Discovering one’s heritage in rugged, beautiful Scotland | Along The Way

In the criminal courts of Scotland, where Roman law often trumps common law, juries number 13 instead of 12, and three verdicts are possible: guilty, innocent or unproven.

“Unproven means, ‘We think you did it, but we cannot prove it’, ” our guide said as my wife Janet and I walked around Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland.  We were in a group of 19 American and Canadian survivors on a Rick Steves bus tour, 10 of our members having left the tour because of testing positive for COVID.

At least 25 percent of my heritage is Scottish, but I had never visited Scotland. Janet’s heritage is Irish and four years ago, we did a Rick Steves tour of that country finding the Irish incredibly friendly and fun. Janet and Debbie Morrison of Vancouver Island, bonded on that tour. Last year the Morrisons called and encouraged us to join them on a Rick Steves tour of Scotland. We felt flattered to be asked.  In my early 80s, I thought, “If not now, when?”

The Netflix “Outlander” series has stirred new interest in Scotland.  I had mistakenly thought it just like England, but Scotland is different. For hundreds of years, the Scottish successfully defied England’s efforts to include it as part of the United Kingdom. The heroic William Wallace portrayed by Mel Gibson in Braveheart, speaks to Scotland’s efforts to remain independent of the English in 1300.  Wallace was killed, but his successor, Robert the Bruce, succeeded in keeping Scotland free.

The Irish introduced Christianity to Scotland. The main propagator, the charismatic Saint Columba, arrived in 563 AD. Besides extensive missionary work, Columba established a monastery on the tiny island of Iona, where the Book of Kells was created. The book was eventually sent back to Ireland and can be viewed in Dublin’s Trinity College.  We took a ferry to see Columba’s monastic ruins on Iona and they inspire respect.

Like most countries, religion was vital to Scottish history and despite aspirations of Christian charity, a source of conflict. Especially during the Reformation era, Protestants and Catholics treated one another horribly.  The beheading of Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots, at the order of her Anglican cousin, Queen Elizabeth I, is one of many examples.

I gained an appreciation for the precariousness of the British Crown.  In 1745, a mere 31 years before America began its war of independence, the Stuarts, whom England had deposed in 1688, were marching south toward England to regain the crown with an army of more than 1,500 fierce Scottish clansman.  The English slaughtered the poorly led Scottish on the moors of Culloden.  We toured the battlefield during a downpour.

Scotland is two thirds the size of Ohio. In two weeks, one can see a lot of it.  We started in Glasgow, went on to the seaport Oban, continued through the gorgeous Highlands, some of them featured in the Harry Potter movies, and cruised on Loch Ness, without seeing the monster, to Inverness. On landed estates outside of Inverness, we encountered Hairy Coos, friendly unusual looking cows, watched a shepherd skillfully work his sheep with his border collies, and spotted hillsides of heather.

We headed south to Dunkeld and then on to Saint Andrews, the birthplace of golf, and lastly to Edinburgh, our final destination.  By the time we had reached Saint Andrews, Debbie Morrison’s husband, Jim, a retired marine biologist, whose career had been with the British Columbia government, had been sidelined by COVID and Debbie was soon to follow.

Jim, whom Janet dubbed our foursome’s border collie, had been our leader.  Janet and I kept going, walking through Scotland’s oldest university, founded in 1411, and stopping at its famous golf course. One of our group, Amy, a Wisconsin forensic pathologist, correctly observed there are so many “cool” distractions in beautiful, medieval Saint Andrews that studying there could be problematic.

So much of old Edinburgh is built out of Craigleith Sandstone that everything looks alike.  Janet and I got lost our first night there and it was raining. The so-called Royal Mile, the spine of Edinburgh, is bookended by an impressive, ancient castle fortress that sits atop of a dormant volcano at one end, and beautiful Holyroodhouse Palace on the other end. Holyroodhouse along with Balmoral Castle several miles north of Edinburgh, is where Windsor Royalty conducts business during the more than two months they annually reside in Scotland, keeping royalty popular there.  Scotland may threaten independence from England, but it loves and respects the British crown.

Scotland’s rugged mountains make it easy to see why clans flourished and a united government took so long to accomplish.  Picturesque castles, where lords and barons ruled and made war, have been turned into popular tourist destinations and we visited two of them.  Gaelic and minority languages of Scotland’s outer islands, some derived from ancient Norwegian Viking invasions, are spoken, but modernity is undermining their use.

Shakespeare’s great tragedies took place in Scotland.  We learned of the poet Robert Burns, whose Auld Lang Syne we sing on New Years Eve, of Sir Walter Scott, the author of Ivanhoe, of Robert Louis Stevenson, whose Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Treasure Island remain popular in America, of the philosopher, David Hume, and of Adam Smith, whose insights into the market forces of capitalism are still taught in college economics courses.

In the excellent museums of Glasgow, Scotland’s largest city, and Edinburgh, we were reminded of the contributions of James Watt whose steam engine improvements set off the world’s industrial revolution, of the science of Lord Kelvin in perfecting Fahrenheit and Celsius, of the antiseptics of Joseph Lister, and of the Japanese inspired architecture of Charles Rennie MacIntosh.  We learned to appreciate Scotch whisky of which there are more than 140 distilleries. Not sampling whisky in Scotland would be like traveling through Italy or France and not tasting their wines.

So many of us in the USA and Canada have family histories rooted in Europe and traveling there helps us understand who we are.  In two weeks, we barely scratched the surface of Scotland.  Nevertheless, we felt lucky to experience our “wee bit of it”.

David E. Dix is a retired Record-Courier publisher.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Discovering one’s heritage in rugged, beautiful Scotland