Scottish influence in American Culture: Enlightened Education and Democracy

In the history of America’s birth, the names of James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, Honorable William Findley, along with other founding fathers, are shining stars. Nonetheless, few Americans today would recognize the extraordinary influence on those “fathers” by such men as Adam Smith, Thomas Reid (one of the founders of Common Sense Philosophy),Continue reading “Scottish influence in American Culture: Enlightened Education and Democracy”

THE PEOPLE WITH NO NAME: IRELAND’S ULSTER SCOTS, AMERICA’S SCOTS IRISH, AND THE CREATION OF A BRITISH ATLANTIC WORLD, 1689-1764

  More than 100,000 Ulster Presbyterians of Scottish origin migrated to the American colonies in the six decades prior to the American Revolution, the largest movement of any group from the British Isles to British North America in the eighteenth century. Drawing on a vast store of archival materials, The People with No Name isContinue reading “THE PEOPLE WITH NO NAME: IRELAND’S ULSTER SCOTS, AMERICA’S SCOTS IRISH, AND THE CREATION OF A BRITISH ATLANTIC WORLD, 1689-1764”

Border-Reivers-Their-Part-in-the-Northern-Rebellion-of-1569

In the autumn of 1569 Thomas Percy, 7th Earl of Northumberland and Charles Neville, 6th Earl of Westmorland, rose in rebellion against the English queen, Elizabeth 1 and her government. Ostensibly the rebellion, to which thousands of men from the north of England flocked in sympathy, was to smash the stranglehold that the Protestant religion,Continue reading “Border-Reivers-Their-Part-in-the-Northern-Rebellion-of-1569”

Border-Reivers-The-Clay-Biggin & Border-Reivers-Pele-Tower-as-a-Refuge

To the left is a little map of the Border Marches on each side of the English Scottish Border from the Solway Firth in the west to the North Sea in the east. This is the area that dominated the national history of England and Scotland from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries. These Marches were theContinue reading “Border-Reivers-The-Clay-Biggin & Border-Reivers-Pele-Tower-as-a-Refuge”

BORDER REIVERS-BUCCLEUCH’S RAID ON CARLISLE CASTLE

Walter Scott was born in 1565. His ancestral home was Branxholme in Teviotdale. Today one of the four original towers of Branxholme still stands, the Nesby tower, about five miles south of Hawick in the Scottish Border country.       The-Nesby-Tower-Branxholme-Scottish-Borders In 1590 he was knighted by James V1, king of Scotland, and appointedContinue reading “BORDER REIVERS-BUCCLEUCH’S RAID ON CARLISLE CASTLE”

Border-Reivers-Sir-Richard-Lowther

Richard Lowther was born about 1530. His date of birth is often given as 1529,1530 or 1532. He died in 1607 and is interred in the Lowther Church Mausoleum in what is now Lowther Park near Penrith, Cumbria, England.                               The-Tomb-of-Sir-Richard-LowtherContinue reading “Border-Reivers-Sir-Richard-Lowther”