Flower of Scotland

A patriotic song written in the 1960s, when Scottish folk music was going through a revival of international significance. The lyrics refer to the Battle of Bannockburn (1314), where the army of King Edward II of England was defeated. It is now sung before international football and rugby matches.



O flower of Scotland
When will we see
Your like again
That fought and died for
Your wee bit hill and glen
And stood against him
Proud Edward's army
And sent him homeward
Tae think again

The hills are bare now
And autumn leaves lie thick and still
O'er land that is lost now
Which those so dearly held
And stood against him
Proud Edward's army
And sent him homeward
Tae think again

Those days are passed now
And in the past they must remain
But we can still rise now
And be the nation again
That stood against him
Proud Edward's army
And sent him homeward
Tae think again

Words and music: Roy Williamson. (c) The Corries (Music) Ltd.

National symbols

The United Kingdom has few shared symbols aside from the Union Jack and "God Save the Queen". Each of its constituent nations, however, has a rich collection of national myths and symbols, often apparent in banal, day-to-day contexts, but also celebrated on set-piece occasions.

The basic national symbols are:

• for Wales the red dragon, the leek, the daffodil, the harp
• for Scotland the red lion rampant, the thistle, the bagpipes
• for England the lion (passant in heraldry, but often couchant in popular imagery) and the rose

The flag of Wales shows the red dragon of Wales. The national day of Wales is St David Day's, 1 March. It is not a public holiday. On this day people might wear a leek or a daffodil.

The flag of Scotland shows the saltire, or Cross of St Andrew, in white on a blue background. Scotland's national day is 30 November, the Feast of St Andrew. It became a public holiday in Scotland in 2007. Some people might wear a thistle on this day.

The flag of England shows the red Cross of St George, on a white background. England's national day is St George's Day on 23 April. It is not a public holiday. On this day people might wear a red rose.

In both England and Scotland the formal national anthem is "God Save the Queen", but on occasions where it is desirable to distinguish between the English and the Scots (such as international sporting fixtures) it would be inappropriate for both to be singing the same anthem. At football matches the Scots used to sing "Scotland the Brave" (still the anthem of the Scots team in the Commonwealth Games), but that is now surpassed in popularity by "Flower of Scotland" (sung before Scotland's international rugby and soccer matches). On such occasions, the English sing "Jerusalem"

The Welsh have an official national anthem, Land of Our Fathers. There is also an "unofficial" anthem, Men of Harlech (sung here with harp, daffodil, and male voice choir, at the Prince of Wales's 50th birthday celebrations). Both make reference to fighting "foemen" (meaning the English).

Scotland

At its union with England, Scotland retained

• its own legal system (based on principles of civil law rather than common law),
• its own educational system (with far higher literacy rates than elsewhere in Britain, and a proud claim to be "the first country in the world with universal education"),
• a separate established church (the Church of Scotland),
• and its own aristocracy and gentry.

All this was accompanied by all the heraldry and symbolism of legal, academic, ecclesiastical and noble life.

Scotland is more sparsely inhabited than England, but contains a number of impressive cities. The largest is Glasgow, a major centre of industry and ship-building in the 19th century, "the second city of the Empire", with all the social problems attendant on industrialization and postwar industrial decline.

Edinburgh, Scotland's capital, is a centre of administration, law, banking, learning and culture.

Aberdeen, anciently important in North Sea shipping and fisheries, and a minor centre of 19th-century industry, became the energy capital of the U.K., and to some extent of Europe, after the discovery of North Sea oil.

Geographically and culturally, the Highlands of Scotland are set apart from the Lowlands. Much of the romantic imagery of glens, lochs, castles, crofts, kilts, bagpipes, etc. derives from the Scottish Highlands.

Four nations in one state

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is, as its name implies, a union of several components: the kingdom of England, the kingdom of Scotland, the principality of Wales, and the province of Northern Ireland. There are different patterns of culture, identity and political allegiance within and between each of these components.

England is the largest, richest and most powerful of the four components, and the institutional core of the United Kingdom (London being the capital of the U.K., as well as by far its largest city).

A united Kingdom of England was created in the tenth century, with Edgar I (959-975) crowned king of all England in 973. It was subsumed into the United Kingdom of Great Britain by the Act of Union with Scotland in 1707.

Wales was united to England by a long process of conquest and partial colonization, culminating in the 1536 "Acte for Lawes & Justice to be ministred in Wales in like fourme as it is in this Realme", which formally incorporated Wales into the same structures of law and government as England.

Scotland was an entirely separate kingdom, which successfully withstood English attempts at conquest in the 14th century. England and Scotland shared a monarch from 1603 onwards, when James VI of Scotland became James I of England, and assumed the courtesy title "King of Britain". Formal unification of England and Scotland under a single crown and parliament, with a curency and customs union and freedom of movement between the two kingdoms, was agreed by the parliaments of Scotland and England, and legislated in the Act of Union with Scotland 1707.

Kings of England claimed lordship over Ireland from 1171 onwards, but English rule in Ireland was seldom effective or widely heeded before Henry VIII declared himself King of Ireland in 1535, initiating more intensive efforts to enforce the royal will there. Ireland was fully incorporated into the United Kingdom by the Act of Union with Ireland 1801, but 26 of the 32 counties left the Union in 1921 to form the Irish Free State (which became the Republic of Ireland in 1949). The 6 counties where the majority of the population wished to remain part of the United Kingdom became Northern Ireland.