouraged Anglo-Danish rebellions that broke the Norman hold on the North. William paid the Danes to go home, but the remaining rebels refused to meet him in battle, and he decided to starve them out by laying waste to the northern shires, especially the city of York, before installing a Norman aristocracy throughout the region. Contemporary chronicles vividly record the savagery of the campaign, the huge scale of the destruction and the widespread famine caused by looting, burning and slaughtering." "The archaeologist Richard Ernest Muir wrote that there was evidence for the "violent disruption [that] took place in Yorkshire in 1069–71, in the form of hoards of coins which were buried by the inhabitants."

1068 Malcolm III grants asylum to a group of English exiles fleeing from William of Normandy. "among them Agatha, widow of Edward the Confessor's nephew Edward the Exile, and her children: Edgar Ætheling and his sisters Margaret and Cristina. They were accompanied by Gospatric, Earl of Northumbria. The exiles were disappointed, however, if they had expected immediate assistance from the Scots. The exiles returned to England, to join a spreading revolt in the north (1070)."

1066 Norman Conquest of England.  William of Normandy (b. 1028) crowned King of England (Dec. 25).

1058 Malcolm III (Máel Coluim) becomes King of the Scots after killing Lulach.  Begins 35-year reign. "Malcolm's kingdom did not extend over the full territory of modern Scotland: the north and west of Scotland remained in Scandinavian, Norse-Gael and Gaelic control, and the areas under the control of the Kings of Scots did not advance much beyond the limits set by Malcolm II until the 12th century. Malcolm III fought a succession of wars against the Kingdom of England, which may have had as their goal the conquest of the English earldom of Northumbria. These wars did not result in any significant advances southwards. Malcolm's main achievement is to have continued a line which would rule Scotland for many years, although his role as "founder of a dynasty" has more to do with the propaganda of his youngest son David, and his descendants, than with any historical reality."

1057 Macbeth defeated and mortally wounded or killed by the future Malcolm III ("King Malcolm Ceann-mor", son of Duncan I) on the north side of the Mounth in 1057, after retreating with his men over the Cairnamounth Pass to take his last stand at the battle at Lumphanan. The Prophecy of Berchán has it that he was wounded and died at Scone, sixty miles to the south, some days later. Macbeth's stepson Lulach was installed as king soon after. He ruled only for a few months before being assassinated and usurped by Malcolm III (Máel Coluim mac Donnchada)."

1052 Macbeth accepts Norman exiles from England in his court. "Macbeth was involved indirectly in the strife in the Kingdom of England between Godwin, Earl of Wessex and Edward the Confessor when he received a number of Norman exiles from England in his court, perhaps becoming the first king of Scots to introduce feudalism to Scotland."

1040 Macbeth (Mac Bethad mac Findlaích) becomes king upon Duncan's death in battle (Aug. 14). Nicknamed Rí Deircc, "the Red King." "Because of his youth, Duncan's early reign was apparently uneventful. His later reign, in line with his description as "the man of many sorrows" in the Prophecy of Berchán, was not successful.  " Unlike later writers, no near contemporary source remarks on Macbeth as a tyrant. The Duan Albanach, which survives in a form dating to the reign of Malcolm III, calls him "Mac Bethad the renowned". The Prophecy of Berchán, a verse history which purports to be a prophecy, describes him as "the generous king of Fortriu", and says: The red, tall, golden-haired one, he will be pleasant to me among them; Scotland will be brimful west and east during the reign of the furious red one." 

1040 Duncan I killed in battle, a year after disaster in Durham. "He led an army north into Moray, Macbeth's domain, apparently on a punitive expedition against Moray. There he was killed in action, at Bothnagowan, now Pitgaveny, near Elgin, by the men of Moray led by Macbeth, probably on 14 August 1040.

1040 Earliest date of the History of the Normans, by Dudo of Saint-Quentin.

1039 The Northumbrians attack Strathclyde on Scottish border. A retaliatory raid led by Duncan against Durham turned into a disaster. Duncan survived the defeat, but t

1034 Malcolm II dies, is succeeded by his grandson Duncan I.

1031 Cnut the Great comes to Scotland to accept the submission of Malcolm II.

The North Sea Empire of Cnut the Great, c. 1030 (source)

1013 Danish invasion of England. Cnut, son of King Sveyn of Denmark, takes part in his father's invasion of England. "It was the climax to a succession of Viking raids spread over a number of decades. With their landing in the Humber the kingdom fell to the Vikings quickly, and near the end of the year King Aethelred fled to Normandy, leaving Sweyn Forkbeard in possession of England. In the winter, Forkbeard was in the process of consolidating his kingship, with Cnut left in charge of the fleet and the base of the army at Gainsborough."

1005 Malcolm II, King of Scots (King of Alba). "The first reliable report of Malcolm II's reign is of an invasion of Bernicia in 1006, perhaps the customary crech ríg (literally royal prey, a raid by a new king made to demonstrate prowess in war), which involved a siege of Durham. This appears to have resulted in a heavy defeat by the Northumbrians, led by Uhtred of Bamburgh, later Earl of Bernicia, which is reported by the Annals of Ulster."

996 Richard, Count of Rouen, granted the title Duke of Normandy.

911 Rollo granted fiefdom at mouth of Seine, and title Count of Rouen by Charles the Simple, King of the Franks.

885-886 Viking siege of Paris.

845 Viking sack of Paris.

840 Death of Louis I the Pious, King of the Franks. Division of his Empire in 843 at the Treaty of Verdun.

796 Viking raid on Iona.
793 Viking raid on Lindesfarne.