Scottish national identity

[12] The Late Middle Ages has often been seen as the era in which Scottish national identity was initially forged, in opposition to English attempts to annexe the country, led by figures such as Robert the Bruce and William Wallace and as a result of social and cultural changes.

[16] Like most western European monarchies, the Scottish crown in the fifteenth century adopted the example of the Burgundian court, through formality and elegance putting itself at the centre of culture and political life, defined with display, ritual and pageantry, reflected in elaborate new palaces and patronage of the arts.

James V was the first Scottish monarch to wear the closed imperial crown, in place of the open circlet of medieval kings, suggesting a claim to absolute authority within the kingdom.

Jane Dawson suggests that the loss of national standing in the contest for dominance of Britain between England and France suffered by the Scots, may have led them to stress their religious achievements.

Many Scots saw their country as a new Israel and themselves as a holy people engaged in a struggle between the forces of Christ and Antichrist, the latter being identified with the resurgent papacy and the Roman Catholic Church.

[30] James used his Royal prerogative powers to take the style of "King of Great Britain"[31] and to give an explicitly British character to his court and person, and attempted to create a political union between England and Scotland.

The rising enjoyed initial success, with Highland armies defeating Hanoverian forces and occupying Edinburgh before an abortive march that reached Derby in England.

Allan Ramsay (1686–1758) laid the foundations of a reawakening of interest in older Scottish literature, as well as leading the trend for pastoral poetry, helping to develop the Habbie stanza as a poetic form.

His poem (and song) "Auld Lang Syne" is often sung at Hogmanay (the last day of the year), and "Scots Wha Hae" served for a long time as an unofficial national anthem of the country.

[75] The romanticisation of the Highlands and the adoption of Jacobitism into mainstream culture have been seen as defusing the potential threat to the Union with England, the House of Hanover and the dominant Whig government.

Tom Nairn argues that Romanticism in Scotland did not develop along the lines seen elsewhere in Europe, leaving a "rootless" intelligentsia, who moved to England or elsewhere and so did not supply a cultural nationalism that could be communicated to the emerging working classes.

[77] Graeme Moreton and Lindsay Paterson both argue that the lack of interference of the British state in civil society meant that the middle classes had no reason to object to the union.

[83] This resulted in rapid urbanisation in the industrial belt that ran across the country from southwest to northeast; by 1900 the four industrialised counties of Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire, Dunbartonshire, and Ayrshire contained 44 per cent of the population.

[84] These industrial developments, while they brought work and wealth, were so rapid that housing, town-planning, and provision for public health did not keep pace with them, and for a time living conditions in some of the towns and cities were notoriously bad, with overcrowding, high infant mortality, and growing rates of tuberculosis.

[85] The new companies attracted rural workers, as well as large numbers immigrants from Catholic Ireland, changing the religious balance and national character, particularly in the urban centres of the west.

[89] Lynch argues that there were concentric identities for Scots, where "a new Scottishness, a new Britishness and a revised sense of local pride – were held together by a phenomenon bigger than all of them – a Greater Britain whose stability rested on the Empire".

These fractures were prompted by issues of government and patronage, but reflected a wider division between the Evangelicals and the Moderate Party over fears of fanaticism by the former and the acceptance of Enlightenment ideas by the latter.

[95] The publication of George Lewis's Scotland: a Half Educated Nation in 1834 began a major debate on the suitability of the parish school system, particularly in rapidly expanding urban areas.

[97] The influx of large numbers of Irish immigrants in the nineteenth century led to the establishment of Catholic schools, particularly in the urban west of the country, beginning with Glasgow in 1817.

Particularly in the first third of the nineteenth century, there a number of reforms to the judicial system and legal procedure that brought it increasingly in to line with English practice, such as trial by jury in civil cases, which was introduced in 1814.

[102] Unlike many parts of continental Europe there was no major insurrection in Scotland in the 1840s and early moves toward nationalism tended to be aimed at improvement of the union, rather than its abolition.

[104] During World War II, Scotland, particularly the eastern coast, was considered a probable target for Nazi Germany bombing following the German occupation of Norway.

Initially enthusiastic about the war, with Scotland mobilising 22 out of the 157 battalions which made up the British Expeditionary Force, concern about the wartime threat to an exporting economy soon came to the forefront.

Fear that the war would lead to disastrous conditions for industrial areas, with increased unemployment, abated as the German offensive on the Western Front came to a halt.

The fishing industry was affected because the main importers of herring were Germany and Russia, and the war resulted in the enlistment of a large number of fishermen in the Royal Naval Reserve.

Neither of these bodies sought a cure for Scotland's ills by nationalist political solutions, and many of those who were actively involved in them joined in a comprehensive condemnation of any form of home rule.

[110] However, at the same time the secretary of the committee justified its existence by stating: "It is undoubtedly true that Scotland's national economy tends to pass unnoticed in the hands of the Ministry of Labour and the Board of Trade".

The move of the administration to St. Andrew's House was considered an important act, but while welcoming the move in 1937, Walter Elliot – the Secretary of State then – feared the changes: "[...] will not in themselves dispose of the problems whose solution a general improvement in Scottish social and economic conditions depends [...] it is the consciousness of their existence which is reflected in, not in the small and unimportant Nationalist Party, but in the dissatisfaction and uneasiness amongst moderate and reasonable people of every view or rank – a dissatisfaction expressed in every book published about Scotland now for several years".

As before 1914, the easy conditions of world trade after 1945 made Scottish industry prosper, and any need for drastic political interventions were postponed until the late 1950s, when the economic progress of Scotland started to deteriorate, and shipbuilding and engineering companies were forced to shut down.

Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland from 2014 to 2023, said in the immediate aftermath of the 2016 UK EU membership referendum that a second referendum on Scottish independence was "highly likely" after Scotland voted to remain within the EU on a margin of 62% remain to 38% leave, despite a UK-wide result of 52% leave;[123] however, she subsequently put the plans on hold after facing a setback at the 2017 general election where the SNP lost 21 out of its 56 seats from 2015 and saw its vote share fall from 50.0% to 36.9%.